"retraining the battery

[nikonosguy]

my m8 has an awful battery life --- if i've charged the battery, i get 40-50 shots, jpg high, is there any way to reset the battery? i know the previous owner was getting 300 / battery charge

any suggestions or should i hunt down a few extra batteries

 

[Rob-F]

I don't know how many shots I get with my M8.2, as I've never run it all the way down; but I know I get more than 40 or 50. Probably a couple hundred, anyway. I'm pretty sure it's a lithium-ion battery, which has no memory issues I know of. A Ni-Cad battery had a memory, and you had to use it all the way down before charging, or it could start short-cyclying. And if it did, you were supposed to drain it and then recharge it--maybe even several times. But I don't think that is the case with the Leica battery. You could try it--what could it hurt? But I believe your battery has just gotten too old; or else, the camera is drawing too much current for some reason. It's always a good thing to have a spare. You could pick one up and see if a new one gives you more shots. If it does, then your battery was probably due for replacement. If not, I'd have the camera looked at.

 

[sevo]

Can't be done, sorry, get a new battery. For one, Li cells have barely any memory effect, usually suffering a irrecoverable wear related capacity loss. For the other, retraining would be destructive when applied to Li cells. NiCd/NiMh style re-training involves repeatedly overcharging part of the cells to get a full charge into the weakest of the set - until the latter has regained capacity (and the former have lost capacity) so that the set is reasonably balanced again. But that is only possible because NiMh cells do not blow up and only suffer a mild capacity reduction when overcharged with a reasonably low current. If you attempt the same with Li batteries, they will either explode or lose all capacity, unless their internal protection circuit can block the overcharging attempt.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

My first thought was that the battery was suffering from old age but then I wondered about the thermo wotsit that protects them inside. Anyway, a decent replacement strikes me as the quickest and best test and solution.

Regards, David