Alternative M EV1 Battery Charger

[SrMi]

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42 minutes ago, Alexander108 said:

Yes. Which means even less risk and a prolonged life.

The faster you charge the more straining for the battery. I sometimes charged my batteries for my model planes with 4C (if the battery was rated 4C for charging) and they got quite warm but were charged in <30min from 20% to 100%. Current was 20A (5000mAh battery). But that was not advisable as it shortened the life (in terms of capacity) visibly. 

Leica's charger charges at about 1.7A in the beginning and then slows down toward the end. I do not think that constant slow charging will improve the lifetime compared to Leica's (and other manufacturers') approach. 

Considering the cost of an M and lenses, I still think Leica's charger is a better buy.

[Alexander108]

vor 48 Minuten schrieb SrMi:

Considering the cost of an M and lenses, I still think Leica's charger is a better buy.

Agreed. Only that there is no USB charger for the M10. Plus, I also use a Pantone battery for my M10-M. The M11 charger (my M11 luckily came with a Leica USB-C charger) is obviously the go-to charger and I would not replace that. I would buy one if I ever buy an M-EV1. BTW on the Leica BC-SCL7 charger the current is rated 1A on the bottom plate. Which is good.

If you are interested in why charging is fast in the beginning and then significantly slows down, look at the CC/CV charging process for Lithium batteries. When charging model airplane batteries with a modern charger you can see that at 8.4V the current is starting to drop and it takes quite a while until this CV phase is concluded (the battery is full).

[SrMi]

25 minutes ago, Alexander108 said:

Agreed. Only that there is no USB charger for the M10. Plus, I also use a Pantone battery for my M10-M. The M11 charger (my M11 luckily came with a Leica USB-C charger) is obviously the go-to charger and I would not replace that. I would buy one if I ever buy an M-EV1. BTW on the Leica BC-SCL7 charger the current is rated 1A on the bottom plate. Which is good.

If you are interested in why charging is fast in the beginning and then significantly slows down, look at the CC/CV charging process for Lithium batteries. When charging model airplane batteries with a modern charger you can see that at 8.4V the current is starting to drop and it takes quite a while until this CV phase is concluded (the battery is full).

I use a high-quality non-Leica USB-C charger block with multiple USB-C and USB-A outputs for camera batteries, smartphones, and computers.

BC-SCL7 has 1 A at 8.4V and 2A at 5V. When I plug it into the charger block, it charges with 5V and 1.7A.

I used to race electric RC cars internationally. There was a lot of Voodoo around charging and getting the highest voltage at the start. Battery lifetime did not matter at all :). Things changed a bit once we switched from NiMH to LiPo batteries.