topic Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Wed, 24 May 2017 15:04:04 GMT

This is a "heads up": For those who are not already familiar with this probelm, some 3rd party source LP-E17 batteries will not charge on the OEM battery charger (model LC-E17). When charging is attempted, the charging LED indicator on the LC-E17 charger wil blink YELLOW at a 1 seccond rate (typ). The blink rate will not speed up and turn orange after 1 hour of (attempted) charging, as it should. Also, the Basic Instruction Manual does not mention anything about getting a "yellow" charging indication on the LC-E17 - blinking or otherwise. Some narrative regarding the yellow LED indication, should probably be added to the "Getting Started - Charging The Battery" portion of the manual.

Special thanks to Canon Customer Support (800 number) for their help on this matter.

-Tom B.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

RobertTheFat — Wed, 24 May 2017 20:14:59 GMT

@tebrashear wrote:
This is a "heads up": For those who are not already familiar with this probelm, some 3rd party source LP-E17 batteries will not charge on the OEM battery charger (model LC-E17). When charging is attempted, the charging LED indicator on the LC-E17 charger wil blink YELLOW at a 1 seccond rate (typ). The blink rate will not speed up and turn orange after 1 hour of (attempted) charging, as it should. Also, the Basic Instruction Manual does not mention anything about getting a "yellow" charging indication on the LC-E17 - blinking or otherwise. Some narrative regarding the yellow LED indication, should probably be added to the "Getting Started - Charging The Battery" portion of the manual.

Special thanks to Canon Customer Support (800 number) for their help on this matter.

-Tom B.

Third-party batteries failing to charge on a Canon charger should not necessarily be a surprise. Nor is there any reason to assign Canon the responsibility for warning the user community that it might happen. As far as I'm aware, Canon doesn't represent that their chargers will work on any batteries other than their own.

Let's face it: Canon batteries tend to be expensive - maybe more expensive than they should be. But they almost always work. I've been using Canon gear for 14 years, and I can't remember ever having to throw a Canon battery away or having one fail during a shoot. Since nothing other than the camera and the lens is more mission-critical than the battery, there's a lot to be said for just avoiding the problem by using Canon batteries.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

kvbarkley — Wed, 24 May 2017 17:26:00 GMT

Canon Batteries are "chipped" much like ink cartridges.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

TCampbell — Wed, 24 May 2017 18:58:22 GMT

@kvbarkley wrote:
Canon Batteries are "chipped" much like ink cartridges.

Not quite like ink cartridges. The chips in ink cartridges are sometimes designed specifically to prevent the consumer from using 3rd party ink. Canon's batteries are chipped to track things like charge cycles and battery health.

All of my Canon battery chargers were happy to charge 3rd party batteries... but I found that over the years the third party batteriers -- though much cheaper -- also always seem to have shorter battery life and I had to replace them a lot sooner. I found I wasn't really saving any money by buying 3rd party batteries, Canon's were much battery at things like low-self-discharge and the number of charge cycles they could handle.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Wed, 24 May 2017 19:28:38 GMT

@kvbarkley wrote:
Canon Batteries are "chipped" much like ink cartridges.

I gathered as much. And I didn't mean to imply that Canon should be blamed for the failure of 3rd party products.

My last EOS was a Rebel XT (I am showing my age here) and only just now have I upgaded. I purchased a basic t6s bundle off of ebay, and then started filling out my camera kit with essentials - spare batteries, lens cleaning kit, etc. I figured 3rd party batteries would suffice... ...Boy was I wong! When I tried to charge one of the spare batteries I got the blinking yellow LED indication, but when I went back the Basic Instructions I found absolutely nothing that describes what a yellow LED indication signifies - neither in the instructions NOR on the internet. So, naturally, I called the 800 help desk whose rep promptly straigntened me out on the matter.

The point I was making was that there is no narrative anywhere describing what a yellow LED charger indication means. Google it and see if you can find anything on this topic - I couldn't.

I suspect that there are a lot of new customers going through exacly the same experience right now.

