Shootist Posted July 22, 2007 Share #1 Posted July 22, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Has anyone used the Impact brand of M8 batteries? I bought one about a month ago and it worked fine for the first few charges but now after a full recharge it only shows 1 bar on the M8 battery meter, that is right out of the charger. Has anyone else had this problem with this brand battery? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 22, 2007 Posted July 22, 2007 Hi Shootist, Take a look here Impact batteries from B&H. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Guest tummydoc Posted July 22, 2007 Share #2 Posted July 22, 2007 I wonder if that is the same battery sold for $15 on e-Bay with the uproariously humourous wording in butchered English. It would be quite a markup if so Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfarkas Posted July 23, 2007 Share #3 Posted July 23, 2007 As others here have pointed out before, just stick to the Leica batteries for the M8. Saving $40 on a battery for a $5,000 camera just isn't worth it. David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted July 23, 2007 Author Share #4 Posted July 23, 2007 As others here have pointed out before, just stick to the Leica batteries for the M8. Saving $40 on a battery for a $5,000 camera just isn't worth it. David Thanks for the replies. But both you and tummy are missing the point. I already have one of these batteries and it has seemed to fail in a relatively short period of time. My post was to find out if anyone else had experienced the same thing with this brand of battery in a M8. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timswan Posted July 23, 2007 Share #5 Posted July 23, 2007 Yes, my Impact battery was working fine until a couple of weeks ago but then showed this problem. I believe that this is a calibration problem, where the camera isn't properly reporting the charge in the battery. At one point I turned the camera off and then back on and the battery went from showing 1 bar to a full charge. Odd. My experience on the whole has been very positive with the Impact batteries, and not at all what the brand-specific folks would have you believe. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timswan Posted July 23, 2007 Share #6 Posted July 23, 2007 I wonder if that is the same battery sold for $15 on e-Bay with the uproariously humourous wording in butchered English. It would be quite a markup if so I'm pretty sure that the Leica battery has the highest markup of any battery ever sold. They all cost pretty much exactly the same to manufacture, give or take a few pennies. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted July 23, 2007 Author Share #7 Posted July 23, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Yes, my Impact battery was working fine until a couple of weeks ago but then showed this problem. I believe that this is a calibration problem, where the camera isn't properly reporting the charge in the battery. At one point I turned the camera off and then back on and the battery went from showing 1 bar to a full charge. Odd. My experience on the whole has been very positive with the Impact batteries, and not at all what the brand-specific folks would have you believe. Thanks for the reply. About 1 or 2 weeks ago it showed 2 bars with a full charge. So I did the calibration thing, IE letting it run down in a M8 until the camera shut off then recharged it. It then showed all the bars but quickly went from full to 2 bars in a matter of minutes, maybe 1/2 hour or so with minimal shots taken (maybe 10-15). I think I'm going to contact B&H and see if I can get a replacement. For the record I bought this battery because I dropped one of my Leica batteries and the case split slightly making it hard to insert in the camera. After getting the off brand battery I did a indepth look at the split case Leica battery and simply pressing it back together fixed the problem. That Leica battery is working fine in both my bodies. I'd just like the off brand one to work. For those that like to post, "Is it worth it to use off brand batteries". Well that has to be determined by each individual user. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tummydoc Posted July 23, 2007 Share #8 Posted July 23, 2007 I have no objections to 3rd-party batteries. I've used them before, never had a camera damaged from them, but in every case battery life (meaning from purchase until the battery would no longer take more than 25-33% charge) was significantly shorter than the manufacturer's battery, which in most cases negated most or all of the initial savings. I won't argue against that the Leica batteries in this case may be made in the same factory, but I also suspect that the batteries sold for $40 less than Leica's may pass a less rigourous quality test. I also can't help but suspect that the ones sold for $15 on eBay may be ones that didn't pass at all Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
henryp Posted July 23, 2007 Share #9 Posted July 23, 2007 Has anyone used the Impact brand of M8 batteries?I bought one about a month ago and it worked fine for the first few charges but now after a full recharge it only shows 1 bar on the M8 battery meter, that is right out of the charger. Has anyone else had this problem with this brand battery? I am sorry for this difficulty. Look for my email resolving this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timswan Posted July 23, 2007 Share #10 Posted July 23, 2007 I am sorry for this difficulty. Look for my email resolving this. Does that mean there's a fix for anyone having this problem (I bought my battery from B & H, too)? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted July 23, 2007 Author Share #11 Posted July 23, 2007 I am sorry for this difficulty. Look for my email resolving this. Henry, Thank you very much. Now that is what I call service. I have always been pleased with the service from B&H but this TOPS all others. Please advise as to whether or not I need to send the old battery back and or to just dispose of it properly. Again that you B&H. