M Monochrom "low battery" warning

[peterjcb]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi all, 

The battery in my MM1 does not seem to hold a charge.

I have my original wall charger which I used to charge all my batteries.

I have the original battery as well as 4-5 aftermarket batteries.

 

When I go out for a shoot I always check to see what the charge is and usually it will be slightly less than full.

After taking a only few shots many times I get a low battery warning and have to replace the battery with one of my spares.

Many times after even fully charging the spares, after I replace them in the camera, they too will give me a low battery warning.

This happens with both the original and aftermarket batteries.

 

 

 

[Jager]

Lithium batteries begin to deteriorate almost from the point of manufacture.  Initially that decline - the ability to absorb, retain, and offer a charge - is very slow.  But eventually they get to the point where they exhibit behavior such as you are experiencing... apparent "full" charges that dissipate very quickly.

 

Batteries also end up being inadvertently abused by their owners, which exacerbates and accelerates their decline.  Lithium batteries, for instance, should never be deep discharged.  And yet who among us hasn't done that?  They also shouldn't be kept at full or near-full charge (optimally, they should be stored at 50-55% of charge).  And yet who amongst us does that?!

 

Batteries are disposable, like the the tires on your car.  You need new ones.

[250swb]

..... as well as 4-5 aftermarket batteries.

 

 

 

Is it your original battery that does this, or is it the aftermarket batteries?

 

There hasn't been an aftermarket battery made that works properly with the M9/MM1. There simply isn't the circuitry inside the battery to tell the camera the true level of charge when you switch it on, and the battery warning you get is typical. So 9 times out of 10 a freshly charged battery isn't low charge, its just that the camera doesn't know.

 

I tried aftermarket batteries and I seem to remember if you pressed 'Set' when you get the warning or when the camera tells you to switch off it resets some default or other and basically causes it to ignore what it thinks it knew. So you can carry on using it without swapping batteries and the camera actually started reading the true charge left.

[EoinC]

Is it your original battery that does this, or is it the aftermarket batteries?

 

There hasn't been an aftermarket battery made that works properly with the M9/MM1. There simply isn't the circuitry inside the battery to tell the camera the true level of charge when you switch it on, and the battery warning you get is typical. So 9 times out of 10 a freshly charged battery isn't low charge, its just that the camera doesn't know.

 

I tried aftermarket batteries and I seem to remember if you pressed 'Set' when you get the warning or when the camera tells you to switch off it resets some default or other and basically causes it to ignore what it thinks it knew. So you can carry on using it without swapping batteries and the camera actually started reading the true charge left.

He says that it happens with both the original and aftermarket batteries.

[pico]

[...] Batteries are disposable, like the the tires on your car.  You need new ones.

 

Poor analogy. Car makers do not dictate exactly which tires are suitable and the rest flatten at 100 miles.

 

Leica's prices for the batteries are entirely unsupportable, stupid, insulting. They should put batteries into their expendable ledger and quit the idiotic Russian -> China source.

.

Edited April 6, 2017 by pico

[250swb]

He says that it happens with both the original and aftermarket batteries.

 

I'm assuming that because he will never ever have gotten the aftermarket batteries to work properly they are perhaps recent purchases, in which case I'm sceptical that any proper testing has taken place. It's an entirely plausible scenario that the original battery is genuinely on it's last legs because of age and with the aftermarket batteries on the surface exhibiting similar symptoms the OP has been hit with a double whammy. There could very well be two overlapping battery problems, the test is to try another genuine Leica battery.

Edited April 7, 2017 by 250swb

[Jager]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Poor analogy. Car makers do not dictate exactly which tires are suitable and the rest flatten at 100 miles.

 

Leica's prices for the batteries are entirely unsupportable, stupid, insulting. They should put batteries into their expendable ledger and quit the idiotic Russian -> China source.

.

The OP's question wasn't about the price of batteries.  I don't disagree with you that it's unfortunate Leica charges what it does for them.

 

I was simply pointing out why he's seeing the behavior he is.  And, yes, he needs new ones.

[250swb]

 

I was simply pointing out why he's seeing the behavior he is.  And, yes, he needs new ones.

 

The behaviour the OP is seeing is nothing to do with the aftermarket batteries being degraded so he doesn't necessarily need new ones but instead needs to know the shortcut to making them work (press 'Set' when the low battery warning appears to clear the warning and reset the battery indicator). Yes it is a faff and annoying, and a Leica battery would be ideal.

 

It is also annoying the OP hasn't bothered to come back to the forum after asking the question.

[EoinC]

...It is also annoying the OP hasn't bothered to come back to the forum after asking the question.

Perhaps the battery on his laptop died?

[harleybob]

Is there an aftermarket battery for the 240-246 types? No one actually mentions a name or source.