Bad New 1V or Battery?

RattyMouse

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I just got my "new" Canon 1V and put in a brand new battery. The battery indicator has only 1 bar on the gauge, indicating a nearly dead battery. In 25 years of shooting I've never seen this before. Did I buy a dead battery or is there something wrong with the camera?

Thanks!
 
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RattyMouse

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Ok, that was weird.....about 15 mins later the gauge now reads full strength.....perhaps some capacitors needed charging up?
 

MattKing

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Carefully clean the battery contacts.
 

MattKing

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RattyMouse said:
Yeah, it's back to nearly dead again....I'll try that...otherwise I think I have bought a bad camera.
Click to expand...
Don't discount the possibility of your brand new battery being bad.

Hope your camera turns out to be fine.
 
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RattyMouse

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MattKing said:
Don't discount the possibility of your brand new battery being bad.

Hope your camera turns out to be fine.
Click to expand...

I guess it's possible, but man, I have never heard of that before and I have bought a TON of batteries in my life. Just my luck for this one to possibly turn out bad. We'll see.
 
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RattyMouse

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Well, I exhanged batteries and found the exact same problem. It starts off at full strength and then within 2 mins, drops to 1/3rd life. Not a battery problem, i have a duff 1V. What a drag.
 

tomfrh

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My 1v did this. My rebel 300x too. Sometimes the gauge said full, sometimes it would drop to the bottom 1/3 bar almost immediately.

its when it starts flashing I pay attention....
 

Theo Sulphate

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With Lithium batteries, they need a fair bit of time to reach full capacity - when the batteries are new they are not fully charged. So, what you see typically is that they're at a low charge and when inserted into the camera they'll initially show "full" but after a load is put on them they'll show their true low charge.

If you have the correct charger for that battery, then it should have an LED that indicates when the battery is at full charge. Do not use a non-Lithium battery charger with Lithium batteries since they cannot correctly detect a full charge condition and may dangerously overheat the battery.

Once fully charged, it will definitely hold a charge for quite a while while in the camera, otherwise there may be a camera problem.

The battery in my D700 was last charged months ago and is at 2/3 now (with use).

Discharged batteries in my Minolta give me a red indication after a few minutes of use, even though they showed "full charge" when the camera was turned on.

Good luck - chances are the camera is ok.
 
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RattyMouse

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I am using brand new store bought non rechargeable lithium batteries. They read 1/3rd strength immediately after being inserted into the camera. What should I do?
 

CropDusterMan

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Well, if they are new AA non-recharge lithiums, they can't possibly be drained immediately. Perhaps the camera is giving a faulty reading?...does the camera
AF and actuate the shutter/film advance? I'd mess with it for a spell and see how long it takes the batteries to actually die.
 
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RattyMouse

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I shot 1 roll of film through it today and it works flawlessly. A battery is supposed to be good for 50 rolls and there's no way I can get anywhere near that during my 14 day KEH return window.

I guess I have to send it back. It just shouldnt be like this.
 

MattKing

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Are you using a 2CR5 battery, or are you using the battery pack BP-E1?

The Canon Camera Museum site states that AA lithium cannot be used in the BP-E1.
 

MattKing

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Talk to KEH - they may be willing to extend the 14 days.
 

Theo Sulphate

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Looking at a datasheet for this 2CR5 battery, I see it's not the rechargeable type - sorry.

It's supposedly good for at least 1400mAh right out of the box - so it should last for a long time. At this point, I see these possibilities:

- corroded or dirty contacts in the battery compartment

- faulty evaluation by the camera's electronics as to the true charge

- a parasitic drain on the battery from the camera

Since your new batteries from the store showed 1/3 charge immediately, I'd suspect the first two cases as being more likely. Have you tried cleaning the contacts with something like a small, hard, eraser tip? Otherwise, you would need time and film (plus the extra money) to determine that though.

Talk to KEH and tell them the problem - they will make it right for you. You should have a camera that works correctly.
 

