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Nikon own brand Batteries vs cheaper altrnatives
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Jun 29, 2020 21:59:40   #
Bill_de Loc: US
 
chasgroh wrote:
I think you need to see the smiley he attached, lol...




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Jun 29, 2020 23:38:33   #
DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA
 
I have 12 batteries (EN EL 14) all marked as Nikon, but all have very different capabilities and one has failed completely. The external markings are identical. Not sure how branded stuff is better.

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Jun 30, 2020 00:01:46   #
geodruid
 
orrie smith wrote:
I have found that Nikon brand batteries last much longer than off brands. That being said, I would suggest that you buy one of the off brands and one Nikon brand, then rotate the usage and test for your own satisfaction.


depending on how you wish to use the camera, one extra nikon battery will last a long day of shooting, I;ve purchased off brand batteries and they last 45% as long and cost 38% as much so there are your trade off's . a friend said, "cry once" cry when you pay the big price for what you want and need and not twice when you say I should've got something else. I have two Nikon batteries and two off brand batteries. I'm happy but likely 3 Nikons would make me happier. heh my first response, tell me if it has any value to anyone,

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Jun 30, 2020 01:12:13   #
chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand
 
geodruid wrote:
I've purchased off brand batteries and they last 45% as long and cost 38% as much so there are your trade off's .

Purchase the 'right' off brand and they last 100% as long and still only 39% as much. Crappy off brand batteries are only available for one reason. Because there seems to be a tendency with some people to buy the cheapest without doing any research.
OEM batteries are the price they are because the manfs 'know' there are always a percentage of customers who 'must' buy name brand (for whatever reason). If you are a manf it is better for them to sell half as many for the full price than twice as many for half the price. And, of course, since most of the price is actually profit they make as much money from 1 times the price as selling 4 times as many at the lower price. Basic marketing.

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Jun 30, 2020 05:25:16   #
hobbit123 Loc: Brisbane, Australia
 
My experience. I bought a s/h D850. It came with a 'Nikon' battery. It had issues with battery life. It was still under warranty so I sent it to Nikon Service. After a month they returned it saying they 'suspected' the battery wasn't an original Nikon. They couldn't actually tell whether it was genuine or not. I enquired of the previous owner and he said he may have purchased it on eBay.

So if you decide to buy Nikon, buy from a real, long established business. If you buy on eBay or similar then buy a 'known' knock-off like Wasabi or Neewer.

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Jun 30, 2020 08:49:38   #
smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL
 
chrissybabe wrote:
Purchase the 'right' off brand and they last 100% as long and still only 39% as much. Crappy off brand batteries are only available for one reason. Because there seems to be a tendency with some people to buy the cheapest without doing any research.
OEM batteries are the price they are because the manfs 'know' there are always a percentage of customers who 'must' buy name brand (for whatever reason). If you are a manf it is better for them to sell half as many for the full price than twice as many for half the price. And, of course, since most of the price is actually profit they make as much money from 1 times the price as selling 4 times as many at the lower price. Basic marketing.
Purchase the 'right' off brand and they last 100% ... (show quote)


There two measures of a battery - how long it can provide voltage/current to specs and how many charge/discharge cycles. Off brand batteries have a lifespan that has less of one of the two. Applies to UPS batteries applies to instrument batteries and probably to camera batteries.

Even in very expensive computer system batteries the non-OEM batteries weren’t as good. This isn’t from a few systems, this was from thousands of system and many thousands of batteries.

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Jun 30, 2020 17:34:01   #
chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand
 
Sometimes it might be hard to describe just what a non-oem battery is. With regards to computer systems that mostly use the 2032 type no computer manufacturer uses their own brand name battery. I have never seen a 2032 cell branded HP or Dell. They use Sony, Panasonic, etc and there are at least a dozen with names I have seen for years. So just how you would describe a non-oem I don't know. I have seen 2032 cells with no brand name on them and they seem to last just as long.
Same thing applies to UPS batteries. Even good Panasonic batteries swell up and burst if you use the UPS more than 2-3 times during power failures. Their failure is more to do with using the .187 sized terminals instead of the .25 with their larger current carrying capacity and with the fact that no battery likes supplying dozens of amps during the failure very often. All things being equal don't buy the battery on price alone.
I did see a test on cell longevity (20 odd years ago) for normal chemistry batteries (carbon) where several non-brand alkaline cells lasted much longer than branded ones like duracell. Like lithium ion and polymer weight seems to be the thing to buy on.
Non-oem camera batteries wasabi (and others but I have mainly bought wasabi) are just as good as branded batteries. As I said earlier the only thing that keeps the cheap cells going is the propensity for some users to buy the cheapest no matter what. And I have had some bad cells in the early days but they were bought from no name resellers who usually have no idea what they are selling.
Same with other products. If you buy and sell cars every 3 years or sooner possibly not an issue but you wouldn't find me buying a BMW for example. Their longevity is not good and cost of parts excessive. But people still buy them for the name.
Buy carefully and you can save some real money.

