Battery anomaly

I have noticed this weird anomaly and was wondering if a couple of you guys can confirm this. This is on a 60D. I have an OEM, Watson, and Wasabi. I have noticed this in the past, but never thought about it. I took the oem out to charge and skipped the wasabi in. It showed 60%. I turned the camera off and turned it in and it showed 46%. I then was puzzled. I took the battery out and put it back in, showed 60%. With no shooting, I checked again later and it showed in the 46%. Do the wasabi batteries report incorrectly? My point is that it will initially register higher, and once in the camera for a bit, it will seem to lose some percentage points. But than weirdly, if it’s removed and put back in, it will report the higher value again. Can you folks check?

Frodge wrote in post #18797526
I have noticed this weird anomaly and was wondering if a couple of you guys can confirm this. This is on a 60D. I have an OEM, Watson, and Wasabi. I have noticed this in the past, but never thought about it. I took the oem out to charge and skipped the wasabi in. It showed 60%. I turned the camera off and turned it in and it showed 46%. I then was puzzled. I took the battery out and put it back in, showed 60%. With no shooting, I checked again later and it showed in the 46%. Do the wasabi batteries report incorrectly? My point is that it will initially register higher, and once in the camera for a bit, it will seem to lose some percentage points. But than weirdly, if it’s removed and put back in, it will report the higher value again. Can you folks check?

I don't have a Wasabi. I have a couple of Sterlingteks which do not exhibit such behavior.

Have you tried to charge it at 100% and see what happens?

Also, run it from fully charged to fully discharged and see how many shots you get? (Rinse repeat with OEM for comparison).

i've seen some things like that, but i just ignore it.

always have a back up.

I have seen that with Li Ion batteries in general, battery metering can be flaky. I think a lot of this is due to the physics of Li ion in that they are great at delivering a constant voltage for a long time and then they just die. As the batteries age and their internal resistance goes up, the battery meters have seem to have a harder time judging it's true capacity. For a really good read about the difficulty in metering a battery, check out this link.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18797598
i've seen some things like that, but i just ignore it.

always have a back up.

+1.

Third party batteries (and batteries in general, I guess) get weird sometimes.

Something I've noticed is how a questionable battery will report a high or full charge right up until you stress it by increasing the current draw--for instance, by turning on live view. Then it flatlines and the camera quits.

Mike Deep wrote in post #18797688
Third party batteries (and batteries in general, I guess) get weird sometimes.

Something I've noticed is how a questionable battery will report a high or full charge right up until you stress it by increasing the current draw--for instance, by turning on live view. Then it flatlines and the camera quits.

You start by stating a "questionable battery" so this may not apply, but it is relatively normal for most rechargeable batteries to have a characteristic where they reach a point of discharge, and then rapidly fail (not permanently) in the device. Note the image below, where at 20% charge the battery is going to fail rapidly. Sometimes turning on LiveView, which is a power hog, is just enough to push the battery over the edge in a short period of time. That's why it is always a good idea to carry at least one reliable battery with a good charge.

MakisM1 wrote in post #18797581
I don't have a Wasabi. I have a couple of Sterlingteks which do not exhibit such behavior.

Have you tried to charge it at 100% and see what happens?

Also, run it from fully charged to fully discharged and see how many shots you get? (Rinse repeat with OEM for comparison).

That could be a lot of unnecessary shutter actuations. I would just suggest turning on the screen continuously and allowing the device to temporarily die. Then recharge, repeat the discharge cycle, then recharge and then check the performance. They say these batteries don't have a memory effect, but I have found the batteries get revived by a few full deep discharge/recharge cycles.

I agree with that graph John. I will also say that the OEM batteries seem to report proper percentage along the way. I’ve left oem batteries in the camera and the percentage drops at a known type of interval. Every aftermarket I have, none of them super old, seem to bounce back and forth and move all over the place.

I often get similar anomalies with the original Canon batteries. For example, with my 1D4 batteries, there are times when I look at the remaining capacity and it'll say, like, 78 percent. Then I'll take it out, put it on the original Canon charger, and the charger will blink once or twice, then the light stays on, indicating a full charge.

At other times, after shooting a lot in a short time, the camera will tell me that the battery is down to, say, 50 percent. Then after not using the camera for an hour or so, I'll check the battery again and it'll say it's at 60 or 70 percent.

Neither of the above scenarios are logical. What's up with the inaccurate reporting?

This upsets me, as I am one of those people who think that every single thing should be absolutely and completely accurate at all times.

Why don't battery capacity readouts provide us with absolute accuracy in all situations? This is important to me and I want future cameras and batteries to be precise and perfect in this regard.

Frodge wrote in post #18797751
Every aftermarket I have, none of them super old, seem to bounce back and forth and move all over the place.

You and I bought our 60D's about the same time and I don't have any issues but I only have the OEM and (2) STK's. If they didn't labels, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference based on behavior.

How do you like the 80d John? I still think the 60d works great. But the 80d has always been my next wanted acquired asset.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18797762
I often get similar anomalies with the original Canon batteries. For example, with my 1D4 batteries, there are times when I look at the remaining capacity and it'll say, like, 78 percent. Then I'll take it out, put it on the original Canon charger, and the charger will blink once or twice, then the light stays on, indicating a full charge.

At other times, after shooting a lot in a short time, the camera will tell me that the battery is down to, say, 50 percent. Then after not using the camera for an hour or so, I'll check the battery again and it'll say it's at 60 or 70 percent.

Neither of the above scenarios are logical. What's up with the inaccurate reporting?

Don't let this upset you because it can be part of the normal chemical process that goes on in almost any battery, regardless of chemistry. Even with the plain Jane zinc/carbon battery from years ago, as it discharged, electrons flowed and there was a build up of hydrogen gas on the carbon rod. Take the battery down quite a bit, turn the device off and allow time for the hydrogen to dissipate, and the battery would appear to be improved when you turned the device back on. It might have a relatively short life however. So indications of charge can be quite erratic, especially in an example likes yours where you take the battery down to 50% and an hour later is reads 60 or 70%. Probably perfectly normal but note I say probably. There of course could be other issues.

Batteries can very quickly change their potential, temperature alone plays a big part. A battery in a bag that is first put into a camera could read one thing and in minutes read a different value. Also, different PCB design in these batteries may have different ways to measure capacity, thus why different manufactured batteries act differently. Battery behavior just isn't always consistent, as much as we feel they should be.

Frodge wrote in post #18797787
How do you like the 80d John? I still think the 60d works great. But the 80d has always been my next wanted acquired asset.

Great camera! I still use the 60D, generally keeping a Sigma 17-70 mounted somewhat semi permanently.