Third party batteries- anything to avoid?

[Jez O]

Looking to get some spare batteries for my Canon 550D. Is there anything specific to avoid or are all the third party ones much of a muchness? Seems pointless paying £28 for a Canon one when I can get two non-Canon ones for that.

Any comments appreciated.

[Ireland]

I got some cheapie ones as part of a battery grip for my 550D and they work fine pretty much all of the time.

They were only a fraction of the cost of Canon ones.

The only downside is they do seem to lose their charge suddenly and without warning so I always make sure the original battery is charged and that I have it with me.

I haven't figured out yet if it's a case they loose the charge suddenly or if the camera battery meter just can't read them properly.

[markmullen]

I use 7dayshop NP-E3s which are £14 or so each instead of the £100 plus from Canon, they seem to work just as well.

[FaineantFreddy]

Most high end electronic equipment these days uses Lithium Ion cells of some sort.

They are very efficient and give excellent capacity for their size and weight.

A Lithium Polymer cell is usually 3.7V, so you need more than one of them to power something like a camera, which needs at least 5V. That's where the problem lies.

If you need to connect more than 1 lithium cell together to produce a higher voltage, it's very important that all the cells are 'matched' so their electrical characteristics are the same, otherwise each cell can charge and discharge at a different rate and that shortens the life of the pack and can cause all sorts of issues with the charging, unless an intelligent method of balance charging is used.

In the factory in China, your Canon branded battery packs are made up of cells selected so their characteristics match as closely as possible, so you'll get maximum battery life and recharge cycles.

Your no-name battery pack may or may not be assembled using matched cells. You won't know and the factory won't know if the pack will last 10 charge cycles, 100 or 1000.

You pays your money and you takes your choice...

[LongQ]

I have some 7DS batteries for various Canon cameras and they seem to perform just as well as the originals - perhaps better.

Recently got a 7DS compatible for my 1D3 which works well but seem to report slightly inaccurate info to the camera. (It's a chipped intelligent battery system on the 1D3).

Third full charge today and a check insertion had the camera telling me it could not communicate with the battery but everything worked OK. I stuck it back on the harger for a couple of minutes and tried again and all is now well. I'll live with that, if it recurs, at £12 compared to over £130 for a Canon spare and around £65 for a 'branded' alternative for which I have had 2 fail. Fortunately both were under warranty, one being brand new straight out of the packaging.

There are no certainties of course but the price differential suggests that the 4th party options make some sense.

[ian in lancs]

FaineantFreddy said:

Most high end electronic equipment these days uses Lithium Ion cells of some sort.

They are very efficient and give excellent capacity for their size and weight.

A Lithium Polymer cell is usually 3.7V, so you need more than one of them to power something like a camera, which needs at least 5V. That's where the problem lies.

If you need to connect more than 1 lithium cell together to produce a higher voltage, it's very important that all the cells are 'matched' so their electrical characteristics are the same, otherwise each cell can charge and discharge at a different rate and that shortens the life of the pack and can cause all sorts of issues with the charging, unless an intelligent method of balance charging is used.

In the factory in China, your Canon branded battery packs are made up of cells selected so their characteristics match as closely as possible, so you'll get maximum battery life and recharge cycles.

Your no-name battery pack may or may not be assembled using matched cells. You won't know and the factory won't know if the pack will last 10 charge cycles, 100 or 1000.

You pays your money and you takes your choice...

Or you can believe the assumptions people make about manufacturing, quality control and bs oe manufacturers send out. Chinese factories are far more capable than they get credit for. If the copy factory isn't the oe factory then to all intense and purposes it's likely to be a carbon copy and considering the investment required and the consequences of getting it wrong culturally and financially my view would be that within normal manufacturing variability the only significant difference is the branding and profit margin.

Further, jessops, Hama, ever ready et al do own brand batteries priced just less than oe. Where do you think they come from?

I have used a mix of Nikon oe and copies for years and never had a problem. Oe costs £50 copies a quarter of that thus I can power the camera longer for. The same outlay. So what if they were to run out of charge at 80% of oe iq still get 320% power for the oe outlay. In fact, I can tell no difference.

