Rcvr-3 battery summary

[Dominic Groß]

As far as I can tell there are 3 distinctly different types of
rcvr3 batteries, the first to come out was the Nexcell which is
also sold relabeled as Delkin.

wrong, btw I never had such issues with the Titaniums from Amondotech or the cells from Emerging Power.

--
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[docmaas]

What specifically is it that you are calling wrong? Are you saying that delkins are not relabeled nexcell? Did you hold one of each in your hand and look at them? I did and I'll bet you money they are from the same source. Besides that the charger that comes with both batteries is identical. If it walks and quacks like a duck its reasonable to believe it is a duck.

I'm not sure which problems you are talking about. If it is the failures in SD10s it will only be noticed if the camera has been unpowered by either battery or wallwart for a certain amount of time. Do you customarily leave your camera unpowered and without batteries for periods in excess of 24 hours? If not I suggest you try it and see if you have the problem or not. It certainly is possible that there are rechargeable cr-v3 batteries that don't exhibit this problem but unless a test is devised that causes the problem and then certain brands are shown not to fail under those test conditions I ain't listening. Since at least 3 different ones have been shown to fail I expect that others are more likely to fail than not.

I've purchased some of the new CTA batteries as sold by B&H. They are 1650man capacity and supposedly recharge in 60-90 minutes with the charger. They are definitely not relabled nexcells with those numbers and I'm hopeful they won't exhibit that problem.

Mike

As far as I can tell there are 3 distinctly different types of
rcvr3 batteries, the first to come out was the Nexcell which is
also sold relabeled as Delkin.

wrong, btw I never had such issues with the Titaniums from
Amondotech or the cells from Emerging Power.

--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 

[AMIcons LLC]

Hi! I just purchased four of these batteries + charger from
eforcity, and I emailed them a request to disclose the mAh rating
on these batteries (as this spec is not listed in the auction), and
they replied that they don't list the mAh because it varies form
shipment to shipment!?!? Of course I replied with a request for
the variance and a rhetorical question; "Would you sell a car
without telling the customer the horsepower rating?" Even if I get
an answer from them, I'm not sure if I should trust it. If you
could let me know how you obtained the rating Mike, I would
appreciate it. Thanks!

Just received the batteries and they are 1600 mAh, just as reported. The rating is stated right on the battery exterior label, so I have no idea why eForcity would claim ignorance. Thanks for the tip, and I will be putting them to good use!

 

[Silly Guppy]

What specifically is it that you are calling wrong?

I'm not sure what Dom was referring to, but I know that at least the
ordering you listed in the first post is wrong.

I believe Seng has the Titaniums, with the three contacts on one end.
This style of battery was one of the first out of the gate. I believe
Omicron was the first brand like them. I'm pretty sure Delkin, Nexcell,
and Moby all arrived after the three-terminal style.

Additionally, the Emerging Power style were announced way early
too, but I was never able to find out how to get them.

I've purchased some of the new CTA batteries as sold by B&H.

If I saw the picture of the charger correctly, it vaguely looked like the
contacts for charging for these were on the side, not the top or bottom
ends. Weird. Let us know how they work!

Guppy

 

[docmaas]

Wanna bet? Nexcells (though they didn't have the name nexcell on them but do have the distinctive picture and design, were the first available.

The three contact titaniums advertise themselves as second generation technology while the nexcells were the first. After the nexcells came out Sigmasd9 mentioned he had seen some in Korea that I believe are the Mobeys Cynthia is unhappy with now. I'm almost sure they were the second type available. The 3 contacts are the most recent aside from the higher capacity ones that are being sold by CTA and apparently also by an another Ebay supplier from whom I will be purchasing at least one set.

The delkins arrived much later than the nexcells but I'm still sure they are simply relabeled nexcells. Hold one of each in your hands and you'll probably think so too along with the fact that they come with identical chargers.

I don't know what Dom was referring to either and he apparently doesn't want to say so I'll just have to continue to guess.

What specifically is it that you are calling wrong?

I'm not sure what Dom was referring to, but I know that at least the
ordering you listed in the first post is wrong.

I believe Seng has the Titaniums, with the three contacts on one end.
This style of battery was one of the first out of the gate. I believe
Omicron was the first brand like them. I'm pretty sure Delkin,
Nexcell,
and Moby all arrived after the three-terminal style.

Additionally, the Emerging Power style were announced way early
too, but I was never able to find out how to get them.

