Dead EN-EL15 battery - can it be bought back to life?

spraynpray

Hi All,

Just preparing for a trip and found the newest of my batteries will not charge. It has gone from great condition to dead with no warning. The in-camera battery condition indicator said 100% fine recently. I tried recharging it on different chargers multiple times and it just gives on flashing bar and no controls work.

Does anybody know of any fiendish methods to bump-start it?

TIA.

KnockKnock

Smack it around, table/floor/hammer? :-P

Pistnbroke

If its new an Nikon send it back ..unfortunately its not just a battery there is electronics in there to stop the batteries over discharging and if this fails its asta la vista.

PB_PM

Defibrillator is your best bet. Good luck.

On a serious note, I suspect it is very much dead, to you anyway. Most likely a poor soldering job on the wires connecting the batteries to the terminals. Anyway, hopefully whatever is wrong with it is covered by the manufacture warranty, otherwise you are out a battery.

Pistnbroke

If you look at a lithium iron cell you will see a ring about 2mm from the positive end . That last 2mm conceals electronics to detect over charge, over discharge etc and if this fails it leaves the cell "open circuit " You can prise off this 2mm disc (but not for this application) and use the battery in non critical applications with the correct charger.
If you are buying 18650 batteries always look for the specified weight ...the junk ones are about 34g and the good ones about 56g

spraynpray

Ok chaps, thanks. It is out of warranty so I will have to replace. I don't over discharge my batts and I don't see how the nikon charger can over charge it. Please educate me so I don't do it again.

I was perplexed why the newest of my batts (2014) died first and why it showed perfect health on the camera then just pegged out. Makes me think they could all just give up without warning.

Pistnbroke

It does not have cells like AA Duracells ..each cell has a lump of electronics on the end and when this fails its goodbye time .You can do nothing but buy another and carry a spare.

PB_PM

spraynpray said:

Ok chaps, thanks. It is out of warranty so I will have to replace. I don't over discharge my batts and I don't see how the nikon charger can over charge it. Please educate me so I don't do it again.



I was perplexed why the newest of my batts (2014) died first and why it showed perfect health on the camera then just pegged out. Makes me think they could all just give up without warning.

Figures. Did you check to see if the battery was on one of the recalls? I know there were a few for EN-EL15s from around that time.

I've never had genuine Nikon battery die on me, thankfully. I have a stack of EN-EL3e's dating back to the late 2000's that still all hold a charge, although not as well as they once did. The EN-EL15s don't seem to be as well made, or hold a charge as well in my experience.

EricBowles

You mentioned a date for the problem battery - 2014. Is that the manufacturing date on the battery or when you bought the camera using that battery? Some of the EN-EL15 batteries from 2013 were marked Li-ion01. They had short life and some performance issues. Some earlier batteries are still fine, but there was a change in late 2012 or 2013 that led to some recalls. The newer batteries - marked Li-ion20 - were generally fine. If you are having a problem with one of those batteries its just time to replace it.

Battery life cycles depend a lot on how it was used. If you let the battery run down low before recharging, you get a lot fewer charge cycles over it's life. It's better to recharge more - around 40% remaining or even after every shoot.

spraynpray

That's all good to know. I'll talk to Nikon about it when I get home. It is the battery out of my D750 marked 2014. My other two are 2011 and 2012 and are fine so maybe Nikon will do summat for me.

Thanks guys.

PB_PM

You can look it up online and save yourself the trouble of sitting on the phone with Nikon for who knows how long.

Parke1953

spraynpray check the 9th character on the back of your battery.

If the 9th character of the lot number is E or F, your battery is among those being recalled.
If the 9th character of the lot number is any other letter, your battery is not affected by this recall.

From the Nikon website.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/service-and-support/service-advisories/h0ndzaip/en-el15-battery-recall-service-advisory.html

spraynpray

Thanks Parke1953. The 9th character is an 'N' so looks like I am just going to have to bin it.

Parke1953

well we tried.

Kenlee

There is not much you can do.

spraynpray

No, I have accepted it is dead. Thanks all.