DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Counterfeit Olympus BLN-1 batteries beware

Started Jun 27, 2014 | Discussions thread
baxters Veteran Member • Posts: 5,319
Re: Charging Question
1

Guy Parsons wrote:

The reason being that genuine E-M5/E-M1/E-P5 batteries use later technology and charge to a cutoff of 8.7 volts, all the rest of the Olys and clones and most other 2 cell batteries charge to the usual 8.4 volts.

So someone (not me) would have to monitor the charge voltage as it approaches cutoff with a clone battery in a genuine charger to see if it tries to charge to 8.7 volts (unsafe, might catch fire) or somehow detect it is a clone and cutoff at the regular 8.4 volts. Potentially unsafe maybe.

The reverse situation is safe where a genuine battery would only charge to 8.4 volts when in a clone charger. Lower capacity but battery total life would be longer as it is stressed less.

1. The genuine battery will shut off at 8.4 volts in a clone charger. Safe.

2. All my 8.4 volt BLN-1 clones that do charge in the Olympus BCS-5 charger do not charge to 8.4 volts. They all shut off around 8 volts. I will not speculate on why this happens, but it does happen. Other people have reported it. It is also safe, but you are short changing yourself on a bit of battery capacity. Let's say it's 5%, since that's the difference in open circuit voltage.  Hardly noticeable to the casual user, but might be important to someone carrying six batteries and trekking thru Nepal with 100 miles to hike before the next charging station.

 baxters's gear list:baxters's gear list
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX85 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm F1.8
Post (hide subjects) Posted by
(unknown member)
XMN
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow