Battery failure M10-R

[Wandering Photographer]

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One of the 4 batteries I bought for my M10-R is failing. When I try to charge it it starts out normally blinking green, but after an interval the green and orange LED's flash synchronously indicating a fault. I bought 3 of these batteries in the Winter of 2020 when I bought my M10-R giving me a total of 4. It seems to me they should last longer than 5 years, especially at $200 each. The batteries for my Nikons are still working. Of course to add insult ti injury, they are not available for purchase. So now I am down to three batteries. I feel for those who only have one battery for their camera. Really, for a camera as expensive as the M10-R, not having batteries readily available is an affront to the customers that bought the camera.

[dugby]

This is a suggestion : and is likely to be not endorsed by Leica..... but your decision to try.

 

If you consider the battery to be a candidate for the battery re-cycling bin, you have nothing to lose with this suggestion:

 

Place battery into a clean dry zip lock bag. Place bag into freezer for 24 hours. 

Remove from freezer and allow it to thaw at ambient room temperature (Australia is currently 30C) for at least 12 hours, and then remove from bag.

Do NOT remove it from the ziplock bag whilst it is still cold, as moisture may condense onto cold metal components causing them to oxidise (rust).

 

In current low temperature northern hemisphere , you may need to let it thaw for 24 hours.

 

Try charging the battery only after it has thawed for more than the above time periods.

 

Edited January 28 by dugby

[Overgaard]

I would email Leica Customer Service at cs@leica-camera.com as there has been a recall of M10 batteries. As Leica has made no official statement on this, it's hard to say when this problem started. But at least it is getting fixed and new M10 batteries are arriving, and I would think your faulty battery might get included in that batch. 

[Wandering Photographer]

Thank you. I will try both suggestions as they are not mutually exclusive.

[pgh]

On 1/28/2025 at 5:28 PM, Overgaard said:

I would email Leica Customer Service at cs@leica-camera.com as there has been a recall of M10 batteries. As Leica has made no official statement on this, it's hard to say when this problem started. But at least it is getting fixed and new M10 batteries are arriving, and I would think your faulty battery might get included in that batch. 

This is interesting. Why hasn’t Leica said anything about this, and how are you privy to the fact that it’s getting fixed? US retailers tell me they can order M10 batteries but have no way of knowing if and when the batteries will actually ship. In addition, how will those that got faulty batteries know - will they ever get a replacement? Or is Leica just going to keep the fault internal and hope people just buy more of these insanely expensive (for what they are) components?

[zaphodtheprez]

With zero new batteries available in Canada or the US, I just bought a new battery on-line, from the New Zealand Leica store. 

I wonder how I will find out if I got a new corrected unit when go to NZ next month and I pick it up. Or did I buy a recalled unit?

 

 

[charlesphoto99]

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17 hours ago, zaphodtheprez said:

With zero new batteries available in Canada or the US, I just bought a new battery on-line, from the New Zealand Leica store. 

I wonder how I will find out if I got a new corrected unit when go to NZ next month and I pick it up. Or did I buy a recalled unit?

 

 

I wouldn't worry about it (too much). At this point a recall is a rumor. My wife bought me a new one from a Dusseldorf Leica dealer this Xmas when visiting family and so far it's been fine. Mfg date of 2024. I have ones stamped 2016 from the original M10 release (Jan of 2017) that are still going strong. There will be an occasional dud, either from the get go or later in life - and that's not an exclusive Leica problem. My question would be how long has the NZ battery been sitting? Because if they can't get across the water to the US for the last year or so, how are they getting them to NZ? Anyway, bring a charger and try it out before leaving, and give it a few cycles through (trying not to drain it all the way to zero after each use). You can tell the mfg date by the four numbers stamped on it - the last two are the year (first two must be a batch number? as they don't correspond to month or day numbers). 

[_leicaguru]

On 1/28/2025 at 11:22 AM, Wandering Photographer said:

One of the 4 batteries I bought for my M10-R is failing. When I try to charge it it starts out normally blinking green, but after an interval the green and orange LED's flash synchronously indicating a fault. I bought 3 of these batteries in the Winter of 2020 when I bought my M10-R giving me a total of 4. It seems to me they should last longer than 5 years, especially at $200 each. The batteries for my Nikons are still working. Of course to add insult ti injury, they are not available for purchase. So now I am down to three batteries. I feel for those who only have one battery for their camera. Really, for a camera as expensive as the M10-R, not having batteries readily available is an affront to the customers that bought the camera.

It sounds like a fault with that one particular battery. I would contact Leica about it. The battery should last many years. Every battery will have a certain number of cycles until it won't be able to hold 100% charge, but it should still work, it just won't last as long as when it was new. It shouldn't fail this way though. 

[Wandering Photographer]

On 2/2/2025 at 12:55 AM, _leicaguru said:

It sounds like a fault with that one particular battery. I would contact Leica about it. The battery should last many years. Every battery will have a certain number of cycles until it won't be able to hold 100% charge, but it should still work, it just won't last as long as when it was new. It shouldn't fail this way though. 

I got a call from the Leica store that they had an M10 battery for me. I mentioned that I had heard there had been a recall on this forum — see above. They said batteries only had a 1 year warranty so I coughed up $200 plus sales tax to get myself back up to 4 working batteries. I will try the freezer exercise suggestion earlier with the bad one as time permits and get back with those results.

[Wandering Photographer]

On 1/31/2025 at 10:23 AM, pgh said:

This is interesting. Why hasn’t Leica said anything about this, and how are you privy to the fact that it’s getting fixed? US retailers tell me they can order M10 batteries but have no way of knowing if and when the batteries will actually ship. In addition, how will those that got faulty batteries know - will they ever get a replacement? Or is Leica just going to keep the fault internal and hope people just buy more of these insanely expensive (for what they are) components?

The Leica store claimed there was no recall, so I bought a new one. I got the last one in the batch of M10 batteries they received, so I had them put me back in the queue for when a new batch arrives.

[tobey bilek]

I have been doing my monthly maintenance on 4 batteries.  1 will only go to 30%.   Tried multiple time and no luck.  I was sitting watching tele and an Idea came.  CLEAN the contacts.   So I did and put it in charger and green light did normal blinking for around 20 minutes and went solid.  Installing it in camera it now reads 100%. 

70 % alcohol is what I used.  Contact cleaner should work also.

I was ready to bin the battery but now am back to   M10 and M10r and 4 batteries

[mujk]

On 2/1/2025 at 5:43 PM, charlesphoto99 said:

You can tell the mfg date by the four numbers stamped on it - the last two are the year (first two must be a batch number? as they don't correspond to month or day numbers). 

I understood the first two characters to be the week and the next two the year of manufacture. The last two characters are "VB" on all my M10 batteries, but I don't know what that means.

[jdlaing]

15 minutes ago, mujk said:

I understood the first two characters to be the week and the next two the year of manufacture. The last two characters are "VB" on all my M10 batteries, but I don't know what that means.

Varta Battery