Fast charger for NP-FZ100 batteries?

[Jacques Cornell]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

 

[JC Cabin]

If you want to talk with someone about batteries and chargers give Dolgin Engineering in Lexington,MA a call. Their contact info is on their website. They make high end battery chargers and have a couple of dual and quad chargers that may do the trick though it looks like you are still talking 90 minutes to charge them up and they aren't cut-rate. B&H also sell them. These are top of the line chargers with prices to match. I use one of their chargers for video camera batteries and they are worth every penny.

 

[Interceptor121]

Charging is limited to the IR of the 18500 cells inside the battery. I'd imagine genuine Sony batteries have significantly lower IR than 3rd party lower capacity. The unfortunate thing is the cell type isn't specifically made for high current charge/discharge...so no matter what you'll be limited to a certain extent for charging speed.

I'd think that if the battery is at a state of charge around 0-50% it'll charge at the fastest rate then it'll taper down in current due to the max voltage limit. I haven't tested the max charge current of 18500 cells inside the NP-FZ100 batteries but it's likely limited to 1C or 2 Amps per cell charging. At the battery voltage that should limit around 14-16 watts of delivery... It also depends what the BMS on the battery will actually accept for charge current. I highly doubt it'll accept the full 2Amps...

So TLDR... you'll likely be limited more at the battery than the charger... 2-2.5Hrs seems reasonable for the small cells that the battery uses...

Is the BMS on the FZ100 battery do charging profile as well as balancing? Normally it's the charger that's responsible for the charge profile and current management isn't it?

If any of these chargers do 'fast' charging, it's almost certainly by applying more charging current than the battery was designed to take in the long term.

The max current depend on the battery

The higher the charging current more risk of overheating and reduction of the overall battery life

Sony injects 0.9A with their charger that reads the temperature terminal generally with third party chargers you would keep it below

the cheap dual usb that charge at 0.6A do not pose a risk of overheating and in the long term will make the battery last longer

Completely agree, but surely the 'fast' chargers that are dumping more current into the battery to charge it quicker, are doing a) long term damage to the chemistry of the battery, and b) risking charging fire? I would assume that the Sony chargers charge at the maximum safe rated rate of the batteries.

There are some studies on this

Liion batteries only charge properly in a small temperature range. If the charger is able to read the battery temperature which if course need the battery to have a sensor and a terminal than it will limit the current to stay within that limit

Each cell has a max output current normally the charge current is at best half

for me there isn’t much between 0.9 and 1A however I would never charge at 1.5A

i ordered an air version and will report my findings shortly

 

[TomV1]

Charging is limited to the IR of the 18500 cells inside the battery. I'd imagine genuine Sony batteries have significantly lower IR than 3rd party lower capacity. The unfortunate thing is the cell type isn't specifically made for high current charge/discharge...so no matter what you'll be limited to a certain extent for charging speed.

I'd think that if the battery is at a state of charge around 0-50% it'll charge at the fastest rate then it'll taper down in current due to the max voltage limit. I haven't tested the max charge current of 18500 cells inside the NP-FZ100 batteries but it's likely limited to 1C or 2 Amps per cell charging. At the battery voltage that should limit around 14-16 watts of delivery... It also depends what the BMS on the battery will actually accept for charge current. I highly doubt it'll accept the full 2Amps...

So TLDR... you'll likely be limited more at the battery than the charger... 2-2.5Hrs seems reasonable for the small cells that the battery uses...

Is the BMS on the FZ100 battery do charging profile as well as balancing? Normally it's the charger that's responsible for the charge profile and current management isn't it?

If any of these chargers do 'fast' charging, it's almost certainly by applying more charging current than the battery was designed to take in the long term.

The max current depend on the battery

The higher the charging current more risk of overheating and reduction of the overall battery life

Sony injects 0.9A with their charger that reads the temperature terminal generally with third party chargers you would keep it below

the cheap dual usb that charge at 0.6A do not pose a risk of overheating and in the long term will make the battery last longer

Completely agree, but surely the 'fast' chargers that are dumping more current into the battery to charge it quicker, are doing a) long term damage to the chemistry of the battery, and b) risking charging fire? I would assume that the Sony chargers charge at the maximum safe rated rate of the batteries.