I've purchased some of the new CTA batteries as sold by B&H.

If I saw the picture of the charger correctly, it vaguely looked
like the
contacts for charging for these were on the side, not the top or
bottom
ends. Weird. Let us know how they work!

Guppy

 

[Silly Guppy]

Howdy,

Wanna bet? Nexcells (though they didn't have the name nexcell on
them but do have the distinctive picture and design, were the first
available.

If the Nexcells are relabeled PowerVision, then I'll agree with that.
I had forgotten about PowerVision. These were originally sold by
batteryx.com.

The three contact titaniums advertise themselves as second
generation technology

Marketing.

I could buy the titaniums, relabel them SuperGuppiums and call them
10th generation technology.

The three-contact brand of batteries (titanium, blue-grey, and omicron)
were originally released shortly after the PowerVision(rainbow). Omicron
made quite a splash when they came out just after PV, since they were
available for ~$12 per battery and $8 per charger. Weird that you can't
find them anymore.

Around the same time as the omicrons (shortly after the PV), Dom brought
word of the EP brand from Korea. Starting around PMA 2004, I think, more
and more brands of batteries started arriving, including Nexcell, Moby, Delkin,
Sigma, and I started losing track.

Guppy

 

[lineapop]

I bought two rechargaeable CR-V3 Li-Ion batteries by CTA (3V 1500mAh) about two mounths ago and have taken about 500 pictures with my SD10. I haven't had a single problem and have never had to charge either of them more than an hour. I also haven't had the problem of my camera freezing in burst mode, which would happen sometimes with rechargeable AAs that I was using before.

There have been a few threads on these batteries over the last
week. I think it might be good to try to gather together some of
the information that has been garnered.

As far as I can tell there are 3 distinctly different types of
rcvr3 batteries, the first to come out was the Nexcell which is
also sold relabeled as Delkin. I believe Moby was the next to
arrive and the most recent is the one that Seng (formerly Champa)
used with the 3 terminals.

There seems to have been more problems with them in SD10s than in
SD9s. I have been using the Nexcells for a year and have had
intermittent problems with them kicking on the protection circuit
in the SD9. However, the problems seem to be much worse with the
SD10. I suspect that this is because in the SD10 the rcvr-3
batteries carry the whole load for the camera while in the SD9 they
were assisted by the cr123 batteries.

The symptoms of failure are almost always that the battery has
somehow gone from 3.2v to 0 v as soon as they are inserted in the
camera. Sometimes after this happens when they are put back in the
charger the charging light briefly lights up red before changing
back to green usually within just a few minutes. When they are
green again the voltage has returned from 0 back to the expected
3.2v. I've tested three sets of batteries, two nexcell and 1
delkin and every time they failed one of the two batteries in the
case had lost its voltage and every time they got it back almost
instantaneously upon being placed back in the charger. We can't
say for sure this is a protection circuit being tripped but it is
the best hypothesis I can think of. BTW the charger light does not
always turn red even when the battery at 0 volts is being reset.

There have been reports that if the camera has been plugged into
the ac power source before(?) or during the replacing of the
batteries, batteries that had failed multiple times suddenly began
working again and continued to work. I did not try this test but,
while testing last week I had tried all three sets of batteries in
different combinations repetitively all morning with no success.
Finally I put the cf card in the camera and inserted the batteries
again and it worked. Aha, I thought maybe that is the key.

However one of the Gary's (Bainbridge or Mercer) doubted it
suggesting instead that it might be a capacitor that was getting
recharged and finally made it over some kind of threshold at the
same time I put the cf card in. Initially I wasn't convinced but
then I remembered that just before I had put that cf card in I had
also hooked the camera up to a 10v dc battery via the ac connector
plug and it worked. Perhaps doing that did the same thing that
others reported about the ac source and charging up a capacitor is
certainly a viable explanation though I have no idea what kinds of
capacitors there might be in the camera.

So maybe it is a capacitor, or maybe something else that has an
initially high current drain that is causing the batteries to fail
and maybe whatever that capacitor or other thing is once it is
charged to a certain threshold maybe it no longer draws enough
current to cause the protection circuit to be triggered.

I plan to watch this more in the future. What needs to happen is
for the camera to get to the state where it keeps causing battery
failures, then the user has to power it up via a different source
then remove that source and go back to the batteries, which must
have been recharged and verified to be at 3.2v each, and see if
they now work. If this turns out to be the case and is repeatable
then we have a workaround and we have a hypothetical cause that
makes sense.