Poisson Du Jour

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There are two possible reasons. One is dirty contacts, but this should be obvious on visual inspection and are easily fixed up. The other is that an EOS 1N and/or EOS 1V (all variants) will show one bar, or a blinking battery bar, if they have not been used for a considerable time. Remove the battery, then replace it, turn it on and fire the shutter several times at low speed. If the blinking bar persists, an internal fault is indicated and this can be checked at a service bench with a device that plugs into either the hot shoe or the data connection port (hot shoe on the EOS1N, data port on EOS 1V and variants) and runs forced diagnostics on the camera (the diagnostic device powers the camera), reporting back any logged faults, including those starting at the battery). It is this diagnostics run that can also highlight unseen problems with the camera and ideally should be run before the camera is offered to sale. Unfortunately this is rarely done so you really do not know anything about the camera unless it has a clear service report. An EOS 1V can look brand spanking new but still hide faults.

Other report lines include the number of shutter actuations, number of exposures/rolls through camera, shutter speed and aperture variations from tolerance, flash trigger voltage stability, drive readiness, focus speed etc. In all, about 30 tests can be reported on. If the camera is serviced at Canon for whatever reason (not an independant outlet), a test would be made of the camera as a matter of routine.

From my experience, the 2CR5 battery is a lousy choice for powering these cameras (EOS 3, 5, 1, 1N. Fit the power drive booster and 8 lithium AA batteries: speed, reliability, extra vertical shooting comfort and readiness.
 
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StephenT

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Did you test the batteries with a voltmeter? I have gotten a few duds that were brand new. Those 2CR5's may have been sitting around a long time.
 

Dr Croubie

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I've had the same thing happen on my EOS 3.
Sometimes a brand-new battery will only last a roll or two, sometimes I'll leave it for months and it'll be fine.
It's way too variable and my shooting is infrequent enough that I never quite narrowed it down enough, but one thing I did notice is that battery brand matters. A lot.
"tecxus" off ebay for a few bucks lasted about 5 minutes. Energizer lasted a bit more. Panasonic "Power Lithium" in black with gold stripes was crap. Panasonic in white was a whole lot better.

In the end, I got a good deal on a AA-grip (whatever model it is) and put Eneloops in it. They last for freakin ages with the upside that AAs are available everywhere.
The most obvious downside that I'm carrying a huge grip (and don't even use it the grip's shutter for portraits), worst case is someone mistakes it for a 1Dx and tries to nab it (although the joke will definitely be on them in that case).

Even with the eneloops in the grip, I've noticed one thing, the lens that's mounted makes a fairly big difference. With the Shorty McForty pancake the battery lifetime takes a nosedive, so much so that I pull the battery drawer out of it when I'm not using it.
It could be because I bought that lens on release and never updated the lens firmware (because I don't have a 1Dx/5D3 or later to do it) to fix the focus-locking problem, so it may be draining the battery at the same time.

Of course, there's the possibility that my 3 is also a bit duddy, but I went through a fair few rolls before I noticed battery life dying...
 
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RattyMouse

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StephenT said:
Did you test the batteries with a voltmeter? I have gotten a few duds that were brand new. Those 2CR5's may have been sitting around a long time.
Click to expand...

Yes, I went back to the store, which was actually a battery store, and so they had equipment to test the battery. They both put out 6 V. The camera just reads them as being 2/3rds depleted.
 
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RattyMouse

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I'm going to shoot another roll of film today. the weather is good and I havent shot for ages so this is a good excuse to get out.
 
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RattyMouse

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cooltouch said:
This is a timely thread for me since I'm thinking about buying a 1v. So, RattyMouse, be sure to keep us updated. Poisson du Jour's comments have got me to thinking that whoever I buy a 1v from, they'll have to offer a return policy.
Click to expand...

Well, I can say it's a wonderful camera. Mine is working perfectly, except for the battery gauge readout. Feels wonderful in hand, even with a heavy 85L on it.
 

StephenT

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I don't have any problem with my 1V's, but I use the AA grips on them. I have never had good luck with the 2CR5's for some reason in any camera.
 

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tomfrh said:
My 1v did this. My rebel 300x too. Sometimes the gauge said full, sometimes it would drop to the bottom 1/3 bar almost immediately.

its when it starts flashing I pay attention....
Click to expand...
Ditto on a 3000n. The LCD will drop to one bar, I turn the camera off and it's back up to three. The CR2 batteries are ok, it's the readout that's faulty. It may be the same with the 1v.
 
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