NiMh battery problems!

[Nemrod]

Thanks for all the tips! I manage to get at full refund for the batteries and charger so now I have ordered a set of eneloop. I couldn't find them in any of the stores here so I ordered from ebay. So I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can try them out!

Like I said, the Duracell "Precharged" brand is essentially the same as the Eneloop and works perfect in my Canon 570 cameras and is cheaper and readily available at places like Wally World but in any case, good luck, hope you get it to do what you want.

N

 

[Hatul]

Hi,
I am using a PowerShot A570IS and decided to buy a set or rechargeable batteries for it. The user manual say use canons NiMH but it shouldn't matter if you buy another brand right? They all have 1.2V and its only the capacity that differs. I went to the supermarket and bought a energizer charger with 4 energizer rechargables (2450mAh). I charged them with the charger overnight and on the morning it had turned off as it should. I put the batteries in the camera and about 5 min later the low battery came on and 5 min later it turned of and told me I should change batteries! So what happened? I turned on CHDK and checked the voltage and it was between 2.4 and 2.5 as it should with NiMH, so is the camera not designed for 1.2V batteries or why does it turn off. I cleaned the battery connectors on the camera but no difference. Anyway I will try to return the charger today and get my money back and if you guys say it should work with NiMH I will go for Sanyo Eneloop because of the low discharge rate. Anyone tried these?

Thanks for any help!
Niclas

One possibility, though it does not quite fit it with you say, is that one of the cells did not charge properly. Sometimes the charger shuts off prematurely. Have you tried charging the batteries again?

Adam

 

[gert7to3]

Have you checked with Canon to see if there is a firmware update for your camera? My Olympus SP-350 required such an update in order use NiMh AA batteries.

 

[RoyN]

I used to have those batteries when I was still using the A570is. It worked good for a few months and then it gives me the battery is low red light. After that, I changed to Duracell that has the green color label and never had a problem with it.

 

[dgn]

Hi!

Just wanted to say that I have now got my Eneloops and they work great! So I hope no one else makes the same mistake and buys the standard NiMh batteries, go for the Eneloop or Duracell precharged that other people recommended! The slow discharge rate is a BIG plus!

Thanks for the help!

 

[bvanant]

No, no, they do NOT work for me, the batteries you have will NOT work for me. The standard NiMh batteries do NOT work for me. The Duracell "Precharged" type and the Sanyo Eneloop types WILL work for me and work much better than any other type. If you are not using the Duracell "Precharged" or the Sanyo Eneloop then it is quite possible your camera will show a low voltage.

The Eneloop and Precharged hold a higher voltage and have a flatter discharge longer through the discharge cycle than standard NiMh batteries such as you purchased.

N

Are you sure about the "higher" voltage thing? We have made qutie a few very careful measurements of the discharge voltage and times and the curves are indeed flatter but not higher at least in our tests. As for the camera, it is specced to work with NiMH batteries and should work with any nimh batteries

 

[Nemrod]

Are you sure about the "higher" voltage thing? We have made qutie a few very careful measurements of the discharge voltage and times and the curves are indeed flatter but not higher at least in our tests. As for the camera, it is specced to work with NiMH batteries and should work with any nimh batteries

If they (Precharged and Eneloop) are are "flatter" then they are indeed higher (than standard) at some point so I will stay with what I said as being basically true.

I have lost the link but if you go to the Eneloop site there are or were some charts. The voltage starts out the nearly the same but remains at a higher level for longer (which is what I said) and thus as you said, "flatter." The standard NiMh batteries do provide more total amperage over a longer time but unfortunately much of that time it is below the "trigger" point voltage for many Canon camera's low voltage threshold. The "higher" voltage I mentioned earlier I should have qualified as when under load and well into the discharge curve. From the get go, they seem to provide a more consistent voltage closer to their maximum rating than the standard batteries and nominal voltage over their discharge cycle is higher. This is easily observed by me with a meter and as well with the Canon A570IS. This camera seems particularly prone to low voltage warnings. With a alkaline cell it gives the low voltage nuisance warning for all three of my cameras after only a few dozen shots. The standard 2.3(?) ah standard NiMh batteries do better than alkalines but if I shoot a few test shots, put the camera in the housing the night before, halfway through the first dive the low voltage warning is triggered. Turn it off, give it a rest, turn it back on, shoot some more and then if does it again, very aggravating. Not so with the Eneloop or Duracell Pre-charged, they just keep going and going for three full dives and some surface shooting.