In the meantime, everyone using rcvr-3 batteries should be carrying
a spare power source of some kind because once that circuit in the
rcvr-3 battery has been tripped the battery is useless until it can
be put on the charger again.

hth,

Mike

 

[docmaas]

Yes powervision you're right. If you look at the picture on the battery it is almost if not completely identical to that on the nexcells. Powervision is what I have and I did get them from batteryx who no longer is present on the web. I actually went to their shop and their real business was graphics but the guy was selling them for his brother-in-law in Taiwan. Interestingly enough they had some serious qa problems that may well have been partly a reflection of the capacitor charging problem on sigma cameras we are just now getting our arms around. I bought 4 batteries and two chargers from them then later they replace both chargers and two of the batteries. I still had problems though and exchanged yet another battery when I returned to the US from China.

So I think that since powevision came first it is probably better to say nexcell and delkin are relabeled powervision though that it also quite likely to be an aftermarket name.

Wanna bet? Nexcells (though they didn't have the name nexcell on
them but do have the distinctive picture and design, were the first
available.

If the Nexcells are relabeled PowerVision, then I'll agree with that.
I had forgotten about PowerVision. These were originally sold by
batteryx.com.

The three contact titaniums advertise themselves as second
generation technology

Marketing.

I could buy the titaniums, relabel them SuperGuppiums and call them
10th generation technology.

Sounds good to me and I'll bet Seng would buy a batch from you.

The three-contact brand of batteries (titanium, blue-grey, and
omicron)
were originally released shortly after the PowerVision(rainbow).
Omicron
made quite a splash when they came out just after PV, since they were
available for ~$12 per battery and $8 per charger. Weird that you
can't
find them anymore.

There's a bunch on ebay.

Around the same time as the omicrons (shortly after the PV), Dom
brought
word of the EP brand from Korea. Starting around PMA 2004, I
think, more
and more brands of batteries started arriving, including Nexcell,
Moby, Delkin,
Sigma, and I started losing track.

Yep me too. I really prefer the lithium because I had no investment in NiMH but unless we can find a reliable way to avoid the capacitor problem I think fewer and fewer sigma users will go that route.

Guppy

 

[Dominic Groß]

What specifically is it that you are calling wrong?

that they were the first to come out with such cells, you completly left out some cells that were availible very early but not widely like Emerging Power and Powervision(, also you got the order wrong as Silly Guppy already mentioned.

I'm not sure which problems you are talking about.

You have been talking about problems in your original posting I replied to... remeber?

Do you customarily leave your camera unpowered
and without batteries for periods in excess of 24 hours?

already did thata few times and nothing happened BUT you did not mention that part in your posting, so how could I possibly know that you are asking for this?
--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 

[Dominic Groß]

Wanna bet? Nexcells (though they didn't have the name nexcell on
them but do have the distinctive picture and design, were the first
available.

If the Nexcells are relabeled PowerVision, then I'll agree with that.
I had forgotten about PowerVision. These were originally sold by
batteryx.com.

Actually the powervision are also probably only relabled, I once had a datasheet from a company in Taiwan that seemed to be the real producer of these cells.

Around the same time as the omicrons (shortly after the PV), Dom
brought
word of the EP brand from Korea.

The EP were pretty much around for the same time the PV were, since mid 2003, it is just too bad that they never were really widely availible...

--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 

[docmaas]

What specifically is it that you are calling wrong?

that they were the first to come out with such cells, you completly
left out some cells that were availible very early but not widely
like Emerging Power and Powervision(, also you got the order wrong
as Silly Guppy already mentioned.

Were ep out before powervision? If so I'm wrong. If not the nexcells and powervision are the same battery sold by different vendors. Even the labels are the same. Delkin came later but again it's the same battery.

I'm not sure which problems you are talking about.

You have been talking about problems in your original posting I
replied to... remeber?

Yes I remember; I guess that the understanding of losing the charge on the capacitor due to leaving the batteries out of the camera developed later in the thread or in another thread. I'd be interested to know how long you leave the batteries out because if those ep or amondotech cells don't have the problem then those are the ones I'd like to use. I just ordered new high capacity ones made by CTA in the hope that they won't have the problem either but there is no way to tell without testing them.

Mike

Do you customarily leave your camera unpowered
and without batteries for periods in excess of 24 hours?

already did thata few times and nothing happened BUT you did not
mention that part in your posting, so how could I possibly know
that you are asking for this?
--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10