Best practices for M8 batteries?

[cottonc]

Any sound advice to have them last long?

Cotton

[gerasdoc]

I let my batteries drain down completely before recharging. I learned this from using lithium ion batteries for laptop computers. This is known as "conditioning" tn he battery.

[willemvelthoven]

I've never done anything special to condition my 2 batteries. they easily allow me to fill a 4Gb card with raw images. when i change the card, i change the battery.

[robertwright]

my understanding of Li-ion batteries is that they degrade at a constant level regardless of use, mainly time is the issue. this in terms of laptop batteries, I once bought two apple laptop batteries with the idea that I would use one and conserve the other, but after 18 months both batteries exhibited the same charge-drain characteristics, they were about half as effective.

also my understanding is that they do not exhibit the memory effect of ni-cads that do need charge-discharge cycles.

so far I have done nothing special, run the batteries until no bars are showing, even ran one down until the camera shut off (incidently, no sign on the lcd like "battery low" that I saw) and all has been well on this camera.

[scott kirkpatrick]

All batteries have their lives shortened by deep discharge cycles, but we have gotten used to this because it is needed in the Ni-Cd and Ni-Metal systems. It is not necessary for Li-Ion batteries to be deep-cycled more than a few times at first and maybe once every half year after that (to ensure that the voltages of the battery when fully charged and when discharged match the camera's prejudices). So charge them whenever you aren't using them.

There is some reason to believe that the infrequent sudden death syndrome (SDS) occurs when batteries discharge too rapidly near the end of their cycle, so it you want to be extra safe, change or charge your battery when it reaches zero bars.

scott

[mboerma]

Hi,

Maybe these tips from Apple will also help:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

Maarten

[neelin]

Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

more than you wanted to know.
exec. summary, store at 0 degrees C at 1/2 charge or thereabouts.

[robertwright]

Originally Posted by scott kirkpatrick

All batteries have their lives shortened by deep discharge cycles, but we have gotten used to this because it is needed in the Ni-Cd and Ni-Metal systems. It is not necessary for Li-Ion batteries to be deep-cycled more than a few times at first and maybe once every half year after that (to ensure that the voltages of the battery when fully charged and when discharged match the camera's prejudices). So charge them whenever you aren't using them.

There is some reason to believe that the infrequent sudden death syndrome (SDS) occurs when batteries discharge too rapidly near the end of their cycle, so it you want to be extra safe, change or charge your battery when it reaches zero bars.

scott

i think it might have had to do with my first M8 sds, in my excitement I took the camera with me for the day after only a partial charge cycle from new, and I believe it suddenly lost power at the end of the day, and after that it was never recoverable, even after charging the battery.
that being said, my current M8, yesterday the camera which had had the battery in for a few days and was running down, was on zero bars for a little while, I was hoping to see the flashing bars indicating 5%, but I did not, it just shut down completely. I put a fresh battery in and it worked normally-no sds. so these are two examples of running out of power unexpectedly, but I believe someting is different with the replacement camera, so it was not a problem this time.

[arthury]

Originally Posted by willemvelthoven

I've never done anything special to condition my 2 batteries. they easily allow me to fill a 4Gb card with raw images. when i change the card, i change the battery.

This may be true for a reasonably comfortable temperature but the life-time of a single charge will drop significantly if the surrounding atmospheric temperature which the camera is in is really low. I experienced the same thing as you in warm weather but when I was at Alaska in early spring when the outdoor temperature was hovering in single digits (deg F), the Leica battery only lasted for 2-3 hours with a single charge.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by robertwright

...

that being said, my current M8, yesterday the camera which had had the battery in for a few days and was running down, was on zero bars for a little while, I was hoping to see the flashing bars indicating 5%, but I did not, it just shut down completely. I put a fresh battery in and it worked normally-no sds. so these are two examples of running out of power unexpectedly, but I believe someting is different with the replacement camera, so it was not a problem this time.

Things stop working pretty quickly. I've monitored the discharge of the M8 battery every 5-10 minutes close to shutdown http://www.leica-camera-user.com/dig...tml#post223054
and still never saw the indicator go into the flashing mode, so I think zero bars is a more reliable indicator to look for as the signal to stop using that battery.

scott

[doubice]

Originally Posted by neelin

Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

more than you wanted to know.
exec. summary, store at 0 degrees C at 1/2 charge or thereabouts.

This is the best information on Li-Ion batteries I have read - ever! Thanks for the link!

Jan

[robertwright]

Originally Posted by scott kirkpatrick

Things stop working pretty quickly. I've monitored the discharge of the M8 battery every 5-10 minutes close to shutdown http://www.leica-camera-user.com/dig...tml#post223054
and still never saw the indicator go into the flashing mode, so I think zero bars is a more reliable indicator to look for as the signal to stop using that battery.

scott

I hope they are working on this for a new firmware revision, it does not inspire confidence to have the camera shut off without warning. I mean, they went to the trouble to put it in the manual...

[Skippy Sanchez]

Originally Posted by gerasdoc

I let my batteries drain down completely before recharging. I learned this from using lithium ion batteries for laptop computers. This is known as "conditioning" tn he battery.

Not good. See http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/battery-life.htm

".....Modern Li-ion batteries love to be charged often. They don't like being fully discharged. This is completely opposite from older style batteries."

[mboerma]

Discharging Li-Ions completely is not recommended. It also takes considerably longer to recharge and it does not do any good to the battery.

Maarten