The Charger Of The Light Brigade

Half a volt, half a volt, Half a volt onwards... Mine is not to question why... Well actually, it is, and in this case, I quizzed our virtuoso of the voltmeter - Ernest - about the business of charging camera batteries. I brought the dead husks of NP-95 batteries from my Fujifilm X 100 and asked for a miracle. I not only got the miracle, but smarter in the bargain. The basic problem was that while the Fujifilm charge was showing a green " go " light when working on the batteries, the green light never did go out - and the batteries proved to have no charge when plugged into the camera. In scientific terms there were a number of possible explanations and a number of possible sotuoins. Here's a list. Note: this sort of question can equally apply to Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Flapoflex, or Olympus. If you use one, read on... a. The camera might have been broken. The check for this was to put a good battery - and I did have one of those - into it and shoot some pictures. I did, it worked, and that showed that the X100 was alright, or at least out of the equation. If you have a dodgy camera/battery question bring it to our Repair Department. They have good batteries there that can be ranged against the ones you own and the truth discovered. b. The batteries might have been cactus. They are several years old. Ernest felt over them to see if they were noticeably swollen, then measured the voltage coming out of them. They were flat. That might have meant total collapse or just having been run down into a state of exhaustion. The test was to put them onto a different charger and watch for voltage rise over 5 or 10 minutes. I am happy to say that they did register an ability to take a charge, and that meant that they might be resurrected. I was still frowned at for having an after-market no-name battery in the mixture but my defence was that it had been given to me for free. As this is the same process by which we generally get computer viruses and head colds, that really wasn't a valid excuse... c. The charger might have been a dud. It is not the first time that I have had a charger go bad on me - they are not such big electrical devices, after all, and are probably manufactured with the cynical thought that their fate is to be forgotten in hotel rooms overseas anyway... I protested that the green light was on, but Ernest sensibly pointed out that was evidence only that the green light was on...it might have been the charger recognising the battery but refusing to do anything about it. He put the battery in a different charger, waited a half hour, and was rewarded by an increased voltage and charge in the battery. In fact all the batteries I suspected were dead could, in fact, take a charge. The culprit had been found. The charger. I will now make arrangements to get a fresh charger and to cycle the batteries more regularly - leaving them to bump around in the carry bag forever before changing them over is not the way to go. Like cycling an Epson printer and exercising the democratic right to vote ( and buy lamingtons ) on an election day, the business of charging and discharging batteries should be done on a regular basis. But what if there is a secret hiding away in there...? Tomorrow we get to hear that secret... Note: The featured image is not Ernest with a soldering iron. It is Errol Flynn with a lance.