Totally agree. If the batteries could be charged at a faster rate then the Sony charger would do so. Thus, the charge time using the Sony charger is about as fast as it gets to keep everything safe and to maintain a long life.

As has been sugested, the battery it self may limit the charge current, therefore it may not matter about the charger max current capacity.

 

[Impulses]

If you want to talk with someone about batteries and chargers give Dolgin Engineering in Lexington,MA a call. Their contact info is on their website. They make high end battery chargers and have a couple of dual and quad chargers that may do the trick though it looks like you are still talking 90 minutes to charge them up and they aren't cut-rate. B&H also sell them. These are top of the line chargers with prices to match. I use one of their chargers for video camera batteries and they are worth every penny.

Which model says it takes 90 min? I found 2 for $450-850 which look like they're using the housing of cheap USB chargers atop a custom enclosure to tie 4 of them together, but both models still say it'd take 2.5 hours per FZ100 battery... Doesn't look very transportable...

While looking at those I did find a different dual bay charger by VidPro which does seem to have like 4 different current settings ranging from 600mA to 1500mA, could be interesting to OP or others as it even comes with a 12V car adapter and has a USB port on it to charge other devices.

The Sony quick charger which claims it takes 2.5h goes up to 1600mA...

 

[Interceptor121]

Charging is limited to the IR of the 18500 cells inside the battery. I'd imagine genuine Sony batteries have significantly lower IR than 3rd party lower capacity. The unfortunate thing is the cell type isn't specifically made for high current charge/discharge...so no matter what you'll be limited to a certain extent for charging speed.

I'd think that if the battery is at a state of charge around 0-50% it'll charge at the fastest rate then it'll taper down in current due to the max voltage limit. I haven't tested the max charge current of 18500 cells inside the NP-FZ100 batteries but it's likely limited to 1C or 2 Amps per cell charging. At the battery voltage that should limit around 14-16 watts of delivery... It also depends what the BMS on the battery will actually accept for charge current. I highly doubt it'll accept the full 2Amps...

So TLDR... you'll likely be limited more at the battery than the charger... 2-2.5Hrs seems reasonable for the small cells that the battery uses...

Is the BMS on the FZ100 battery do charging profile as well as balancing? Normally it's the charger that's responsible for the charge profile and current management isn't it?

If any of these chargers do 'fast' charging, it's almost certainly by applying more charging current than the battery was designed to take in the long term.

The max current depend on the battery

The higher the charging current more risk of overheating and reduction of the overall battery life

Sony injects 0.9A with their charger that reads the temperature terminal generally with third party chargers you would keep it below

the cheap dual usb that charge at 0.6A do not pose a risk of overheating and in the long term will make the battery last longer

Completely agree, but surely the 'fast' chargers that are dumping more current into the battery to charge it quicker, are doing a) long term damage to the chemistry of the battery, and b) risking charging fire? I would assume that the Sony chargers charge at the maximum safe rated rate of the batteries.

Totally agree. If the batteries could be charged at a faster rate then the Sony charger would do so. Thus, the charge time using the Sony charger is about as fast as it gets to keep everything safe and to maintain a long life.

As has been sugested, the battery it self may limit the charge current, therefore it may not matter about the charger max current capacity.

I would not be so sure

Companies tend to have a lot of safety margin to protect themselves from problems

Normally a battery has a charging current of 0.3 or 0.7 so for the 2280 Mah that makes it 684 to 1596 mA. Sony is taking a factor of 0.4. 1A is 0.5 and 1.5 is 0.7

 

[newdom]

Charging is limited to the IR of the 18500 cells inside the battery. I'd imagine genuine Sony batteries have significantly lower IR than 3rd party lower capacity. The unfortunate thing is the cell type isn't specifically made for high current charge/discharge...so no matter what you'll be limited to a certain extent for charging speed.