-Tom B.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

RobertTheFat — Wed, 24 May 2017 20:26:03 GMT

@tebrashear wrote:
@kvbarkley wrote:
Canon Batteries are "chipped" much like ink cartridges.
I gathered as much. And I didn't mean to imply that Canon should be blamed for the failure of 3rd party products.

My last EOS was a Rebel XT (I am showing my age here) and only just now have I upgaded. I purchased a basic t6s bundle off of ebay, and then started filling out my camera kit with essentials - spare batteries, lens cleaning kit, etc. I figured 3rd party batteries would suffice... ...Boy was I wong! When I tried to charge one of the spare batteries I got the blinking yellow LED indication, but when I went back the Basic Instructions I found absolutely nothing that describes what a yellow LED indication signifies - neither in the instructions NOR on the internet. So, naturally, I called the 800 help desk whose rep promptly straigntened me out on the matter.

The point I was making was that there is no narrative anywhere describing what a yellow LED charger indication means. Google it and see if you can find anything on this topic - I couldn't.

I suspect that there are a lot of new customers going through exacly the same experience right now.

-Tom B.

On most Canon chargers a blinking yellow LED just means that it's charging. The number of times that it blinks in a sequence tells you how close the battery is to being charged. When charging is complete, the LED glows solid green. Is it possible that that was what you were seeing?

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Wed, 24 May 2017 21:14:13 GMT

Yes. That is exactly what the help desk told me. But the basic Instruction Manual and website articles refer only to orange and green LED indications for the LC-E17 charger, and make no mention of a yellow LED indication - blinking or otherwise. You have to get that information from the 800 help desk - what help desks are for, I suppose.

The 3rd party battery that I purchased was blinking yellow at roughly a 1 second rate, but the rate never changed. It just kept right on blinking every second because it was not taking on a charge, even though the charger indicated that it was charging.

You can waste a lot of time waiting to charge a battery that won't charge.

-Tom B.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

RobertTheFat — Thu, 25 May 2017 01:59:06 GMT

@tebrashear wrote:
Yes. That is exactly what the help desk told me. But the basic Instruction Manual and website articles refer only to orange and green LED indications for the LC-E17 charger, and make no mention of a yellow LED indication - blinking or otherwise. You have to get that information from the 800 help desk - what help desks are for, I suppose.

The 3rd party battery that I purchased was blinking yellow at roughly a 1 second rate, but the rate never changed. It just kept right on blinking every second because it was not taking on a charge, even though the charger indicated that it was charging.

You can waste a lot of time waiting to charge a battery that won't charge.

-Tom B.

OK, that's news to me too; I didn't realize there's a third color. I guess I've never encountered a 3rd-party battery that wouldn't charge. The extra 3rd-party batteries that B&H includes in their bundles have always charged up for me without incident.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Thu, 25 May 2017 12:44:03 GMT

@RobertTheFat wrote:

OK, that's news to me too; I didn't realize there's a third color. I guess I've never encountered a 3rd-party battery that wouldn't charge. The extra 3rd-party batteries that B&H includes in their bundles have always charged up for me without incident.

This all started yesterday, so I'm still researching it. I gathered from the other comments, including yours, that most 3rd party batteries DO actually work, even when they are "chipless", but the one I pruchased for my camera kit didn't work at all. As far as I can tell it could be an empty square piece of black plastic containing no dielectric, with labeling and gold plated electrical contacts glued on. Then again, the battery might be perfectly legit, but requires a 3rd party charger. I will update this thread when I find out.

-Tom B

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

johnnyspoke — Thu, 25 May 2017 18:26:38 GMT

Maybe there is a typo somewhere here, but the T6 uses the LC-E10 charger and LP-E10 battery. If you're trying to use a different battery/charger combo, it's probably not going to work right.

Did you mean the T6i/s, which does use the E17 battery/charger series?

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

kvbarkley — Thu, 25 May 2017 18:29:04 GMT

" I purchased a basic t6s bundle off of ebay"

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

johnnyspoke — Thu, 25 May 2017 18:33:12 GMT

Ah, missed that, paid too much attention to the thread title.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Thu, 25 May 2017 20:15:41 GMT

@johnnyspoke wrote:
Maybe there is a typo somewhere here, but the T6 uses the LC-E10 charger and LP-E10 battery. If you're trying to use a different battery/charger combo, it's probably not going to work right.

