[Leica] Leica blocking 3rd party batteries in firmware?

[Geoff Hopkinson]

Kyle due to some publicised reports of write errors one of the changes in
later firmware for the M9 was to make the camera less tolerant of marginal
power levels from batteries. One indication of that was for when you want
to perform a sensor clean. The camera would not start that unless the
charge was nearly full. They also noted that all batteries have a finite
life (limited number of charge cycles before they become much less
efficient). Voltage levels of course are not the the sole
measure/indication. Their instructions also include noting about a number
of cycles before the units are most efficient initially and recommend
periodically running them 'flat' (not shorting them out though.

Including those originally included I think I had four (genuine) units I
used over 6 years (maybe 25000 exposures? or so with the two cameras that
got randomly rotated and I never saw any problems with them personally. As
far as I know two or three of those are still in service now with Lluis. I
would typically change the battery with the SD card after ~400 exposures or
whenever I forgot to turn the camera off before putting it in my bag,
whichever came first.

I think on this list at one point different people reported varying
experience with different non-genuine batteries. They might chime in?

For sure the Leica ones cost a lot. I guess that the one for the M8/9 was
easy to clone or whoever actually made the originals produced a lot of them
to different standards? It's interesting that the battery for the M (typ
240) is actually two of the earlier assemblies in one case, but I've not
heard of a single non-genuine version anywhere.


Cheers
Geoff
http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman

On 10 February 2015 at 01:19, kyle cassidy on the lug <
leicaslacker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy folks --
>
> I've been using 3rd party batteries in all of my cameras since
> Australopithecus started banging rocks together -- in Panasonics, Nikons,
> and various Leica's with no problem. In fact, I've often wondered if
> workers from the OEM shop sneak back in at night and continue production
> without labeling them.
>
> I recently got four off-brand M9 batteries (from two different retailers)
> and notice a curious behavior -- when they're fully charged often the camera
> will give a "battery low" warning and shut down -- however voltage meter
> shows the batteries are fully charged. I'm wondering if Leica has possibly
> chipped it's batteries and instructed the camera not to work with 3rd party
> batteries (in the same way that the Keuring coffee-machines recognize
> imposter K-Cups and refuse to work with them.) I can think of several
> possible reasons for this, but chipping the batteries I think is the most
> likely. Another option is that only 3rd party manufacturers who make
> batteries for Leica cameras are hucksters, but it seems less likely.
>
> Any thoughts on this? $130 for a battery is $120 that I could use toward a
> plane ticket to photograph something with a battery that's worth $10.
>
> Kyle
>
>
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