So, therefore, whatever I said and however I said it, those are the real life facts with all three of my Canon 570IS cameras.

http://www.eneloop.info/home/performance-details/capacity.html

N

 

[bvanant]

If you look at the relative discharge curves for the eneloop and the 2700 mAh version from Maha (for example) what you see is that the eneloop curve crosses the Maha curve before either battery gets to 1.2 V. The eneloop goes to 1.2 volts before the high capacity NiMH. Of course these are controlled and constant discharge curves but for this type of usage, unless the camera turns off at 1.26 V or so the high capacity NiMH should be at least as good or even better. So a lot depends on how the camera uses the battery and for what purpose particularly for charging the flash.

The original point though is getting lost, the 570 says in its specs that it should be able to use NiMH batteries and the original poster tried and they didn't work. Either his camera is funky or the batteries he bought were funky.

I like and use Eneloops in my Inon strobes where they do indeed last longer than higher rated NiMH with higher internal discharge rates. In my Fisheye LED lamp though, they are considerably worse than the 2700 mAh NiMH batteries by about 20%.



SANYO eneloop | Ready to use Rechargeable Battery - The only battery you will ever need, look at the second curve from the bottom on the right side

 

[Nemrod]

The original point though is getting lost, the 570 says in its specs that it should be able to use NiMH batteries and the original poster tried and they didn't work. Either his camera is funky or the batteries he bought were funky.

I like and use Eneloops in my Inon strobes where they do indeed last longer than higher rated NiMH with higher internal discharge rates. In my Fisheye LED lamp though, they are considerably worse than the 2700 mAh NiMH batteries by about 20%.

Yes, the point is being lost but like his one 570, the point is I have three that do the same thing and all four of them cannot be "funky" and despite the use of several different high cap batteries the only ones that work well are the Eneloops and the Duracell PreCharged, but, your results may vary, mine did not over three cameras.

We must not be looking at the same page or seeing the same thing, perhaps my glasses are defective because the Eneloop is showing a higher voltage through the "meat" of the curve so I am not following your point. OK, you have me convinced that I am right, lol, just kidding you, thanks for your analysis, very good.

N

 

[bvanant]

Yes, the point is being lost but like his one 570, the point is I have three that do the same thing and all four of them cannot be "funky" and despite the use of several different high cap batteries the only ones that work well are the Eneloops and the Duracell PreCharged, but, your results may vary, mine did not over three cameras.

We must not be looking at the same page or seeing the same thing, perhaps my glasses are defective because the Eneloop is showing a higher voltage through the "meat" of the curve so I am not following your point. OK, you have me convinced that I am right, lol, just kidding you, thanks for your analysis, very good.

N

For the first half of the discharge curve you are indeed right (if 20 mv or so is right) but my take is that the higher rated batteries go to say 1.1 V considerably later than the Eneloops (like 500 mAh later).

Bottom line as it appears to me is that the 570 camera is problematic and doesn't work as it is advertised to work (with NiMH batteries). In any case, this discussion is probably just wasting everyone else's time so I will capitulate, for the first 250 mAh the eneloops and standard batteries appear indistinguishable (more or less), for the next 1200 or so the eneloops have about 50 mV higher voltage and after that they decay quite a bit more quickly than the standard higher capacity standard batteries. Of course none of this is applicable in the real world of UW cameras and strobes since in no case are these devices simply constant discharge rates.

Bill