Camera says battery is dead but it keeps working fine?

[VashHT]

I thought my battery was shot but after testing it more not sure what to think. I have an OMD EM1 MK2 and the last couple days it's been acting a bit weird. We're on vacation, first day we went out battery seemed to be acting normally, easily lasted me through our half day excursion. We had another tour up to some geysers the next morning so I threw it on the charger to top it off, charger said it was charged in the morning so I put it in my camera and we got on the tour van and slept most of the way there (about an hour and forty minutes).

I turned on my camera when we got there and it says 47%, so I'm thinking my battery is shot and draining crazy fast or something, or possibly something due to the altitude or temp where we went (it's like 3800m altitude there).

Anyway, I was able to get through the tour and only got down to 24% or so, we had another tour in the afternoon but we had about a 3 hour break so I put the battery back on the charger. I took it off about 2.5 hours later and it says 19%, at this point I'm thinking my battery is shot and won't hold a charge anymore. I was still able to get the pics I wanted on that tour and threw the battery on the charger overnight.

The charger said it was full on the morning but I put it in my camera and it says it's totally dead, red flashing battery sign. Weird thing is I've been messing with it and it's been on for 25 minutes or so and I've taken a bunch of photos and it's still working fine.

So I'm not sure the battery is really dead anymore, seems more like the camera isn't correctly reading the battery level, anyone ever run into anything like this, is there anything that can be done to kind of recalibrate the battery gauge?

 

[mikeymikec]

I assume the camera uses a lithium ion battery. I haven't dealt at all with camera battery issues, but my experience with laptops is that the issue is either going to be the charger or the battery rather than the (albeit complex) power management tech that li-ion demands so it doesn't explode.

If it was a laptop, I'd be suspecting the battery is faulty. If it was a laptop I'd use CPUID's hardware monitor to get a read-out on the battery stats, and in this situation I suspect it would be telling me that the current battery capacity is say 25% of its designed capacity (depending on how many cells the battery contains). Such batteries can sometimes fail more gracefully so the battery indicator just goes down faster but goes from 100% to ~0% without skipping a beat, but other common issues are the battery going from 100% to laptop unexpectedly powering down a few minutes later. I expect that one or more cells in the battery have failed, and whatever is remaining is acting a bit squirrelly.

A quick google suggests that it's a 2-cell li-ion battery which jibes with the 47% business approximately.

Charging issues in laptops tend to be more along the lines of refusing to charge the battery at all, or slightly more bizarre scenarios whereby the laptop will acknowledge the charger being connected but only providing sufficient power to power the laptop as if it had no battery, with the battery life remaining more or less static.

 

[VashHT]

Yeah it is LiIon, I've been messing with it more and if it is one cell the other cell must be strong still. I left the camera with the back screen on and I was periodically taking photos too and it still hadn't died after an hour or so of that. The whole time the battery was flashing red but at least it seems like it will hold up to some use at least as I can't find a store with Olympus stuff here.

 

[Geven]

That's a little late reply but it does sound like your camera isn't accurately reading the battery level. This could be due to a faulty battery, as @mikeymikec suggested, or it could be an issue with the camera's firmware or battery sensor. One thing you could try is a "battery reset". Basically, you let the battery drain completely until your camera won't turn on, then fully charge it to 100%. This can sometimes "reset" the battery's memory and help the camera read the battery level correctly. Finally, since the battery seems to be functioning fine despite the erroneous battery level reading, you might just want to carry an extra battery or two with you just in case. It's not an ideal solution, but it could help you avoid missing any shots due to an unexpectedly dead battery. At least I would do that. Good luck, and I hope this helps!

 

[VashHT]

I actually did this a couple days ago after I posted thinking the same thing and it seems like it worked. Only weirdness after I drained/charged the battery was that it stayed at 100% for a while before it started dropping. Overall it's all good though, lasted me all day so I'm just happy it's not dead.

 

[tcsenter]

For cameras that officially support multiple chemistry batts, there should be a setting in setup/config options to select the battery chemistry. e.g. alkaline, lithium, or NiMH. Maybe that was wrong to begin with or somehow get changed/reset.