Third party batteries?

[Tulpenwahn]

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I've read a little bit in this forum and found that aftermarket batteries for the M9 are not recommended at all.

 

Unfortunately I need at least one more battery for a longer trip to India. Original Leica batteries are sold out in Berlin/Germany.

 

Anyone with good experiences with third party batteries? Amazon offers two different models between 22 and 25 € (sold via Elektronik-Haus and AccuPower) right now.

[250swb]

I used one during my five month wait for a spare Leica OEM battery, and it was OK. It kept the charge, it didn't blow the camera up, it didn't cost a fortune. Of course the other thing it didn't do was reset the battery meter to 'full' each time it was re-charged.

 

The strategies are to discharge the battery fully before re-charging and it 'should' reset the battery meter to 'full'. But so long as you know its full you can carry on using even if the camera says its not full. So if the camera says 'battery low' just press 'Set' and carry on shooting, at some point the camera recognises that its imposible for a a supposedly empty battery to still work and resets the meter to indicate a true charge. Of course after a while you won't necessarily know if the meter is telling the truth or not, but if its a backup battery at least you know its better than nothing.

 

I got mine from an ebay supplier in Germany, and because it works I still use it with the other batteries.

 

Steve

[Doc_P]

I had the big fortune to buy a second battery from Leica, when i bought my M9.

 

Just to be on the safe side (i always leave the house with three batteries, a hard learned lesson from my Nikon D70 days!), three weeks later i bought a third one (no name) from amazon for ca 25,- €.

 

This one works acceptably, no probs so far: better a cheap one then running dry... The risk seems limited ...

 

Best regards

Axel

[Stealth3kpl]

I got 2 off ebay for £10 each. They seem to work as well as my Leica battery at the moment though it's early days. No battery meter problems.

Pete

[leicanut2]

B & H has leica batteries in stock right now.

 

Jan

[thrice]

My ebay batteries just need to be charged twice, I have 3 legit Leica batteries, and 2 ebay batteries.

 

Once the ebay battery says it's full, I take it out, wait for the charger to reset and put it back in. That gets me a full charge and comparable capacity to the Leica battery.

[Shade]

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Well, regarding third party batteries, I wouldn't personally recommend it.

 

First of all, it'll void your warranty if anything bad happens.

 

Secondly, it's highly unreliable from what I've heard. They don't give as much power, they have misleading battery remaining reading, and they just run out of juice out of a sudden.

 

Last but not least, I know it's hard looking for an original Leica battery, but try a little harder, I'm sure there are people selling a used original one or brand new on ebays or stores outside your country and you can ask them to ship it overnight.

 

Just my two cents though, I'm sure there are others who uses third party batteries and are happy/content with it.

[gwelland]

If you can't get Leica batteries in time then I'd certainly buy a 3rd party one instead just to cover myself in case I needed to use it. Personally, I prefer to invest in the real thing for all the reasons mentioned here but if you're stuck then you've just got to do what you can.