[Leica] in re lithium batteries

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

I spoke with a friend who until he retired recently worked for Eveready. The
peculiarity of lithium cells is that they have a fairly straight discharge
curve, and because of a low internal resistance, they can show a potential,
sufficient , even when they are exhausted, to light a low drain device like
and LED but the reserve current is not sufficient for much else. At the
store we've found that lithium cells, when exhausted, and allowed to sit a
while, recover enough voltage to keep the LO BAT signal from coming on, but
the camera will not function- we've had to explain the situation to many
customers, and encourage them to carry spares as the shelf life of lithium
batteries is much longer than the working life of a typical P&S!
Dan
dwpost@msn.com