Too Smart For the Customer - Too Clever For the Camera

During the past few years this column and newspaper advertisements from this firm have offered chargers for camera batteries that have been touted as " Universal ". Made by well-known accessory firms, they have been the answer for people who have lost the original charger that came with the camera. The staff have made no judgements of the clients for this, as they themselves have forgotten things in hotel rooms, wedding receptions, and down the back of the couch for years. The " Universal Charger " is generally adjustable as to the actual contacts that hit the batteries, and can pump electricity into AAA, AA, C, and D cells as long as they are the rechargeable sort. It can feed lithium-ion cells of all sorts of shapes, and unless the manufacturer makes a deliberate lock-out gate on their camera battery, you should be all right. But there is a catch, sez Ernest. It involves the charger being smarter that the owner and the owner sometimes failing to know it - also failing to keep up a reasonable charging schedule. Here's the scenario: a. The photographer has several batteries but fails to discharge and cycle them constantly. Some of the batteries sit in the camera bag and just steadily auto-discharge until they are flat as a flitter*. In many cases these are 7.5 volt batteries that run to nearly nothing. b. Put into a smart universal charger, the charger will first need to recognise that there is a battery there, by reading some voltage. No voltage, no action. c. If there is a voltage that is below about 3 volts, but still present, then the charger may think that it is dealing with a 3.5 volt battery and fill it with only that amount of electricity. The cameras will analyse this, still see nowhere near enough electricity to run themselves, and conclude the battery is a dud. The photographer thinks that the battery is indeed a dud, says a bad word, and buys another. It is not a deceitful charger - you have just posed an unfair question to it. The real repair here, before one repairs to the battery counter and drops another hundred bucks, is the one that Ernest can do in his Cave of Mystery. He apparently shoves enough electricity into the suspect battery ( practicing Secret Ernest Business...) and gets the internal voltage up past the point where the battery can be recognised by the smart universal charger as one of the 7.5 volt types...and it will then take up the reins and go on to flood more juice into the thing. You are saved and the sun is shining. Okay - how do we get ourself off this treadmill of trouble in the first place? a. Buy several batteries, by all means, but not too many to manage. b. When you store the spares, store them so that they cannot short and discharge. This means not keeping them loose in a bag full of N0. 8 lead shot. c. When the battery in the camera gets to the point where a little panic symbol comes up at the back of the LCD screen ( red battery, flashing battery, whatever ) change it for one of the spares and advance the next one into line - charge that low battery straight away. d. If you are not using the camera enough to flatten the battery, turn it on for a couple of hours and let it chew through a little electricity and then do the cycling. Cycling is good for you. e. If the spares are not used, and you are not cycling them, at least top them up regularly. *Technical term