I'd think that if the battery is at a state of charge around 0-50% it'll charge at the fastest rate then it'll taper down in current due to the max voltage limit. I haven't tested the max charge current of 18500 cells inside the NP-FZ100 batteries but it's likely limited to 1C or 2 Amps per cell charging. At the battery voltage that should limit around 14-16 watts of delivery... It also depends what the BMS on the battery will actually accept for charge current. I highly doubt it'll accept the full 2Amps...

So TLDR... you'll likely be limited more at the battery than the charger... 2-2.5Hrs seems reasonable for the small cells that the battery uses...

Is the BMS on the FZ100 battery do charging profile as well as balancing? Normally it's the charger that's responsible for the charge profile and current management isn't it?

If any of these chargers do 'fast' charging, it's almost certainly by applying more charging current than the battery was designed to take in the long term.

The max current depend on the battery

The higher the charging current more risk of overheating and reduction of the overall battery life

Sony injects 0.9A with their charger that reads the temperature terminal generally with third party chargers you would keep it below

the cheap dual usb that charge at 0.6A do not pose a risk of overheating and in the long term will make the battery last longer

Completely agree, but surely the 'fast' chargers that are dumping more current into the battery to charge it quicker, are doing a) long term damage to the chemistry of the battery, and b) risking charging fire? I would assume that the Sony chargers charge at the maximum safe rated rate of the batteries.

Totally agree. If the batteries could be charged at a faster rate then the Sony charger would do so. Thus, the charge time using the Sony charger is about as fast as it gets to keep everything safe and to maintain a long life.

As has been sugested, the battery it self may limit the charge current, therefore it may not matter about the charger max current capacity.

I would not be so sure

Companies tend to have a lot of safety margin to protect themselves from problems

Normally a battery has a charging current of 0.3 or 0.7 so for the 2280 Mah that makes it 684 to 1596 mA. Sony is taking a factor of 0.4. 1A is 0.5 and 1.5 is 0.7

Companies tend to have a lot of safety margin to protect customers from burning their house down.

There, I fixed it for you

Seriously, Sony has more experience managing consumer electronics batteries than almost any company on the planet. Why would you deliberately override safety thresholds/tolerances and reduce the lifespan of the battery, just in order to gain a few minutes of charging? Buy more batteries if you need them, it's as simple as that.

 

[Interceptor121]

Charging is limited to the IR of the 18500 cells inside the battery. I'd imagine genuine Sony batteries have significantly lower IR than 3rd party lower capacity. The unfortunate thing is the cell type isn't specifically made for high current charge/discharge...so no matter what you'll be limited to a certain extent for charging speed.

I'd think that if the battery is at a state of charge around 0-50% it'll charge at the fastest rate then it'll taper down in current due to the max voltage limit. I haven't tested the max charge current of 18500 cells inside the NP-FZ100 batteries but it's likely limited to 1C or 2 Amps per cell charging. At the battery voltage that should limit around 14-16 watts of delivery... It also depends what the BMS on the battery will actually accept for charge current. I highly doubt it'll accept the full 2Amps...

So TLDR... you'll likely be limited more at the battery than the charger... 2-2.5Hrs seems reasonable for the small cells that the battery uses...

Is the BMS on the FZ100 battery do charging profile as well as balancing? Normally it's the charger that's responsible for the charge profile and current management isn't it?

If any of these chargers do 'fast' charging, it's almost certainly by applying more charging current than the battery was designed to take in the long term.

The max current depend on the battery

The higher the charging current more risk of overheating and reduction of the overall battery life

Sony injects 0.9A with their charger that reads the temperature terminal generally with third party chargers you would keep it below

the cheap dual usb that charge at 0.6A do not pose a risk of overheating and in the long term will make the battery last longer

Completely agree, but surely the 'fast' chargers that are dumping more current into the battery to charge it quicker, are doing a) long term damage to the chemistry of the battery, and b) risking charging fire? I would assume that the Sony chargers charge at the maximum safe rated rate of the batteries.

Totally agree. If the batteries could be charged at a faster rate then the Sony charger would do so. Thus, the charge time using the Sony charger is about as fast as it gets to keep everything safe and to maintain a long life.

