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

Mon Feb 9 20:39:12 PST 2015

In the 70's , forty years ago before AF and digital I had problems using
rechargeable batteries with my Nikon F2 and FM and their motor drives and
flashes. I'd loose shots at the end of a battery cycle... Things didn't run
quite right with the battery was low. After a few years I gave up on
recharables and put real good batteries in that gear. And plenty of spares
which cost plenty of money. Didn't loose any shots. At least not for that
reason. And those batteries did last a real long time and with fast recycle
times. No funny stuff at the end of a its life.
I also got into buying my film not at Fred Meyer or cheap places but in a
walk in fridge at a good pro camera store.
Same with paper. Every sheet of paper I went thorough cost dollars. And
could have cost a lot less.
What do they call that stuff?
Consumables?
Inventory?
Cost of doing business?
Expendables?

Wise man says never waste money on inventory.
Wise man number two says never scrimp on inventory.
Which one to listen to?
I went with number two it looks like.

By the way...
None of my digital cameras in the past 10 years ever broke.
I've had five of them.
Just got my D700 out of the shop. It slipped out of my hands and it the
corner of my desk a fall of 4 inches. So they totally ridid my camera for
200 bucks. As it cost $2300 bucks the price of a pile of Hasselblads I was
ok with it.( I think my Nikon FM cost 200 bucks.)
I'm just glad I got my camera back.
I have two batteries for it. Both say Nikon on it.
I think the first one came with the D200 nine years ago.
I've never brought a spare battery on a day shoot. The battery in the camera
is always way strong enough for many hundreds of shots. I change batteries
when I take out the card and put the pix in my hard disk here. I then
reformat the disk and put in the other battery which had been recharging the
whole time on my desk.

On 2/9/15 10:42 PM, "Geoff Hopkinson" <hopsternew at gmail.com> wrote:

> HI Sonny I don't have any personal experience with any non-genuine
> batteries or chargers. Probably my always too long response to Kyle's
> actual question should have just been:
> Not that I ever heard of ;-)
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, February 10, 2015, Sonny Carter <sonc.hegr at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Geoff, you might be onto something when you suggest another charger.  When
>> I changed to the new style charger that came with the M9, some of my
>> after-market batteries would not charge at all, giving an error flash on
>> the led.
>> 
>> The remaining non-leica batteries seemed to be even less reliable than
>> before.
>> 
>> When I was shooting regularly with the M9, I carried 3 Leica branded
>> batteries and never needed to go past #2 in a day.
>> 
>> Maybe I would have had better luck with the aftermarket cells with an
>> aftermarket charger.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Feb 9, 2015, at 4:24 PM, Geoff Hopkinson <hopsternew at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> To focus on your specific question Kyle, I have never previously read of
>>> anyone's speculation that any version of their genuine batteries were
>>> 'chipped'. I did provide the official explanation for the changed camera
>>> behaviour from the firmware update for whatever you want to make of that
>>> ;-).
>>> That model has been used and available since 2006 and is still in use
>> with
>>> some current models of course. You will see subtly different marked
>>> versions in circulation and genuine production has come from at least two
>>> different manufacturers/countries that I am aware of. There are different
>>> power ratings markings (on some non-genuine ones) too. There are many
>> tens
>>> of thousands of the originals in circulation, there having been 30,000+
>>> M9's for a start. Those numbers are tiny compared to the volume
>> production
>>> for the big brands of course.
>>> One recent comment elsewhere I saw was that leaving the (non-genuine)
>>> batteries for longer on the charger past the nominal fully charged
>>> indication made them then show as charged fully in the camera. You could
>>> try another charger too if you were in a mind to investigate?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> Geoff
>>> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman
>>> 
>>>> On 10 February 2015 at 06:25, Geoff Hopkinson <hopsternew at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 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 <javascript:;>> 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
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
> 

-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/