Loading Accus in Battery Grip on R or R5

[Gerhard56]

Hi,

I bought an EOS R with battery grip. I found out so far, that I only can charge the accus inside the grip using the AC adapter which was sold with the grip. No other adapter / laptop / powerbank works. This isn't really helpful.

My son bought an EOS R5 and the battery grip. There was no AC adapter included with the grip and he found out so far, that only the Apple adapter from his girfriends iPhone works. This is also not really practicable.

How can we charge our cameras / battery grips from some unspecific USB source like Wall adapters, Powerbanks, Laptops (we use HP & Asus)?

I will buy a R5 or R3 soon, and there is a need to solve this issue in advance.

With best regards

Gerhard

[Gerhard56]

Hi Mike,
bad news.
We bought a new laptop (13") we use for travelling about a year ago. This laptop has this USB-C sockets, two of them and the AC adapter of this laptop is connected to one of this sockets. So the AC adapter has a USB-C plug and the AC adapter is rated for 65W.
BUT: When I connect my EOS R with battery grip using the battery grips USB-C socket nothing happens.
Why? Did I need a Canon AC adapter? Thats pretty useless. The idea behind USB in general and USB-C is to use SOME AC adapter or car adapter to load ANY USB-C device.
Maybe there is lot more to investigate for now.

I only know, that my son has to use the AC adapter from his girlfriends iPhone to load his R5 with battery grip. There was NO AC adapter included when he buy the battery grip.
I am a Canon fan since 1975 (Canon AE1), but this isn't really Canon style.

With best regards

Gerhard

[MikeSowsun]

The LP-E6N and the LPE-6NH are high capacity batteries that need high voltage and capacity to charge. I originally thought it would be impossible to charge a 7.2V battery with a 5V USB circuit. 

I am not sure what "magic" is used but I suspect your problem may still be one of the items covered in that video I linked to.

[wq9nsc]

I haven't looked at the circuit in the camera but they could either be using a DC to DC inverter to step up the 5V from the USB port to a higher voltage, in that case the current draw is substantially greater than that needed to charge the pack since the wattage on the input side of the inverter chip will be at least 10% greater than the wattage on the output side to provide for the charging current/voltage requirement and to account for the less than 100% efficiency of the inverter.

Another possibility is the LP-E6 series allows split charger where the two 3.6 volt internal cells in the battery are charged in a controlled parallel instead of serial mode so required charging voltage is 1/2 of normal.

I experienced a problem with a brand new LP-E6NH battery which is going back to Adorama today for exchange.  The LP-E6 design is not something I like, the scheme is a bit too clever leading to reduced reliability.  Canon issued a customer service note to get around one of the problems for the LP-E6 battery not charging but the basic design will never yield the reliability of the simpler pack designs used in their 1 series and in many other bodies.  Canon does best when it stays away from gimmicks and produces high performance cameras which is what they had done for years.  I am afraid that Sony competition is falsely driving them into "feature creep" at the cost of solid functionality.

Rodger

[Gerhard56]

Hi,
you can charge a high capacity battery from a weak source, it takes more time, so what? I think, a half charged battery set is better than an empty set and cause a highly sofisticated charger decides to not charge the battery cause it will took longer than normal ...
'Feature Creeping' is a really bad thing, and behaving like cancer in our days ..

With best regards

Gerhard

[wq9nsc1]

I agree you could charge the battery from a source that cannot provide as much current as desired but the voltage level has to be high enough so they are doing some magic with USB or the battery pack to charge a 7.2 volt pack starting from a 5 volt USB source.

But the problem is the emphasis is on "smart charging" technology now which means different things to different companies.  The bottom line is it is more complex and the charging circuit itself is very particular about its own power source in terms of voltage AND current capability so it may not function at all with an insufficient source.

This is common across product classes.  For example, modern vehicles have a pretty amazing array of driver assist features providing enhanced stability and traction control during inclement weather or during emergency or ill-considered maneuvers.  But these systems depend upon the engine and transmission responding instantly and exactly as commanded by the assist system routines and if there are even minor issues with the powertrain then these safety assist systems are instantly disabled.  It makes sense that they depend upon the powertrain responding exactly as commanded BUT it means the safety assist features may not be available at the time they are most needed.  This is one of the issues of increasingly complex systems which create additional failure modes, often arising from difficult to foresee higher order interaction effects.  I spent a lot of years doing quality and risk consulting and adding product complexity, often through feature creep, exponentially increases the problem of maintaining quality and a low rate of aberrant behavior and/or outright failure.

And on edit:  a new browser on my laptop grabbed older password files from my former browser so this was posted using my original Canon forum credentials.

Rodger

[Gerhard56]

Hi Rodger,
there is no 'magic'. With a switching power supply, and all power supplies today were of that kind, you can step up or step down the output voltage relative to the input voltage. And you can do it both ways with the same circuit. No magic, just good firmware to work well in most of the circumstances.

I will test some cables and adapters will see if there is a combination which is working. My original idee was, to have everything on USB and if somthing is lost (by accident or malfunction) I can get simple spare parts cause you will find some mobile phone shop virtually everywhere but I will be hard or no chance to get the only very special Canon part in time ..

With best regards

Gerhard