As has been sugested, the battery it self may limit the charge current, therefore it may not matter about the charger max current capacity.

I would not be so sure

Companies tend to have a lot of safety margin to protect themselves from problems

Normally a battery has a charging current of 0.3 or 0.7 so for the 2280 Mah that makes it 684 to 1596 mA. Sony is taking a factor of 0.4. 1A is 0.5 and 1.5 is 0.7

Companies tend to have a lot of safety margin to protect customers from burning their house down.

There, I fixed it for you

Seriously, Sony has more experience managing consumer electronics batteries than almost any company on the planet. Why would you deliberately override safety thresholds/tolerances and reduce the lifespan of the battery, just in order to gain a few minutes of charging? Buy more batteries if you need them, it's as simple as that.

I was checking the charger that comes with the camera

it is rated to 8.4V 1.6 A

so the NP2 battery charger using 1 to 1.5 is actually lower

I guess the sony charger switches current during the charge resulting in an average of 912 mA

 

[Hotel Lonely]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

The Neewer dual one works fine for me but AFAIK it doesn't even use PD and I've not seen any that do, would be nice. I'm looking at the back of the Sony BC-QZ1 and it says 8.4V - 1.6A for output, so realistically you wouldn't need anywhere near a 30-40W brick to match that, practically any stock USB PD phone charger can do 9V 2A (18W).

That Sony charger takes like 2.5h, I suppose a slightly faster one would be feasible too, but it might still not need any more than a 20W brick. If you wanna use two Neewer chargers at a time with a small brick I can highly recommend the Spigen one, it'll do 20W x2 or 30W x1, with PD stuff that will call for it obvs, not the Neewer charger (but I think that one will still charge a single battery faster than two).

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Understandable! I don't have anywhere near that kinda pressure so I haven't looked very hard. Maybe try and see what the output or charge time is on Nitecore's charger? They're a pretty reputable battery/flashlight brand, I remember looking at it before going with the Neewer but I don't remember any specifics tbh.

Thanks. ISDT's NP2 Air looks promising for $30. Can charge two batteries from a 30W brick in 120 minutes standard and 90 minutes in fast charge mode.

Next question: are there any chargers that can (partially) DIScharge these batteries? It's not good for the batteries to store them with a full charge.

ISDT cannot fully charge your battery, which actually solved your problem with storage...

In fact no third party charger come with InfoLithium pin thus they cannot ensure both safety and full charge. With that in mind many third party chargers chose to sacrifice on either one.

 

[Interceptor121]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

The Neewer dual one works fine for me but AFAIK it doesn't even use PD and I've not seen any that do, would be nice. I'm looking at the back of the Sony BC-QZ1 and it says 8.4V - 1.6A for output, so realistically you wouldn't need anywhere near a 30-40W brick to match that, practically any stock USB PD phone charger can do 9V 2A (18W).

That Sony charger takes like 2.5h, I suppose a slightly faster one would be feasible too, but it might still not need any more than a 20W brick. If you wanna use two Neewer chargers at a time with a small brick I can highly recommend the Spigen one, it'll do 20W x2 or 30W x1, with PD stuff that will call for it obvs, not the Neewer charger (but I think that one will still charge a single battery faster than two).

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Understandable! I don't have anywhere near that kinda pressure so I haven't looked very hard. Maybe try and see what the output or charge time is on Nitecore's charger? They're a pretty reputable battery/flashlight brand, I remember looking at it before going with the Neewer but I don't remember any specifics tbh.

Thanks. ISDT's NP2 Air looks promising for $30. Can charge two batteries from a 30W brick in 120 minutes standard and 90 minutes in fast charge mode.

Next question: are there any chargers that can (partially) DIScharge these batteries? It's not good for the batteries to store them with a full charge.

ISDT cannot fully charge your battery, which actually solved your problem with storage...

In fact no third party charger come with InfoLithium pin thus they cannot ensure both safety and full charge. With that in mind many third party chargers chose to sacrifice on either one.

