Canon LP-E6 Batteries - Green light charged - but won't turn cameras on

[skysimonephoto]

Hi everyone

I have 11 LP-E6 batteries

8 are genuine Canon

3 are third party

I have 5d3

2x 5d/2s

70d

2 of my genuine canon batteries are charging to the green light in genuine canon charger, but when I put these 2 batteries in any of the camera bodies, the cameras won't turn on

If the batteries are dead I will throw them away

I did try to clean the connector parts with alcohol, but it did not fix the problem

I have not found anyone in google with this problem. Both of the batteries trigger the green light on the chargers

Is there any test I can do to make sure the batteries are 100% dead?

I label my batteries with a label maker, so one of them I know is 2009 so 9 years old definately good value (I have been a full time self employed photographer for 11 years now)

the other battery is around 2015

If I have to throw them away where do I dispose of them?

Thanks

[TCampbell]

Oh wow... 9 years old!  I'd say you've probably extracted every cent of value you can out of that battery.

All batteries have a limited life & limited number of full charge cycles.  I typically think any Lithium battery should give you three good years, and if you get five years, you're doing well.  

9 years, on the other hand, means the batteries have cheated death and it's payback time.

Your 5D III does have a "Battery Info" menu.  In the menu system, it's the 3rd "Yellow Wrench" icon tab.

That page will show you the charge level on the battery (if you have a battery grip on the camera it will show you the status of each battery), as well as the "shutter count" (the number of shots taken using that battery since the last full charge).  

Lastly, it has the "recharge" performance.  A brand new battery would show three green boxes.  As the battery ages and doesn't accept a full charge anymore, it'll eventually start showing just 2 green boxes.   But at some point, it'll eventually start showing you 1 red box (no green boxes) and that means the battery can't hold much capacity anymore and you should consider replacing it.

[shadowsports]

And, in addition to TCampbells excellent recommendation... 

Electrical voltage can be measured with an ohms meter.  No need to guess or wonder. 

[ebiggs1]

"Electrical voltage can be measured with an ohms meter."

Unless the battery is loaded this won't tell you anything.

  I talked in length with a Dewalt tool engineer (I know this is a Canon forum)  in the battery division.  This is what he said and I suppose it apples to all lithium batteries.  Once the chemicals are mixed they start to deteriorate.  He also said all lithium batteries have a limited number of charge-discharge cycles in them.  Years may not be the best indicator.

Cleaning the contacts rarely to never helps as you have seen.

[wq9nsc]

as ebiggs stated it needs to be under load to be meaningful-especially when looking for specific faults such as interconnections between the cells which make up the battery.  A typical meter reading DC voltage will present a 10 megaohm load to the battery thus drawing around 0.000001 amps from your camera battery pack while initial start up surge draw from the camera is likely to be around 1 amp  (one million times the current draw of your test meter) so batteries with serious issues may appear OK without load and fail completely under normal operating load.

And if you are using a meter to test make sure it is set to the DC volts and not the ohms range.  Modern DMMs will generally just respond with an erroneous reading if attempting to measure voltage on the resistance or ohms scale but the older analog types can end up with a bent pointer, open coil, etc.when significant voltage is applied to the terminals when the meter is set to measure resistance.  

Rodger

[skysimonephoto]

So would most of you just suggest I throw away both of the batteries?

I have 2 different legit Canon chargers, and both of them go to green light on these batteries,

and all 4 camera bodies that take this battery are not turning on with it.

None of my bodies have trouble turning on with any batteries besides these 2

If the solution is to just dispose of them, what is correct procedure for this?

I'm an Australian living in Nashville

Back in Australia there were chains called "Battery World" and they would dispose of / recycle batteries of all kinds from watch batteries to car batteries.. - I believe they could also run 'is it dead' tests.. but I don't know of any such chains in America..

[wq9nsc]

Batteries Plus has retail locations in Nashville and they may take the batteries at no charge to recycle, you can contact one of the local stores and ask.  If not they probably can suggest the proper drop-off point in the area.  And thanks very much for having the courtesy to properly dispose of the old batteries!

Given your results it is pretty clear those batteries have reached their end of life.  Unless you can find a good recommendation for an aftermarket battery I would replace them with Canon batteries even though they are more expensive.  I was in a rush a couple of years ago and bought a pair of highly rated third party batteries from Amazon and although the price was right and they sort of worked when using my 1DM2 in the high frame rate mode these batteries would randomly but frequently create a camera error.  Replacing them with the real thing cured the problem.

Rodger

[RobertTheFat]

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@skysimonephotowrote:

So would most of you just suggest I throw away both of the batteries?

I have 2 different legit Canon chargers, and both of them go to green light on these batteries,

and all 4 camera bodies that take this battery are not turning on with it.

None of my bodies have trouble turning on with any batteries besides these 2

If the solution is to just dispose of them, what is correct procedure for this?

I'm an Australian living in Nashville

Back in Australia there were chains called "Battery World" and they would dispose of / recycle batteries of all kinds from watch batteries to car batteries.. - I believe they could also run 'is it dead' tests.. but I don't know of any such chains in America..

---

https://www.nashville.gov/Public-Works/Neighborhood-Services/Special-Hazardous-Waste/Electronic-Wast...

[Ray-uk]

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@shadowsports wrote:

Electrical voltage can be measured with an ohms meter.

---

No, voltage is measured with a voltmeter and measuring battery voltage without putting the battery under load tells you very little.

Resistance in Ohms is measured with an ohmmeter, and is not relevant to the OP's problem.

Batteries that have reached the end of their life will often show a green light on the charger, this light is only an indication from the charger that the battery has reached the full charging voltage and a dying battery will often show this very soon after putting it on charge, it is not an indication of the batteries capacity or quality.

[Tim]

Hello skysimonephoto, 

If you have found that the batteries are no longer functional, we recommend that you consider recycling it.  

For rechargeable battery recycling and disposal information, please call 1-800-8-BATTERY