EX1 battery / charger going bad?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Is it normal (and if so, under which circumstances) that when charging a battery, the light on the EX1 charger blinks twice as fast as usually, and with alternating color (green and amber)?

I'm seeing this for the first time, and am afraid either the battery or the charger is developing some defect...

Hint: this particular battery has been 1/4 charged when I put it on the charger to fill it up to 100%.

Comments welcome.

With the Best Christmas Wishes to all users of this Forum

Piotr

[Danie Pretorius]

Hi Piotr

You did not specify the battery type/model. From experience I know with one of the batteries I have for my EX3, I had the same experience with the light flashing green/amber on the charger.

I put the battery on the charger as per normal and had the same experience (green/amber flashing). This battery has an additional 12V DC lead that one has to plug into the camera as well before it charges (then the normal green flashing light will be active).

What I had to do is that I had to plug the 12V lead (attached to the battery) into the socket on the battery itself (so that the lead is tight around the battery and plugged into the battery itself) while being charged on the charger.

In other words the same 12v DC lead that is plugged into the cam for operation must be plugged back into the battery while the battery is being charged on the Sony charger.

Does it make sense?

I hope this helps!

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Regards
Danie

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Not only does it make perfect sense, but I did what you advised and it helped!

It's charging normally now... Silly me!

Thanks, Danie :)

Piotr

[Bob Grant]

Another condtion I've found can also cause this.
We have the Dolgin quad charger. If I charge Sony batterys in it, leave them for a few days and then try to top them up in the Sony charger, the charger is not happy with the battery. Putting the battery onto the camera and leaving it to power the camera for 5 minutes and then putting the battery back onto the Sony charger clears the condition and the battery charges normally.

[Danie Pretorius]

Thanks Bob, I was not aware of those conditions!

Glad I could be of assistance Piotr! These forums have assisted me numerous times in the past, even without asking a question..somebody else did on the same subject/topic! What a wealth of info on one site!

[Olof Ekbergh]

Here is another interesting charger story.

I had a Sony 60wh battery drain completely and when I tried charging it on the Sony charger. All four green LED's on the battery blinked about every 10 seconds and the charger let out a beep and flashed its lights about once a second.

I tried charging the battery several times for 24 hrs. No charge just the blinking lights. Very frusterating, these are expensive batteries for their size.

I talked with my dealer and he was going to try to get me a new batt even though Sony does not warranty batteries at all. So I just labeled the battery dead and forgot about it for a month or so.

Then the day before I was going to see my dealer, I remembered about the battery, so I figured I would try charging it one more time. It still displayed the same blinking and beeping, but I left it in overnight anyway.

I have a very safe spot for my batteries to charge, no combustibles near by, I have a friend who had his house burn down when a battery exploded and set the house on fire (this was a Makita drill battery), so I am a little wary of battery chargers of any kind.

Any way the next morning the battery was charged, and it has worked great ever since. So the moral of the story is keep trying off and on to charge a completely battery, it may take months but eventually it may accept a charge.

A note, as I was trying to charge this battery several times I kept a close eye on it and kept feeling the battery to make sure it was not getting hot. It stayed very cool, I think the charger just did not try to charge it because of the drained state, but eventually for some reason the charger decided it was OK to charge it so it did. In the mean time it charged my other 6 Sony and Swit batteries just fine.

So this had a good ending. Intelligent batteries can be cantankerous.

May the charge be with you!

Anyway Happy Holidays to all.

[Alex Dolgin]

Olof, I can not explain the Sony indicator and beeps, but can elaborate on what is happening with the battery in general. As the BP-U60 has some smart electronics inside, it slowly drains the battery even when the battery is not in use. When voltage drops below approximately 10-11V, the under voltage safety circuit, common to all Li-Ion batteries, disables the battery. The Sony charger senses the battery insertion, but can not charge it as it is disabled. So it initiates slow "trickle" charge instead of the normal fast charge. Once the battery voltage reaches the safe to charge level, the charger enables normal charge and completes charging.
Bob, with Li-Ion batteries there is no "top off" mechanism as they do not like overcharge. So if the battery is fully charged, the charger will refuse adding more charge to it. Discharging for a few minutes removes some amount of charge from it, allowing for the charger to initiate charge, and bringing the battery back to 100% charge.

[Les Wilson]

My EX1R kit and SWIT 8U62 battery is only a few months old. I put the 8U62 on the stock Sony charger overnight and in the morning, the charger was still blinking amber as is normal for charging. Only two lights on the battery would light up and when I removed it from the charger, no lights would come on.

I contacted SWIT and they put a replacement battery in the mail with a return box for the one giving me trouble.

I forgot about the battery for a day and when I looked, I had left it on the charger and I got 3 lights on the battery even when I took it off the charger. Same behavior on the BP-U30.

I emailed SWIT early in the morning Eastern time and I got a phone call at 9am from SWIT (in California).
The support team at SWIT was eager to help me diagnose the problem and we settled on a discounted charger I had been want ing to buy anyway. I'm pleased with the responsiveness. Kudos to a company that still believes in customer service.

Any thoughts or experiences like I'm seeing with the Sony Charger?

[Alex Dolgin]

Les, just to make sure, during charging you remembered to plug the battery cable back in the jack, right? The Swit battery will not charge unless the cable is in place.

[Les Wilson]

Yes. I did make that error the first time I charged it months ago. In that scenario, the Sony charger blinks amber and green and emits a beeping sound.