Did you mean the T6i/s, which does use the E17 battery/charger series?

My bad. I was abbreviating "t6s" to "t6" in the thread title and top comment, assuming that all t6 series cameras used the same battery/charger. Thanx for correcting.. -Tom B.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

tebrashear — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 13:49:32 GMT

After going over reviews of various 3rd party LC-E17 battery packs I decided it would be better to get a spare OEM (Canon) battery pack despite the cost. Here is what I found.

There are quite a few 3rd party battery packs available (BM, Wasabi, Floureon, OAproda, to name a few) which appear to be popular due to their low cost. Here's the catch. The Canon LC-E17 battery charger will not recognize most, if not all, of these 3rd party battery packs without the OEM chip which, I am guessing, is proprietary. Consequently if you want to use a 3rd party battery, you have to purchase the 3rd party charger that goes with it. This why the 3rd party batteries are typically sold in pairs, bundled with their corresponding charger. The average retail price of these bundles (2 bateries + charger) is still significantly less than the single OEM battery - roughly half the cost - which, again, is why they are so popular. Another catch is that there are no guarantees that the 3rd party battery will be completely compatible with the Canon EOS camera. Problems often reported are that the EOS camera will not indicate charge level when using 3rd party batteries, QA issues with a few of the 3rd party battery chargers, and the 3rd party batteries themselves do not last as long. Listings of 3rd party batteries often contain disclaimers to this effect.

So, basically, the decision whether to buy 3rd party vs OEM will depend on how important reliability/aggravation factors are to the photographer. I chose the later - OEM.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

RobertTheFat — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 22:23:05 GMT

@tebrashear wrote:
After going over reviews of various 3rd party LC-E17 battery packs I decided it would be better to get a spare OEM (Canon) battery pack despite the cost. Here is what I found.

There are quite a few 3rd party battery packs available (BM, Wasabi, Floureon, OAproda, to name a few) which appear to be popular due to their low cost. Here's the catch. The Canon LC-E17 battery charger will not recognize most, if not all, of these 3rd party battery packs without the OEM chip which, I am guessing, is proprietary. Consequently if you want to use a 3rd party battery, you have to purchase the 3rd party charger that goes with it. This why the 3rd party batteries are typically sold in pairs, bundled with their corresponding charger. The average retail price of these bundles (2 bateries + charger) is still significantly less than the single OEM battery - roughly half the cost - which, again, is why they are so popular. Another catch is that there are no guarantees that the 3rd party battery will be completely compatible with the Canon EOS camera. Problems often reported are that the EOS camera will not indicate charge level when using 3rd party batteries, QA issues with a few of the 3rd party battery chargers, and the 3rd party batteries themselves do not last as long. Listings of 3rd party batteries often contain disclaimers to this effect.

So, basically, the decision whether to buy 3rd party vs OEM will depend on how important reliability/aggravation factors are to the photographer. I chose the later - OEM.

And I think you made the correct choice. To me, the decision criterion is pretty simple: If the photography you do is such that you will be acutely embarrassed or suffer financial loss if you don't get the results you need, then you should not use a 3rd-party battery unless you have carefully tested it beforehand and are certain that it can do the job for you. And if, as in your case, the aggravation of having to use non-standard chargers impedes your effectiveness, than don't put yourself through it.

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

kearndog — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 01:37:29 GMT

From my experience using just the Canon batteries and the Canon charger, I am running into the same issues of the products not performing. I get the yellow blinking light that is not described in the manual when trying to recharge a Canon battery, and Canon batteries do not last long ... no way of telling if it is the Canon battery or the Canon recharger.

Dave

Re: Canon t6: Third Party Source Battery Will Not Charge

shadowsports — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 14:01:20 GMT

I use Canon and Watson (3rd party). Both work great with my Canon chargers and body's. No charging, power, or detection issues. The Watson's last just as long as the Canon's in general. Doesn't hurt to buy Canon, but I have a few of each and have zero issues. How did I get introduced to Watson?... I can thank B&H. Everyone has their own story, beliefs and experience. Mine have been positive.