Battery icon on CP950...

I've got my CP950 for more than 2 years now, without any problem... until today !

Despite that my 1800mAh batteries are fully charged (I controled it), the icon on the two displays show 3/4 empty ! I tried to change the batteries with other fully charged, no change...
What could it be ? Have you ever had this problem ?
Thanks to share opinion...
J-P. in Geneva, Switzerland

J-P said:

I've got my CP950 for more than 2 years now, without any problem...
until today !
Despite that my 1800mAh batteries are fully charged (I controled
it), the icon on the two displays show 3/4 empty ! I tried to
change the batteries with other fully charged, no change...
What could it be ? Have you ever had this problem ?
Thanks to share opinion...
J-P. in Geneva, Switzerland

Click to expand...

J-P:

I have a CP 990 and it has always showed a battery capacity of only about 1/3 full, dispite being fully charged or with brand new batteries installed. I have few complaints about this camera, but I do find that the battery indicator is pretty much useless, and that it sucks up batteries like most digicams. Perhaps this inaccurate battery indicator is common to the 950 and 990, I don't know...
Regards, Fred

Fred Luckow said:

I have a CP 990 and it has always showed a battery capacity of only
about 1/3 full, dispite being fully charged or with brand new
batteries installed. I have few complaints about this camera, but
I do find that the battery indicator is pretty much useless, and
that it sucks up batteries like most digicams. Perhaps this
inaccurate battery indicator is common to the 950 and 990, I don't
know...
Regards, Fred

Click to expand...

Hi ! the problem is that my CP950 NEVER showed that for 2 years, and only yesterday it started showing this problem... Don't know if it's a bad sign (camera getting old ?) or what...
J-P.

What type of battery is it? Lithium-ion?

J-P said:

Hi ! the problem is that my CP950 NEVER showed that for 2 years,
and only yesterday it started showing this problem... Don't know if
it's a bad sign (camera getting old ?) or what...
J-P.

Click to expand...

--
Ben Hoogendoorn

Up, down.... it's all relative

Ben Hoog. said:

What type of battery is it? Lithium-ion?

Click to expand...

Hi Ben ! I'm using NiMH 1800 mAh ! (I've been using 1500 NiMh for a long time, but I found these new 1800, so...).

By the way, I tried as well with the fully charged 1500 as with the 1800, but this d... icon keeps showing (almost) empty !!! ...and this happened yesterday... before that, It was all right !?!?!
Cheers, J-P.

J-P said:

Ben Hoog. said:

What type of battery is it? Lithium-ion?

Click to expand...

Hi Ben ! I'm using NiMH 1800 mAh ! (I've been using 1500 NiMh for a
long time, but I found these new 1800, so...).
By the way, I tried as well with the fully charged 1500 as with the
1800, but this d... icon keeps showing (almost) empty !!! ...and
this happened yesterday... before that, It was all right !?!?!
Cheers, J-P.

Click to expand...

--

That's weird, because that just started happening on my 950. I put in fresh batteries and within a few minutes, the low battery light is on. I'm not getting nearly as many pictures on a full charge as before.

Diana
http://www.pbase.com/dlundin

Hi J-P,

Try these steps, separately.

1. Put one of the batteries into your camera. Turn the camera on and run the battery down until it is completely dead. If the camera turns off by itself, turn it back on until it will not come on anymore. Repeat this with the other battery.

2. Once you are sure that both batteries are completely dead, fully charge them for the specified period of time as per your charger/battery instructions.

3. While the batteries are charging..... Let the camera sit empty, without any battery inside. After 4-6 hours of sitting empty, attempt to turn the camera on, even though there is no battery. This may sound weird, but we also want to discharge any capacitor that might be holding onto any settings. This sometimes will help.

4. After the batteries are charged completely, insert one battery in the camera. Do not remove the battery again, until it is completely discharged. At this point you will want to go back to step 1 again.

Try this two more times and note if there is any improvement.

Hope this helps!

