Non Genuine LP-E6

[Heavyweight67]

Have been having troubles sourcing Genuine Canon LP-E6 batteries where I live in Pattaya, Thailand, like many things here the term ORIGINAL has numerous definitions...have tried numerous camera shops, even a Canon one ( have to say the worst service, product knowledge of any Canon shop ever)...
It seems that any shop that sells cameras stocks OSKA Pro Series LP-E6

[urlhttp://www.fotorelax.com/forum/index.php?topic=41934.0][/url]

Just wondering if any one has had experience with these, even if I can find an "Original LP-E6" there is always a doubt that it is original, so it may be easier to go with this OTHER brand.

Have searched Google and even with translating pages I haven't been able to find a review, at least not in any real form of English...

Thanks

 

[87vr6]

I'll bring you some later this year... I'm in Japan (okinawa) and can readily source them.

 

[lonelywhitelights]

I have 1 genuine canon LP-E6 and I have 2 "fake" ones

I never have any trouble with the fake ones, they work just as well as the genuine battery, they charge i nthe same amount of time and last just as long. The only problem is these fake batteries don't connect electronically to your camera so you don't get a battery level indicator on your LCD screen.

I've heard various stories about them and I think it's a case of being lucky with the batteries that you get, you might get a bad one or you might get a good one - but since they're so cheap it doesn't really matter so much. I paid less than £10 for each of my fake batteries, compared to the price of the genuine canon battery there's no question that I would happily buy fake ones again

 

[Heavyweight67]

I purchased the OSKA brand...will see how they go...

As a Non-Canon branded item they are not cheap, 1800 THB at the current conversion rate that is about $57 USD..

Still cheaper than the Canon which I saw listed on a Bangkok site at 3250 THB or about $103 USD...

At this price I hope they are OK, but when you're between a rock and a hard place, soemtimes you just have to buy.

Was travelling OK until I picked up my 5Diii grip which left me one battery short, 3 batteries for a gripped 7D and 5Diii, the maths don't work out.

The OSKA brand seems well made, hard outer casing, "Warranty Void If Removed" sticker, they seem to have individual serial numbers.

In the 7D it registered as a LP-E6 and straight out of packet indicated an 80% charge.

At the moment it is recharging in a Canon battery charger with the LED blinking at what should be the appropriate rate...

Will see how many shots/or use it gives.

Far from an exciting post, but if it proves suitable a $30 saving is always good....

 

[crasher8]

Wasabi work great, they must be chipped.

 

[Rat]

I got several LP-E6 clones that do report battery status to the camera - but they all seem to have the same serial number so in-camera registration is not an option. Cheapest ones set me back about USD 10 on eBay, also got a few more expensive Phottex ones that cost approx. 25$ apiece.

Haven't got them long enough to say anything on the longevity, but my previous dslr had Phottex batteries as well and they were as good as the real deal.

edit: on eBay, please check and doublecheck that LP-E6 clones can be charged with the original charger! There are some that require an aftermarket charger as well, and given that you find chipped ones for a tenner, you had probably best avoid those.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Could safety be a possible factor in chosing? Do you really want to fly on a plane with someone who has 6 of the cheapie no QA chinese batteries?

http://www.crsrisk.com/blog/index.php/2011/05/lithium-ion-batteries-blamed-for-747-crash/

 

[brad-man]

I will second the Wasabi recommendation. I bought a Wasabi charger because the one I recieved with my Mk II had a power cord, the Wasabi plugs straight into the wall (and has 12v auto power cord included), plus two batteries from Amazon for $38. They perform as well as OEM in all respects...

 

[Aglet]

Lithium batteries, fully charged at room temperature, then cooled to much lower than room temperature, which COULD happen within an aircraft cargo hold, CAN exceed their safe maximum voltage and MAY fail in a dangerously catastrophic way.

So, probably better to (air) travel with your lithium ion batteries only half charged or less.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Lithium batteries, fully charged at room temperature, then cooled to much lower than room temperature, which COULD happen within an aircraft cargo hold, CAN exceed their safe maximum voltage and MAY fail in a dangerously catastrophic way.

So, probably better to (air) travel with your lithium ion batteries only half charged or less.

Never put them in checked luggage, put them in the passenger cabin where there is a chance to put out any fire that starts. They do not need oxygen to burn, so fire extinguishers in the cargo compartment are of no help.

The biggest issue is a damaged battery or mis manufactured one that will short out when bumped at just the right point. QA is a huge part of this, and its often non existent in the cheapies.

USPS now makes it illegail to send one in international mail, or to send equipment containing a li-on battery.

