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

Panasonic G7 "This battery cannot be used"

Started Jun 14, 2017 | Discussions thread
Michael Meissner
Michael Meissner Forum Pro • Posts: 28,013
Re: Panasonic G7 "This battery cannot be used"
2

LooseLatitude wrote:

I got a dummy battery ac adapter for my G7 and it works fine. I tried hooking up the dummy battery to a npf battery and it says "This battery cannot be used. Anyway around this?

I had a previous thread about powering Panasonic (and Olympus) cameras:

The user RobertG_Berlin mentioned that if the voltage is 8.4v or less, the Panasonic camera will require that the battery used identify itself as a Panasonic battery (or a clone battery that is chipped to resemble a Panasonic battery).

If the voltage is 8.5v or higher, then the camera assumes it is being powered by external power, and does not insist on a chipped battery.

Generally, the batteries used for mirrorless/DSLR cameras are 2 cell lithium-ion batteries that are 8.4v when fully charged, and the nominal voltage is 7.4v.

So if you want to use the NPF battery, you need to boost the voltage to 8.5v or 9v.  I've measured that my G85 will draw about an amp at 9v right after I've fired the flash, and normally 0.5 amps.  So if you go with a circuit booster, you need to verify that the NPF battery can deliver the extra watts that can be transformed to 8.5v.

These amplifiers probably will work, but note they can at times generate enough heat to burn you:

It may be simpler to go with other battery sources.  I've used the following in testing my G85, but I haven't done a long term test:

 Michael Meissner's gear list:Michael Meissner's gear list
Olympus Stylus 1 Olympus TG-5 Olympus E-M5 III OM-1 Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm F4.0-5.6 +13 more
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow