Nikon D80 Battery Problem

[Durgan]

Nikon D80 with three batteries, Two are Nikon and one is third party. One Nikon battery works just fine. One Nikon and the third party indicates low battery when installed without a lens attached. The camera is about six months old, and it has worked fine, and I changed to the various batteries as required. I used the camera daily for about an average of 25 shots.

I have a D70, and all three batteries work just fine.

I tried another Nikon battery in a Photo store and it worked just fine.

I looked at the Nikon Forum and there are many reports of low battery indication, when the battery is fully charged. Some blame it on the attached lens, but I have eliminated this variable, by installing the battery without a lens attached.

I took a battery pack apart. There are two batteries in series with a marked capacity of 1400 mah, yet the report on the outer cover is 1500maH. Clearly misleading, and cheating advertising. There is a circuit board with several chips, so the sensing takes place on the battery pack. This is why some battery packs work and others do not. It is also a good case for using original Nikon battery packs, since no doubt the circuit has been copied by third party suppliers, since I am sure Nikon would not make the board available.

It is time Nikon stepped up to the plate, and addressed this issue.

Henry Camera salesman never heard of the problem (unbelievable), another Camera Store wanted me to send the Camera to Nikon, since they had encountered the problem, but after reading the Nikon Forum this is similar to throwing dice in a crap game, hoping for a 7or 11 on the first roll.

Logically determining the cause and cure certainly eludes me.

Additional: The Henry Camera salesman, at first blamed the third party battery, until I pulled out the Nikon battery. Then he suggested a new battery, and dug out a third party battery for $79.00, which is available on the internet for less than $20.00. I told him to suck water. I suspect the two cells in the battery pack are all made by some third party manufacturer, as probably is the plastic case. I have observed that the three camera stores that I frequent all sell third party batteries at the price of the Nikon battery. This is obviously a rip-off. ( Two Henry and one a Private Store).
Durgan

[RP Racing]

Could be a contact in the battery well needs cleaning. Could be the camera itself doesnt like the two batteries.

[Durgan]

Could be a contact in the battery well needs cleaning. Could be the camera itself doesnt like the two batteries.

You must be a woman or a salesman, since the logic used by your comment is illogical, or you didn't read my post.

What the hell do contacts have to do if one battery works and two do not?
What is this inane statement mean? "Could be the camera doesn't like the two batteries."

Cleaning contacts certainly does more damage than leaving them alone. The pressure point on the contacts scratch the battery surface, everytime the battery is inserted. There is a fair amount of pressure to insure an adequate electrical connection.

The problem with the D80 battery problem is clearly the chip on the battery packs, in my particular case for sure. I suggest Nikon has a PR Problem and is tending to ignore the issue, since replacing a million or more battery chips is a major expense, and not evrybody has the problem, so they will ignore the issue as long as possible, unless somebody starts a class action suit.

There may also be a problem with the internal camera computer in some cases with sensing the information from the battery chip.

It is time Nikon stepped up to the plate and addressed this intermittent low battery indicator problem.

[Grandpaw]

This is a very good forum with lots of people that are knowledgeable and willing to help out any way they can but I will have to say from you response to the first reply I would not expect to get many other members jumping in to respond to your post, Jeff

[Frog]

quote: "You must be a woman or a salesman, since the logic used by your comment is illogical, or you didn't read my post."

You must be a young male chauvenisor lawyer looking for people to sue. This forum is for people to share ideas and thoughts. Nobody is always right and nobody is always wrong.
The problem has beend discussed before and since you seem to know so much about it, I'd suggest you contact Nikon.
Did you get your batteries from a usa dealer? Lots of forgeries out there.

[deckcadet]

First:
Disassembling the battery packs should not be performed. You can kiss any chance of them being replaced goodbye.

Second: I don't see anywhere that you've contacted Nikon service and sent in your camera, which is the best course of action with any electrical issue. Nikon can't step up to the plate and do anything for you if you don't let them have a look at your camera. It's important to remember that even if a vocal group of people is having an issue with some of their cameras, it does NOT mean that yours is necessarily suffering the same fault. There can be multiple possible issues behind the same symptoms- these are complex devices.

Third: RPRacing's suggestions are actually perfectly valid. If the camera is not getting an acceptable response from the CPUs in the batteries, (not 'liking them'), then it won't function. And if the contacts are dirty, it can cause loss of contact and thus loss of power or CPU data. The differences between each battery make it possible that one might make better contact due to cleaner contacts or slight differences in the physical tolerances.

And it could be that they're working on a firmware fix, if it is fixable camera and not battery side. Some D300s were suddenly reading 0% battery with fully charged batteries for no reason, and a firmware update this month fixed it.

Finally: You are out of line. Accusing a respected member of this forum of being a salesman is out of line in and of itself. You have really overstepped the limits of civility required here in your blatantly sexist comment above. Such conduct is not acceptable on PhotographyReview. You have a PM.