J-P said:

I've got my CP950 for more than 2 years now, without any problem...
until today !
Despite that my 1800mAh batteries are fully charged (I controled
it), the icon on the two displays show 3/4 empty ! I tried to
change the batteries with other fully charged, no change...
What could it be ? Have you ever had this problem ?
Thanks to share opinion...
J-P. in Geneva, Switzerland

Click to expand...

Hi Ben !
Before you wrote your answer, I had EXACTLY the same idea as you !

Yesterday evening, I completely ran down the batteries (there are 4 AA-size of them in the CP950), taking pica after pics, until no more power, then I took the batteries out for a slow charge all night (here we are 5 or 6 hours ahead of USA), and left the camera ON thru the night, even without the batteries in.

This morning, I sat (or is it SET, in the past-time ? -excuse my english...) the CP950 back to OFF, then put the newly charged batteries in, and WOW !!!!! ...everything went back to normal !!! No more battery icon showed on the MONITOR, and the battery icon on the CONTROL PANEL showed a full battery !!!
Thanks to all,
Jean-Pierre Geneva, Switzerland

Hello,the way the previous posters mentioned to "drain" rechargable batteries is incorrect,all battereies hold a "memory" of a previous charge,if you do not use a battery discharger or conditioner you cannot get a full charge from those batteries.Im into r/c racing also and batteries like the newer 3000mah Ni-mh batteries are suppose to have the longest life.Your battery indicator may not be incorrect its the way you condition the batteries that may cause the false readings.

bimmerr said:

Hello,the way the previous posters mentioned to "drain" rechargable
batteries is incorrect,all battereies hold a "memory" of a previous
charge,if you do not use a battery discharger or conditioner you
cannot get a full charge from those batteries.Im into r/c racing
also and batteries like the newer 3000mah Ni-mh batteries are
suppose to have the longest life.Your battery indicator may not be
incorrect its the way you condition the batteries that may cause
the false readings.

Click to expand...

Hi !

As I said also in my previous post, my english isn't "all that good", as my mother-tongue is french, and I learned english "the hard way", meaning getting maried for a while with an english girl...

Sooooo ! what I really meant by "draining" the batteries was in fact USING them until they don't give more power ! Of course, one can also use the battery discharger possibility (wich I think is even better 'cause that way one is sure that they are really empty !).

By the way, what about these 3000 mAh batteries ? I've not seen them over here yet !!! Would they really be that more powerfull ? What make are they ? I'm using 1800 mAh DURACELL, wich are the strongest I found here... I'd be glad to get a pack of these new one...
Regards,
J-P.

Hi Bimmer,

If she doesn't have a conditioner/discharger, this is the next best thing.

bimmerr said:

Hello,the way the previous posters mentioned to "drain" rechargable
batteries is incorrect,all battereies hold a "memory" of a previous
charge,if you do not use a battery discharger or conditioner you
cannot get a full charge from those batteries.Im into r/c racing
also and batteries like the newer 3000mah Ni-mh batteries are
suppose to have the longest life.Your battery indicator may not be
incorrect its the way you condition the batteries that may cause
the false readings.

Click to expand...

Ben Hoog. said:

Hi Bimmer,

If she doesn't have a conditioner/discharger, this is the next best
thing.

Click to expand...

Absolutely,but to make sure the battery is not affecting the icon strength you must drain the battery so its losses its storage memory.Actually a company call Dean's(check Ebay) makes a light bulb battery discharger that cost about $16US that will do the job.Type in Dean's discharger on the Ebay search column there is usually one for sale.

Exactly!

I have my own bulb discharger that I made myself which works spledidly.

bimmerr said:

Ben Hoog. said:

Hi Bimmer,

If she doesn't have a conditioner/discharger, this is the next best
thing.

Click to expand...

Absolutely,but to make sure the battery is not affecting the icon
strength you must drain the battery so its losses its storage
memory.Actually a company call Dean's(check Ebay) makes a light
bulb battery discharger that cost about $16US that will do the
job.Type in Dean's discharger on the Ebay search column there is
usually one for sale.

Click to expand...