As you say pay money, take choice.

[ian in lancs]

I would also add I've used cloned battery grips on D300, D300s, D700 also for years. All I said above applies.

[Podie]

I bought cheap ones from 7dayshop... they outperform the Canon ones and were 25% of the price.

[Simpo Two]

Ireland said:

The only downside is they do seem to lose their charge suddenly and without warning so I always make sure the original battery is charged and that I have it with me.

I haven't figured out yet if it's a case they loose the charge suddenly or if the camera battery meter just can't read them properly.

There was an issue with generics and D200s whereby the battery wasn't properly compatible with the 'charge meter' in the camera (no doubt added by Nikon to make you buy Nikon batteries). So the battery was fully charged but the camera couldn't see it. However I think the copyists quickly caught up.

[Gemm]

Another thumbs up for 7dayshop batteries.

[FaineantFreddy]

ian in lancs said:

Or you can believe the assumptions people make about manufacturing, quality control and bs oe manufacturers send out. Chinese factories are far more capable than they get credit for. If the copy factory isn't the oe factory then to all intense and purposes it's likely to be a carbon copy and considering the investment required and the consequences of getting it wrong culturally and financially my view would be that within normal manufacturing variability the only significant difference is the branding and profit margin.

Further, jessops, Hama, ever ready et al do own brand batteries priced just less than oe. Where do you think they come from?

I have used a mix of Nikon oe and copies for years and never had a problem. Oe costs £50 copies a quarter of that thus I can power the camera longer for. The same outlay. So what if they were to run out of charge at 80% of oe iq still get 320% power for the oe outlay. In fact, I can tell no difference.

As you say pay money, take choice.

It matters not to me whether you buy branded or copy battery packs. Like all electrical goods these days, you'll always get it cheaper somewhere.

Certainly, a branded product is always going to be more expensive. However, some of that markup pays for quality control, which is one area the Chinese still have problems with. A big proportion of Li-Pol battery packs, branded or non-brand, are now made in China as you rightly say, but if you don't know who the factory is, you don't know what quality control is in place and I can assure you it is very unusual for the cheap stuff to be shipped out of the same factory as the branded stuff, or if it is it won't have been subject to the same QA as the branded products.

There are a lot of myths circulating about Chinese manufacturing so I'm just letting you know about one of the pitfalls of buying cheap Li-Pol battery packs. Unless the cells in the pack are selected and tested properly, there is a chance the lifetime will be shorter than a pack where the proper QA has been done. That's just a fact.

I buy OEM battery packs myself for some non-critical consumer equipment I own, but I wouldn't trust them in a professional situation where I need to know my gear is going to work the same way every time with no nasty surprises. In my work I use a lot of Li-Pol battery packs and build packs for specialised applications, so I do know a little about this.

It's just like saying you can get away with buying cheap memory cards off ebay. Most of the time they'll work OK but sometimes they won't. If you're not bothered about consistency and reliability then don't bother paying the extra.

[ian in lancs]

FaineantFreddy said:

quality control, which is one area the Chinese still have problems with

That's quite a sweeping statement. Having been there I and colleagues were stunned with the advances they are making and it is only a matter of time before the West is seriously overtaken. Did you know Chinese Universities turn out 400,000 engineers annually? The Chinese intellectual top 5% numbers more than the entire population of UK, France or Germany etc etc. Incidentally, the figures are similar for India.

FaineantFreddy said:

if you don't know who the factory is, you don't know what quality control is in place

quite! The Chinese Engineers are good, very very good. All they lack is experience - less important in leading edge stuff. They also have ways of targeting and getting the gaps filled.

FaineantFreddy said:

don't know what quality control is in place

quite! As above.

FaineantFreddy said:

it won't have been subject to the same QA as the branded products

Do you honestly think they'll invest is a parallel lower quality process and proceedures that'll ultimately cost more and undermine their growth intent?

FaineantFreddy said:

There are a lot of myths circulating about Chinese manufacturing

I rest my case.

Beware underestimating the Chinese capability now and in the future.

Edited by ian in lancs on Saturday 13th August 19:20

[LongQ]

A few years ago my elder daughter graduated from Cardiff University with a decent degree from thier respected Business School. We popped along for the awards ceremony.

