Guest guy_mancuso Posted January 24, 2007 Share #1 Posted January 24, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I sent a e-mail today to leica about some of the battery issues that folks are having in regards to charging and getting a full battery charge, which i believe is some of the issues we are seing in this shut down mode after using a battery for a short time and the camera dies. This is the advice from germany on how to handle this; Hi Guy, Here is some info I received about the M8 batteries not getting a full charge... Customer Service in Germany advises the following: The customer should access the menu, scroll down to “Auto Power Off”... Select “Disable”... This will keep the camera from going into the standby mode... Leave the camera switched on over night so that all power is drained out of the battery... This basically forces the camera into a reset which will eliminate the problem... It will reset the battery charge bars on the camera display... Once completely empty the battery can be recharged and the problem should be solved... I have been told that it is not a defect of the camera or of the battery... The bug will also be fixed with the new firmware (February release) Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 24, 2007 Posted January 24, 2007 Hi Guest guy_mancuso, Take a look here M8 battery not getting a full charge / Word from Solms. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Guest guy_mancuso Posted January 24, 2007 Share #2 Posted January 24, 2007 Sounds like if you are showing 4 bars that you may really be running on 2 or less because the amount of charge showing is inaccurate and this would certainly be cause for the camera dying. This may not count for some of the issues reported but certainly can count for some of mine when it dies i replace the battery and it boots back up. The DMR does sort of the same thing when it hits a quarter power showing it is basically dead. So the indications maybe off . Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrycioni Posted January 24, 2007 Share #3 Posted January 24, 2007 Thanks Guy....great work. Terry. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted January 24, 2007 Share #4 Posted January 24, 2007 Looks to me firmware 1.10 has a lot of fixes coming. Looking forward to it Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barjohn Posted January 24, 2007 Share #5 Posted January 24, 2007 Since I work in calibration I think it is safe to say that it is a calibration issue. The full charge calibration is off and needs calibration. The reference point is fully discharged so allowint the camera to fully discharge the battery set the reference point from which to determine a full charge. Chargers being both smart and dumb these days can think a battery is fully charged when it is not because its set reference point was mistakenly set at the wrong level. John P.S. now you know why calibration is important! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. borger Posted January 24, 2007 Share #6 Posted January 24, 2007 THis is good news .... thanks Guy! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted January 24, 2007 Share #7 Posted January 24, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Since I work in calibration I think it is safe to say that it is a calibration issue. The full charge calibration is off and needs calibration. The reference point is fully discharged so allowint the camera to fully discharge the battery set the reference point from which to determine a full charge. Chargers being both smart and dumb these days can think a battery is fully charged when it is not because its set reference point was mistakenly set at the wrong level. Makes me wonder how accurate the meter will be when there's a mix of old and new batteries, partially charged, fully charged, recharged from empty, recharged from part charged. The charger for the Nikon D2x has a discharge function which teaches the battery its own discharge characteristic and writes it to a flash memory chip in the battery. The camera can then find out how the battery should perform and predict its capacity much more accurately. Sadly, I don't think the Leica will be doing anything so sophisticated so you're always going to need one or more spares to be safe. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ioriw Posted January 24, 2007 Share #8 Posted January 24, 2007 Ahh wonderful to hear this is being worked on. I have yet to get my battery meter to show that satisfying 'full charge' indication no matter how much I try to run down the battery or how long I leave it to charge. iori Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted January 24, 2007 Share #9 Posted January 24, 2007 This really needs to be a sticky for a short time as this is info that needs to get out from Germany. I'm doing it right now and draining both bodies Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riley Posted January 24, 2007 Share #10 Posted January 24, 2007 well I never saw that coming strange sometimes how stuff works out I bet you guys are glad they are as responsive as they are Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted January 24, 2007 Share #11 Posted January 24, 2007 Rob so far they have been very responsive to the questions asked and very helpful. I'm sure they want to get to a normal state and sounds like there working hard trying to get there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJL Posted January 24, 2007 Share #12 Posted January 24, 2007 Just a thought....since the battery charger is already so large, I am surprised they did not put in a "reconditioner" button, like the Canon 1-series batter chargers, and others I am sure, have. I routinely recondition those batteries every month after many charges and partial charges for normal shooting, and that really keeps things in great working order. I realize that lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries are different from NiMH batteries, but it is sounding like Leica is asking us to sort of treat them the same way with occasional total discharge before recharging. Hmmmm.... LJ Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
carstenw Posted January 24, 2007 Share #13 Posted January 24, 2007 Jaap just got his camera back, and there is apparently a new charger as well. I wonder what it looks like? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbegibson Posted January 24, 2007 Share #14 Posted January 24, 2007 ........ but it is sounding like Leica is asking us to sort of treat them the same way with occasional total discharge before recharging. Hmmmm.... LJ Hasselblad uses LiIon batteries in the H2 cameras. It's taken them the better part of a year to get battery charge indicator problems sorted out. In the H2 battery (and it sounds now like it's a similar problem with the M8 battery) there is a circuit that reports the charge of the battery to the camera. It's not a direct voltage readout. The problem was with the calibration of this circuit, not the actual battery charge. The fix before the latest firmware release was to charge the battery overnight and then install it on the camera while pressing three buttons simultaneously. Then the camera would beep rapidly indicating the circuit was recalibrated. The problem the user saw was that a freshly charged battery showed little or no charge. That camera can do some evil things when the battery indicator says it's low, especially when the digital back is installed. Could be something very similar. Robbe Gibson Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike prevette Posted January 24, 2007 Share #15 Posted January 24, 2007 Lj, It does work differently. With Nimh batts you are actually resettign the cells by doing the discharge. With lithium ion or polymer batts you are actually reseting a number saved in a small chip in each battery that tells the charger and camera the "low" and "high" voltage of that particular cell. If that number gets screwed up the camera and charger don't know when to properly stop using a batt. -mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJL Posted January 24, 2007 Share #16 Posted January 24, 2007 Robbie, That actually makes some sense....battery sending a signal to the camera other than voltage to determine the level of juice, especially with LiIon batteries. Your thoughts that this then firmare related in the camera and how it is reading things for its own display would then create some of these odd behaviors with mismatched power assessment. Let's hope they can get it sorted. Doing a forced discharge nightly, or a "three-fingered slaute" (sounds like a Microsoft Windows thing...) is surely not a professional solution. LJ Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJL Posted January 24, 2007 Share #17 Posted January 24, 2007 Thanks, Mike. We must have been posting at the same time. LJ Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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