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted July 23, 2007 Share #12 Posted July 23, 2007 A short word on battery technology and behaviour to help understand what we're seeing. Any battery capacity meter will be inherently inaccurate and potentially misleading. The only way to assess the amount of charge in a battery is by doing a deep discharge test (ie discharging the battery through a known resistance and measuring the voltage at the terminals) but unfortunately this dissipates the remaining charge and the battery will be essentially flat. This has the advantage of indicating how much charge a battery can hold when it is fully charged (aka its capacity). Usually a batteries will supply current at a fairly constantly voltage until it reaches a certain point when the voltage at its terminals will decay rapidly and the battery will appear flat. The point just before the rapid decay is known as the "knee" because a graph of terminal voltage versus time looks like a leg: horizontal thigh until it reaches the knee and then, like a shin, diving towards zero as the terminal voltage plummets. Typically battery capacity meters (like the M8's bars) work by looking at the tiny voltage decay before the knee and estimating from the slope (of the thigh) when it will reach the knee and predict the amount of charge left in the battery. This prediction is likely to be inaccurate because it depends on reasonably constant current flow but most electrical equipment's current requirements vary depending on what it does. For example, the M8's metering will draw much less current than saving an image to the SD card. It is reasonable to assume that the M8's battery capacity meter is customised to expect the response characteristic (graph/leg) produced by Leica batteries. But if a battery from a different manufacturer is used, say Impact, then it will have a different reponse characteristic and, for example, the thigh may be at a slightly more downward angle and it will reach the voltage that the M8 is set to recognise as occurring just before the knee more quickly than the Leica battery does. If so then the M8 will indicate that charge is low when in fact there may be plently of charge left in the Impact battery because the Impact batteries thigh is longer so it will take longer (than the M8 expects) to reach the knee. Characteristic response of batteries is particular to each model and make of battery so don't be surprised to find seemingly odd behaviour from after-market batteries but don't necessarily believe what the M8 appears to be telling you either. (Anyone still awake? :-) Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
boilerdoc Posted July 23, 2007 Share #13 Posted July 23, 2007 I'm awake and that was a very good description in my mind. Appreciate the post farnz. Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samir Jahjah Posted July 23, 2007 Share #14 Posted July 23, 2007 A short word on battery technology and behaviour to help understand what we're seeing. Any battery capacity meter will be inherently inaccurate and potentially misleading. (Anyone still awake? :-) Pete. Still awake! What I have noticed though is that the capacity of the Leica M8 battery is significantly lower than those from Canon (on my 5D). I can count on at least 300 shots (often it is more), with review on the screen, with the 5D. With the M8, a fully charged battery may at best provide 200 shots. I have 2 batteries and am planning to get one more. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted July 23, 2007 Share #15 Posted July 23, 2007 Still awake! What I have noticed though is that the capacity of the Leica M8 battery is significantly lower than those from Canon (on my 5D). I can count on at least 300 shots (often it is more), with review on the screen, with the 5D. With the M8, a fully charged battery may at best provide 200 shots. I have 2 batteries and am planning to get one more. Samir, You need to take into account that the 5D and the M8 are different cameras and will therefore present different loads to their batteries. Even if the capacities of the cameras' batteries were identical each camera may use different amounts of power to complete similar activities. Additionally the cameras may be doing things differently behind the scenes, for example, the M8 converts each 14-bit raw image to an 8-bit DNG and for each shot it takes a 'dark shot' to use as a differential reference for noise reduction, both of which activities use power. I'm not familiar with the 5D so it's not clear to me whether its battery has more milliamperehour capacity than the M8 either. Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtwo Posted July 24, 2007 Share #16 Posted July 24, 2007 OK, I just received an Impact battery from BH. No time to have tested it at all yet so to early to cry wolf. But, I am curious as to what Mr Posner said about BH and these batteries. I did a search, and came up dry so humor me, please. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #17 Posted July 24, 2007 OK, I just received an Impact battery from BH. No time to have tested it at all yet so to early to cry wolf. But, I am curious as to what Mr Posner said about BH and these batteries. I did a search, and came up dry so humor me, please. B&H is sending me another battery. What surprised me was I hadn't yet contacted B&H about the one that has seemed to fail. It was from this thread which Mr Posner read. I received a email yesterday from B&H with a subject "Order Status" for a Impact battery. I hadn't placed a order for another battery so I was just about to contact B&H thinking my account with them might of been hyjack. But then I received another email for Mr Posner explaining that he was sending me a replacement as per this thread. Taking a closer look at the "Order Status" email the total amount due/charged was zero. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timswan Posted July 24, 2007 Share #18 Posted July 24, 2007 This begs the questions as to whether this a known problem with the Impact batteries. I think that it's great that B&H acted proavtively to your problem, but as a person who has experienced the same problem, I'm wondering whether the problem is widespread and known. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #19 Posted July 24, 2007 This begs the questions as to whether this a known problem with the Impact batteries. I think that it's great that B&H acted proavtively to your problem, but as a person who has experienced the same problem, I'm wondering whether the problem is widespread and known. Can't answer that question as I only have one Impact battery. It could of been a bad run of batteries and they are replacing them as the problem becomes apparent to the user. I did buy mine almost as soon as they appeared on the B&H site. So my original could be the first run of this type of battery. If yours does the same in a short time I think a simple Email to CS @ B&H will solve the problem. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
henryp Posted July 25, 2007 Share #20 Posted July 25, 2007 This begs the questions as to whether this a known problem with the Impact batteries. As far as I know this is an isolated incident. I was alerted to the original post via a Google Alert to which I subscribe. I think that it's great that B&H acted proavtively to your problem, but as a person who has experienced the same problem, I'm wondering whether the problem is widespread and known. Thank you. We prefer to be proactive when the option is available. The problem is neither widespread nor known. Any brand, no matter how diligent their QC, may have a lemon from time to time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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