 

[peederj]

Well batteries bringing down a plane would be headline news for weeks. I think that's a bit fear mongering; Sony, Apple, etc. major name-brand companies have had their batteries catch fire but so very rarely, and the cheapies haven't had a worse reputation to my knowledge.

I have one Canon LP-E6 (came with the camera) and almost a dozen Wasabi and some other Chinese made clones. Wasabi, I should note, says "Premium Cells from Japan" on one side, and "Made in China" on the other. I can't tell the difference between any of these other than the label; it appears they are all made in the same factory, the QA may be better, there may be a better chip in the more expensive ones, the Zacuto variety claims it must not be charged in a Canon charger, but I am skeptical about a lot of that. If there were genuine safety concerns the stuff would probably not be allowed to be sold at all.

Batteries are a commodity and trying to make increased margin on a commodity often invokes snake oil and FUD. Things like "memory effect" and such have been demonstrated as largely false (although I do see "burps" in getting a charger to recharge old batteries). The people who really know about these things don't hang out on net.forums but probably just make sure the regulations ensure safety in nearly all cases.

Some people just want their favorite company to make more money I think, or to feel they haven't wasted theirs on conspicuous consumption.

 

[Wilmark]

I have bought two Photive and a Maxtech from Amazon both less than 15$. I have never been able to tell them apart from the Canon batteries. The OEMs are rated slightly more current than the canon, i havent tested but they seem to last just a long at least. The photive sometimes read an incorrect battery reading esp when FULL. But it will read correct most times. I havent seen this problem with the maxtech.

 

[Heavyweight67]

So if all these GENERIC batteries exist, and there seems to be few issues then why are we paying premium prices for Canon branded batteries?

I understand that some are hesitant due to breaching some Canon warranty, which is where my concerns are, it's too easy for companies to shirk their responsibilities over minor issues...

I had a warranty issue not with Canon (fingers crossed) but with Yamaha, who almost force you to use there branded oil in Motorcycles ( which is always priced at a much higher margin to other brands and not always available), I had to prove to them that I had absolutely no choice but to use another brand of oil (strange, since Yamaha actually don't produce oil, and it is outsourced like the production of Canon batteries)..

So, I wonder if I would be in a similar position with Canon, needless to say, once the 12 month warranty expires I don't think Canon or Yamaha care what I do or which product I choose over theirs...

My issues come down to making every attempt to source the original, when you walk into a Canon shop or Yamaha, you do expect that they will have the "nuts and bolts" that people require for everyday operation of their products...

 

[LSV]

I've been buying generic replacement batteries for my Canons from a top-rated seller on Ebay and have been very satisfied. A generic replacement LP-E6 goes for $10(US) with capacity of 2200 mAh, exceeding the original LP-E6's capacity of 1800 mAh. My cameras could not tell the difference.

 

[Aglet]

I haven't tested batteries for safety.
I HAVE tested batteries for capacity.

Altho many generic batteries will work decently, some better than others, a few nearly as good as an OEM one.

What I've found is:
- most of the generics will not last as long as an OEM battery, either in capacity or in calendar life. Many fail to provide useful capacity after only a year or 2 of light use. Some will last nearly as well as OEM.
- many of the generics overstate their actual mAh capacity. I've tested some new batteries and found their actual capacity to be less than half what they claimed they were. You can only put so much energy into a given volume when using a similar cell structure.
- some generics I got from eBay last year were not even using metal-canned Li-ion cells but resorted to using cheap Li-polymer cells. You can tell by how little they weigh compared to a "real" battery. They worked.. for about 10 charge-discharge cycles.

You CAN find good generic product out there but there's also a LOT of garbage produced by unscrupulous mfrs.

Sharing info on brands and sources on a forum like this is a good alternative to everyone experimenting.

I no longer remember the name but there was an eBay seller, based in ON, that provided some good quality batteries that fit and work very well. One I got my my G11 is still working as well as the OEM one 2 years later and some BP-511 types are also performing long after other generics have become junk-drawer filler.
It's still a gamble as to whether the source he gets them from is still producing at comparable quality or whether you roll the dice again. You get what you pay for most times; sometimes you get better than expected, sometimes not.

 

[Aglet]

Never put them in checked luggage, put them in the passenger cabin where there is a chance to put out any fire that starts. They do not need oxygen to burn, so fire extinguishers in the cargo compartment are of no help.

The biggest issue is a damaged battery or mis manufactured one that will short out when bumped at just the right point. QA is a huge part of this, and its often non existent in the cheapies.

USPS now makes it illegail to send one in international mail, or to send equipment containing a li-on battery.

