Leica M9/MM battery prob?

xdayv

Top Veteran
Location
Tacloban City, Philippines
Name
Dave
I have noticed around same battery behavior on 3 of my batts... it is good until 50% of the battery life (as indicated from the M body), from there it dies out rather so quickly. What I noticed is when the battery is still new, it works fine. But as time goes on, say like after a few months of use, it drains out quickly when below 50%, I got one batt that just shuts off the camera because battery is too weak to power it up. Any thoughts on this?
 
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How old are the batteries? And are they Leica-branded batteries, or third party batteries? They behave differently. Leica batteries can be recharged at any time, but some third batteries only work well if you completely drain them and then recharge fully. Something about the charging chip in the battery.

Lithium batteries have a finite life. How long they last depends on how they're treated. See any good article about rechargeable batteries. For computer laptops, I've often seen them last over 3 years, but the laptop manufacturers only warrantee them for one year. Camera batteries for non-pros probably last much longer, as we don't kick them as hard as corporate warriors do their laptops.

See: THE ORIGINAL FAQ THREAD
[Leica] more info on Leica M9 & third party batteries

One of my two original Leica-branded M8 batteries still works (purchased 2007), the other wouldn't hold a charge anymore as of early this year. A couple of third-party batteries I bought in 2010 are still working well, but like many third-party batteries I have to completely drain them and recharge fully or the battery indicator can give erroneous readings. One of the links above mentions that you can sometimes get past an erroneous "Low battery" indicator by hitting the Set button.

I suggest that you deep cycle all the batteries once or twice. Drain them by turning off the battery save timeout and turning on the screen (play mode). Let it run until the camera shuts off. Then give the battery a full charge, plus let it trickle charge for a few hours afterwards. Then see how it works.
 
I have five Leica batteries, two of them came with the M8 and are over 6 years old. I tend to charge them to full right before use. I get a few hundred shots with them. The oldest one seems to lose it's charge when left sitting for a long time, more than the others.
 
I've had numerous Leica batteries, all good, as well as genuine batteries from Samsung, Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic - also good. But I've gotten a string of bad batteries from Sony, HP, and Motorola to name a few on that end. If I got a bad battery from one of the "good" guys, it would be 1 in 100, so when I get 2 or 3 (or more, gasp) bad batteries from one of these others, I would either have to believe in bad luck that's statistically 1 in 10000 or 1 in a million, or something else...
 
I do what Peter does and will occasionally deep cycle my two Leica M9 batteries. Sometimes after they have been "fully" charged they really aren't by what the camera's battery info says. But after deep cycling they seem to work better.
 
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