Not sure about the suggestion here

any charger will charge a battery. Depending on the battery itself a charger can or not detect temperature

ISDT shows mah so it does read the data terminal with oem batteries as well as temperature?

 

[Hotel Lonely]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

 

[Impulses]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

 

[Interceptor121]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

5v/2A=10w

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

Power delivery is required if you want to power the camera in which case 27W are needed to operate the mechanical shutter.

 

[Impulses]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

Power delivery is required if you want to power the camera in which case 27W are needed to operate the mechanical shutter.

Didn't realize the shutter itself required that much spike in power, interesting.

 

[Interceptor121]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

The battery charges at 8.4A the camera acts as a transformer

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

No with just one the current peaks at 1.5A

Power delivery is required if you want to power the camera in which case 27W are needed to operate the mechanical shutter.

Didn't realize the shutter itself required that much spike in power, interesting.

 

[Impulses]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

The battery charges at 8.4A the camera acts as a transformer

You mean 8.4V no? 8.4A would be quite a bit of current... But yeah that's why I figured using PD to draw 9V 1A would be much more efficient than jumping up from 5V.

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

No with just one the current peaks at 1.5A

 

[Jacques Cornell]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

The Neewer dual one works fine for me but AFAIK it doesn't even use PD and I've not seen any that do, would be nice. I'm looking at the back of the Sony BC-QZ1 and it says 8.4V - 1.6A for output, so realistically you wouldn't need anywhere near a 30-40W brick to match that, practically any stock USB PD phone charger can do 9V 2A (18W).

That Sony charger takes like 2.5h, I suppose a slightly faster one would be feasible too, but it might still not need any more than a 20W brick. If you wanna use two Neewer chargers at a time with a small brick I can highly recommend the Spigen one, it'll do 20W x2 or 30W x1, with PD stuff that will call for it obvs, not the Neewer charger (but I think that one will still charge a single battery faster than two).

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Understandable! I don't have anywhere near that kinda pressure so I haven't looked very hard. Maybe try and see what the output or charge time is on Nitecore's charger? They're a pretty reputable battery/flashlight brand, I remember looking at it before going with the Neewer but I don't remember any specifics tbh.

Thanks. ISDT's NP2 Air looks promising for $30. Can charge two batteries from a 30W brick in 120 minutes standard and 90 minutes in fast charge mode.

Next question: are there any chargers that can (partially) DIScharge these batteries? It's not good for the batteries to store them with a full charge.

ISDT cannot fully charge your battery, which actually solved your problem with storage...

In fact no third party charger come with InfoLithium pin thus they cannot ensure both safety and full charge. With that in mind many third party chargers chose to sacrifice on either one.

My current 3rd-party chargers work just fine. I’d just like them to be faster.

 

[Interceptor121]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

The battery charges at 8.4A the camera acts as a transformer

You mean 8.4V no? 8.4A would be quite a bit of current... But yeah that's why I figured using PD to draw 9V 1A would be much more efficient than jumping up from 5V.

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

No with just one the current peaks at 1.5A

PD doesn’t deliver 9V 1A if I recall

you have 5V 1,2,3 A

9V 2,3 A

and then 12 etc

 

[Impulses]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

The battery charges at 8.4A the camera acts as a transformer

You mean 8.4V no? 8.4A would be quite a bit of current... But yeah that's why I figured using PD to draw 9V 1A would be much more efficient than jumping up from 5V.

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

No with just one the current peaks at 1.5A

PD doesn’t deliver 9V 1A if I recall

you have 5V 1,2,3 A

I don't think 1A is an option or a profile offered for 5V either... If a device doesn't need 2A it just won't use it. In fact the default output on USB-C before PD was 5V/3A.

9V 2,3 A

and then 12 etc

What do you mean? If it can deliver 9V/2A a device that needs 1A should be able to charge off that just fine, most devices never need the full current that they request or that a charger supplies and many slowly taper it off as the battery charges up anyway...

Should be easier than stepping up the voltage from 5V to 9V...