I reckon that about half the degrees awarded, and most of the top grade awards, were to Chinese students from abroad (as opposed to British based students of Chinese origin.) Many were unable to attend as they were already back home and, presumably, working.

My younger daughter graduated a year later from Manchester - a totally different degree course and the ceremony was shared with a ragbag of other departments. Once again there were many Chinese students getting their degrees.

A friend of mine is a Scinece Professor and has, through his department and other academic connections, links to China. He is certainly not dismissive of the potential available. Indeed compared with UK students the Chinese students, or at least who arrive intending to study, arrive better equipped for the courses run by his department than do the UK intake.

The suitutation is not cut and dried - the early failure rate for ordinary size rechargeable batteries seems poor for example - but I doubt that the problems will persist for long from a technical perspective.

Price gouging is, however, a different matter.

[mrmr96]

Gemm said:

Another thumbs up for 7dayshop batteries.

Same here, I use 7dayshop.com batteries in my P&S and DSLR. Seem to perform better than the Canon originals (albeit the Canon ones are a bit old.)

The way I see it is that even if they only last 50% as long as an OEM one (they don't they really last 110-120%) but even if it was only 50%, then the fact that they cost 25% means they are still 2x the value! But like I said, they are at least comparable in my experience and I wouldn't hesitate to buy again or reccomend them to anyone.

[ian in lancs]

LongQ said:

Price gouging is, however, a different matter.

Agree with the other stuff you said. My and my wife's graduations, 4 in all were well attended by Chinese and Indian, Pakistani's. In fact on my elec engineering course the library was full of them, the pubs full of UK students. Go figure.

Anway, re your last point. They can do it at the moment due to over supply of workers and low cost of living. As the economy grows the desire for the goods, homes, cars, appliances, technology and gadgets will grow pushing up cost of living and salary demands. Then they will be in the same mess we are and the next emergent economy will kick in. I sweeping genralisation the UK, were overtaken by the US, the US by Japan, Japan by Korea, Korea by China & India. They in turn probably Middle East economies. China used to be a byword for cheap rubbish and toys. Not anymore. IIRC the IPad is made there.

[LongQ]

ian in lancs said:

LongQ said:

Price gouging is, however, a different matter.

Agree with the other stuff you said. My and my wife's graduations, 4 in all were well attended by Chinese and Indian, Pakistani's. In fact on my elec engineering course the library was full of them, the pubs full of UK students. Go figure.

Anway, re your last point. They can do it at the moment due to over supply of workers and low cost of living. As the economy grows the desire for the goods, homes, cars, appliances, technology and gadgets will grow pushing up cost of living and salary demands. Then they will be in the same mess we are and the next emergent economy will kick in. I sweeping genralisation the UK, were overtaken by the US, the US by Japan, Japan by Korea, Korea by China & India. They in turn probably Middle East economies. China used to be a byword for cheap rubbish and toys. Not anymore. IIRC the IPad is made there.

A lot of day to day stuff is made there and if not entirely made there many of the components are.

I think you are right about cyclical economic dominance although quite where or when the Middle eastern economies will rise to the fore, other than through oil monopolies, is not so obvious.
I don't think they will get the oil m and gas monopolies. I think the Chinese will take control of those markets for the foreseeable future.

The thing is that the Chinese economy and engineering prowess, though not perfect by any means, can adapt quickly as required when it chooses to. In 20 years or so it may well start to struggle with 'western disease' but somehow I doubt it. The ingrained social attitudes are very different and I suspect it would take many decades for them to be measurably eroded in a way that starts to create a downfall of influence. It may never happen.

It's interesting that my 'cheap' purchases for both batteries and memory cards have, to date, outperformed or equalled the 'recognised' names or OEM products. Whereas a coupdl of mid-priced options, one for batteries and the other for a memory card, both purporting to be US controlled brands although I suspect that is purely coincidental, have failed.

Maybe I have been lucky (or unlucky depending on which way you are viewing it) but I'll take a gamble on cheap batteries and have plenty of spares around and not be too worried about one suddenly shutting down with little or no warning.