That's good advice but also be aware that putting out a secondary fire, started by a Li battery, is often easy enough with a conventional A-B class extinguisher. Putting out a primary Li-fire itself requires a very special and expensive type of extinguisher that uses another reactive ingredient to quench the reactive Li. (I think it may be a copper content material)
However, a Li-ion fire vs a Li-metal fire is a different monster, the latter being much more difficult to put out, AFAIK. Most of our toys run on some formula of rechargeable Li-ion chemistry. Primary Li cells may be the more problematic to extinguish in case of failure.
Primary Li batteries are the kind that are non-rechargeable, like CR-123 and other CRxxxx cells often used in photographic devices. These do have a pretty good safety history though.

you can find lots of relevant info on wikipedia too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_battery

 

[rpt]

OK, so I picked up a BOWER make XPDCE6 battery (it says "FOR CANON LP-E6 7.4V 2800mAh [and other cautions...]") from Frys near the LA airport at the end of March (2012). It does not charge up beyond about 50% - and I have tried several times to get it to charge completely. Unfortunately, I discoverd this on my return to India so it would be very expensive to return it to them... 25 US$ down the drain is not a problem. Disposal of defective stuff is... Never mind...

Does anyone have any experience with this battery make? I should have listened to my instincts when I saw the battery rating as 2800 mAh. Well, what can I say, I am probably too optimistic - or was jet-lagged; or both!

 

[peederj]

I imagine if we survey hard enough we will find people with defective genuine Canon-branded batteries too. People have even...perish the thought...made reports of defective CAMERA bodies from Canon!

If you have $15 batteries vs. $50 batteries and you buy 4 instead of 1 and 1 is defective and the other 3 die in 2 years instead of 4 years, should you buy only $50 batteries from then on? I suppose if battery reliability is paramount to all other concerns OK...provided you know that the name-brand is actually more reliable than the cheapie (I await scientific studies vs. net.anecdata).

And as for warranty, who is so slavishly honest as to tell a wealthy multinational conglomerate what battery they were using when the camera broke? If that's an economically fair negotiation, you will be so rich as to view the camera as disposable anyway. Tell them you were using their battery by their instructions...it was most likely their fault the camera broke, not the battery's, unless the battery melted down inside there (more likely with a flash than a camera, and they don't restrict what AA's you put in a flash).

Canon should be rewarded for the hard stuff like lenses with our disposable income, when they've earned it. Making profits on ordinary accessories doesn't motivate them to do the things that will make a bigger difference to us.


Oh and btw I did see the USPS is banning international shipment of LI-ion batteries after blaming two fatal cargo plane crashes on it since 2005. But I am skeptical both of that analysis and the motivations. I'm not sure they have real evidence what started fires on those planes. And why wouldn't we then ban it domestically too, planes are OK if they fall on our houses?

I can imagine this shipping ban as being essentially an import tariff on Chinese electronics. Taking the postal service out of the delivery equation may be protectionist for US-based retailers (who will buy from distributors using bulk shipping containers) over those guys on ebay from Shenzen who mail you stuff cheaply. That's what that ban may be about, it was just something the gov't could come up with that the Chinese couldn't nail them for. (Then getting taken seriously and scaring people into carrying on their batteries rather than checking them in the hold? Good grief. :-\)

 

[Aglet]

Oh and btw I did see the USPS is banning international shipment of LI-ion batteries after blaming two fatal cargo plane crashes on it since 2005. But I am skeptical both of that analysis and the motivations. I'm not sure they have real evidence what started fires on those planes. And why wouldn't we then ban it domestically too, planes are OK if they fall on our houses?

Transportation safety investigations are pretty darn thorough when it comes to investigating causes of an aircraft crash.
Also, if you've never seen the ferocity of a lithium battery fire, you may want to check it out. Likely a few posted on youtube.
Larger Li batteries contain enough energy to easily burn/melt their way thru the thinner metals of an aircraft. Altho it's unlikely they'd cause a structural failure, it's entirely possibly they could cause a control problem either by directly damaging control systems or generating enough smoke to incapacitate a crew by igniting other materials in the cargo section, often lots of paper and wood crates/pallets in there.


here's a quick one:

the little CR123 Li battery, often used in photo accessories makes like a tiny incendiary when damaged

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_UuPmLO1c

just search for "lithium fire" for more

I can imagine this shipping ban as being essentially an import tariff on Chinese electronics. Taking the postal service out of the delivery equation may be protectionist for US-based retailers (who will buy from distributors using bulk shipping containers) over those guys on ebay from Shenzen who mail you stuff cheaply. That's what that ban may be about, it was just something the gov't could come up with that the Chinese couldn't nail them for. (Then getting taken seriously and scaring people into carrying on their batteries rather than checking them in the hold? Good grief. :-\)

agreed, it does effect an indirect import tariff of sorts on those products.