Re: [Leica] Battery for M6 (long, and maybe useless!)

[MicroGrid@aol.com]

I have lurked, and posted a few questions on this list for about a year now. 
I really don't have time to read everything you all post but it is very 
interesting. My ears perk up when the topics touch batteries. Our business is 
manufacturing "MicroGrid, a mesh used as the substrate in the manufacture of 
advanced batteries. We supply this to the world's battery manufactures, 
primary as well as secondary. The ones that will interest Leicaphiles are the 
1/3N Lithium cells, as well as the 2/3A, (CR123). Both have my mesh in them. 
When I was going to school, I worked for my Dad in a large photo supply house 
in Ohio, selling Leicas as well as batteries.

Suffice it to say that I have heard all of the conventional wisdom of the 
foibles, brand preferences, etc., of battery choices, from hearing aids, to 
car batteries.

I just wanted to compliment the posters on this list. I monitor many 
application lists such as this for battery related items. There is much less 
repetition of some of the "conventional falsehoods" here than anywhere.
For camera meter applications, it would be hard to beat a cylindrical lithium 
battery, such as the 1/3N. I am not familiar with where the voltage cutoff is 
on an M6, ( I still have not made up my mind between another M5 or an M6HM) 
but the discharge curve on a 1/3 N cell is stable enough to be predicted and 
accommodated. Lithium would be my choice hands down. 
Another poster mentioned cold weather. Lithium excels here as well. The 
military chose LiSo2 cells 20 years ago because of theirwide temperature 
tolerance, (heat as well as cold).

For high Drain applications such as flash, gram for gram Lithium is the clear 
winner. The 2/3A Lithium cell made all of those P&S possible, with their 
motors for focus & winding as well as capacitor recharging.

So if I do add an M6  to my collection of 25 tear old Leicas, you can bet 
there will be a Li cell in it.
BTW I was at Varta's plant where they still made the Mercury PX625's last 
month. They have stopped production of these cells, (German Law) so buy 10 
and refrigerate them if you can find them. If there is no Chinese producer, 
and I don't think so, that will be it. The best alternative is Zn-air.

Sorry to respond so late, and so long to this post. 

Bruce Bowman
Killingworth CT