Memory cards are a different matter and there may be performance issues to address in extreme situations. But so far the cheapies have compared well with the expensive stuff over all. Mid price has been, in one notable instance, a different matter with poor results. However the item has recently been exchanged under warranty and the replacement seems to be working well so far.

The thing is though that at about 1/10 to 1/12th of the price of the OEM items (at last as far as batteries are concerned) and by being cautious about items until they have proven themselves it's very difficult to find fault with the lower cost investments.

[ian in lancs]

LongQ said:

I think you are right about cyclical economic dominance although quite where or when the Middle eastern economies will rise to the fore, other than through oil monopolies, is not so obvious

Look closer! They have used oil revenues to provide an educational infrastructure and are planning employment through industrialisation etc to diversify and provide economic growth as the oil runs out.

[LongQ]

ian in lancs said:

LongQ said:

I think you are right about cyclical economic dominance although quite where or when the Middle eastern economies will rise to the fore, other than through oil monopolies, is not so obvious

Look closer! They have used oil revenues to provide an educational infrastructure and are planning employment through industrialisation etc to diversify and provide economic growth as the oil runs out.

True and they have been investing in 'the west' for some decades too as a stepping stone away from frittering oil income away.

However they lack, afaik, the supply of raw materials (other than oil) that China, in particular, has and seeks to extend through influence in Africa and South America. Likewise easy access to supplies from Australia although one could argue that shipping from Oz to the Far East or the Middle East is much the same journey.

On that basis I can see them shifting their focus but not having the critical mass to compete outright with China/India in that respect. Possibly they could swap oil for sunlight for energy dominance but many manufacturing processes require large volumes of water and to obtain that in the middle east would be a technical challenge of unknown and unpredictable outcome unless it was sourced from sea water.

No doubt they will have some success in that area too but would it be enough to make them leaders of industry?

The easier route, in time honoured fashion, would be to move on or expand and occupy areas that offered ready solutions to such problems. Hence buying businesses around the world as a foot in the door. All they need to ensure is that they don't also take on the debt or any of the historical social commitments.

But we digress.

Would a battery from the Middle East be better than a battery from the Far East?

I doubt that I will be around and active long enough for this to be an important question to have to grapple with.

[FaineantFreddy]

I am not saying the Chinese don't have the intellect, skills and capabilities to produce good quality goods.

After all, as you have pointed out, they learnt a lot of it from attending schools and Universities in the West and if you look at the label on your high-end electronic gizmo, there's a very high probability it will have been made in China.

However, they are not good at managing an end-to-end manufacturing process. They can do the middle bit quite well, which consists of lots of lowly paid workers making and assembling various things in a multitude of small 'factories', but they are not good at the innovation and design part and they are woeful at the quality control and marketing part.

Show me a well designed, good quality, reliable product made in China and I will show you the Western involvement in getting it made.

That's why unbranded goods from China are a gamble. You can't trace them back to the source and you can't establish whether they have been manufactured in the right way, using the right parts and tested properly to make sure they don't fail the first time they are used.

If you have bought unbranded batteries and they work for you, then great! I'm not saying don't buy them, I'm just trying to explain there is a risk associated with buying unbranded goods made in China, especially something like a battery pack, which could let you down just when you've framed that prize-winning picture and are about to press the shutter release...

[LongQ]

FaineantFreddy said:

If you have bought unbranded batteries and they work for you, then great! I'm not saying don't buy them, I'm just trying to explain there is a risk associated with buying unbranded goods made in China, especially something like a battery pack, which could let you down just when you've framed that prize-winning picture and are about to press the shutter release...

True enough but strangely the only times I have come close to this situation were with branded, albeit not OEM, products that were made in China. Both times, one battery and one CF card, the products were from respected US brands and purchased through a proper retail channel.

The problem with the CF card was the more worrying since it seemed to fail, when if failed, when nearly full. The last failure almost took the entire set of images with it. All previous failures had been 100% recovered, the last one left two or three files trashed. Fortunately they were of no significance at all!

Speaking purely personally I very much doubt that any battery failure I could experience would be likely to be an enormous tragedy.