 

[Interceptor121]

I've got several Pearstone/Watson Duo desktop chargers at home and a couple of Neewer 2-bay USB chargers that I take on location, and they're fine, but I'd like to find something faster if such a thing exists, particularly for charging onsite when I'm working long days at conferences and other multi-day events and can't wait until I get home to charge overnight. Do you know of anything?

Also, any idea what the optimal Power Delivery (PD) output from a USB charging brick is for USB battery chargers? Would 30W or 40W PD get it done faster than 20W, or is a drained NP-FZ100 just going to take three hours no matter what?

And, yes, I could just buy more batteries, but I've already got three for each of three bodies and that's enough. It's just that I start to get nervous when half of them are drained, even if it's near the end of the day, so I want to have the morning's batteries charged by the time I finish lunch.

Hi Jacques,

You havent mentioned any specific camera type except for the a7rIII however if you have any of the newer models, the a7iv or the a7rv for instance, you can use the camera itself as a fast PD charging device. The new a6700 (fz100) also has that capability which I've tested with different capacity bricks, you can read it here, go to the last result for the conclusion.

I did a test same as you and can confirm that NP-FZ100 actually can charge from 0 to 100% for about 110 minutes when plugged in with a PD compatible charger, using BionzXR camera bodies. That translates to about 9watts of power requirement (16.8whr battery capacity).

I'm kinda surprised, that's just over half an hour faster than what Sony's own external the Sony BC-QZ1 quick charger will finish in.

I do find it strange that no third party maker (except for ISDT NP2 Air) is doing the fast charging thing here. Even ISDT is not charging as fast as the stock Sony charger. However they do provide dual slots.

Yeah, I guess there's not a big demand for it, meh...

It is not actually using power delivery 18W

The bodies you mean?

5v/2A=10w

Wouldn't it be more efficient to draw 9V thru the body by way of PD even if it doesn't require the higher current? I wouldn't know, I thought newer bodies did use PD but my A7R IV definitely doesn't.

The battery charges at 8.4A the camera acts as a transformer

You mean 8.4V no? 8.4A would be quite a bit of current... But yeah that's why I figured using PD to draw 9V 1A would be much more efficient than jumping up from 5V.

the battery requires 8.4V to charge so it draws 1.19A resulting in charging time of 1h55m

The ISDT charger should charge it in 92 minutes assuming the battery doesn’t overheat so will be faster

With both slots in use?

No with just one the current peaks at 1.5A

PD doesn’t deliver 9V 1A if I recall

you have 5V 1,2,3 A

I don't think 1A is an option or a profile offered for 5V either... If a device doesn't need 2A it just won't use it. In fact the default output on USB-C before PD was 5V/3A.

9V 2,3 A

and then 12 etc

What do you mean? If it can deliver 9V/2A a device that needs 1A should be able to charge off that just fine, most devices never need the full current that they request or that a charger supplies and many slowly taper it off as the battery charges up anyway...

Should be easier than stepping up the voltage from 5V to 9V...

A step down converter reduces voltage and increases current. As the minimum current of the PD standard for 15 W at 9V is 1.67 the current would increase

instead if it was taking 5V 2A or 5V 3A depending on efficiency it will step up voltage and reduce current -> our case

So it is definitely doing 5V/3A or 5V/2A when I have some time I will check my PD supply against a 5V/2.4A 12W to see if they differ

 

[Impulses]

There's a newer version of the Neewer charger that claims to do 1000mA over both batteries btw (vs 500mA on the original) but since the input is still the same I kinda doubt that's accurate... At best it went from 700mA to 1A on one and it's still 500mA x2. Just ran into it and was reminded of this thread, the price of all these charges has gone thru the roof, I paid $14 for the original and it's now $35.

https://a.co/d/gOgwybS

Still not a PD charger so yeah... I'd try it out just for kicks and because the more detailed voltage/current results seem useful, but they don't seem to be selling it by itself which makes it pricier and also makes it impossible to ship here (Amazon doesn't seem to care what the regulations say, they won't ship any kinda bare battery to PR, but will ship laptops and phones all day long... sigh).