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Jun 30, 2020 19:27:49   #
smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL
 
chrissybabe wrote:
Sometimes it might be hard to describe just what a non-oem battery is. With regards to computer systems that mostly use the 2032 type no computer manufacturer uses their own brand name battery. I have never seen a 2032 cell branded HP or Dell. They use Sony, Panasonic, etc and there are at least a dozen with names I have seen for years. So just how you would describe a non-oem I don't know. I have seen 2032 cells with no brand name on them and they seem to last just as long.
Same thing applies to UPS batteries. Even good Panasonic batteries swell up and burst if you use the UPS more than 2-3 times during power failures. Their failure is more to do with using the .187 sized terminals instead of the .25 with their larger current carrying capacity and with the fact that no battery likes supplying dozens of amps during the failure very often. All things being equal don't buy the battery on price alone.
I did see a test on cell longevity (20 odd years ago) for normal chemistry batteries (carbon) where several non-brand alkaline cells lasted much longer than branded ones like duracell. Like lithium ion and polymer weight seems to be the thing to buy on.
Non-oem camera batteries wasabi (and others but I have mainly bought wasabi) are just as good as branded batteries. As I said earlier the only thing that keeps the cheap cells going is the propensity for some users to buy the cheapest no matter what. And I have had some bad cells in the early days but they were bought from no name resellers who usually have no idea what they are selling.
Same with other products. If you buy and sell cars every 3 years or sooner possibly not an issue but you wouldn't find me buying a BMW for example. Their longevity is not good and cost of parts excessive. But people still buy them for the name.
Buy carefully and you can save some real money.
Sometimes it might be hard to describe just what a... (show quote)


Wasabi might be an exception - but I’ve found that 3rd party commercial and industrial system batteries aren’t as good as the OEM batteries. Often the ‘OEM’ batteries are manufactured by the same company that also sells on the aftermarket. The OEM supplied batteries outperformed the aftermarket direct sale version of the same thing from the same company. Interestingly, the internal part number was different.

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Jun 30, 2020 19:34:05   #
chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand
 
smf85 wrote:
Wasabi might be an exception - but I’ve found that 3rd party commercial and industrial system batteries aren’t as good as the OEM batteries.

Interesting. 90% of the UPS's I have worked on or sold have non-name branded batteries in them. One UPS I even talked the owner into letting me fit a Panasonic (I consider Panasonic to be a name brand) battery in as a replacement when the no-name battery failed. It failed at the next power cut.

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Jun 30, 2020 20:17:44   #
DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA
 
So far no one has offered an explanation of why I get good, mediocre and poor performance from Nikon branded batteries (EN-EL 14). Even with a magnifying glass I can detect no differences among them (12 at this point). The weights vary by about 100 gr.

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Jul 1, 2020 00:45:26   #
chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand
 
You have to use the weight of the battery as a guide only. It works best when the batteries are the same physical size AND where there probably aren't other factors that might influence it. A lithium ion battery does not have plastic all around it (although it may have two heatshrink tubes around it). Same with carbon cells like AA etc. They also tend to be somewhat similar in construction. I suppose a lithium cell might also have an additional short circuit PCB on one end which might affect weight.
But with camera batteries or power tool batteries there does tend to be a lot more plastic and even metal bits in it so any weight differences may be far more pronounced.
But all things being equal cell weight is a reasonably indication of cell capacity.
So if you look at what looks like two identical batteries (leaving aside the issue of OEM batteries) but one rated at 3000mAh and the other only at 2000mAh then if the 3000mAh battery is correctly rated it will be heavier than the 2000mAh, and should last longer. If they are both the same weight (or close) then you can only draw one of two conclusions (I use the word fake but really I mean incorrectly or deliberately falsely labelled) -
1. The 3000mAh battery has been incorrectly rated and it is not of that capacity but somewhat less or
2. They are both fakes with the 3000mAh battery actually only being perhaps 2000mAh and the one rated at 2000mAh may only be 1200-1500mAh.
I have seen cells of all ratings falsely labelled. I posted a picture of one such earlier in this thread. Recently I also purchased a Dyson portable vacuum cleaner battery rated at 3000mAh (factory batteries are 2200mAh). Use found the battery didn't last as long as it should have. I pulled it apart and found the cells inside were Samsung (good brand) but rated 2500mAh. So no way it could ever have produced 3000mAh. These cells are now torch batteries.
A 'good' cell rated at 2000mAh managed this in the lab and maybe can do this for the first few charge/discharge cycles. But very soon it will drop to maybe 1800mAh and that, to me anyway, is its real capacity. Testing of older cells has shown this to almost always be correct.
I have seen some 'optimistic' sellers try and convince me that the products they sell can have a capacity of 3 times the industry standard. They may not know and are just going on what they were told by their suppliers. These sellers are very ignorant and stupid and bordering on dishonest. By the way a lot, and I mean a lot, of sellers are flogging off power packs with incredibly high ratings. View these with high suspicion.
Now some of this is conjecture but almost it is as if the 'good' cells are those from a production line that met certain tests so are used in certain applications or for certain clients. The cells testing not so good become used by other assemblers for non branded use. If you have a production run and a lot of batteries fail the 'good' test then it is not worth their while to discard or recycle them. So they get used 'elsewhere'. Physically they may well be perfectly good batteries just not the same capacity.
Modern advances in battery production may well make the cells more efficient for the same weight but I don't believe this will reduce the weight that much. And more pure chemicals may well make the battery accept more charges etc but this probably won't alter the weight that much.
Batteries are not the only place where this happens. Your CPUs all come off similar production lines. Go/nogo testing rejects the ones that just don't work. Then they frequency test them. The cells that run the fastest get sold as premium speeds, those that run slower get sold as lower spec devices and obviously at a lower price. Nothing wrong with either. So it makes better use of the resources and makes for less waste. But it is the only way to make the process economical.
This simplifies the explanations but the same principle applies to a lot of manufacturing industries. Don't get me started on the manufacture of face masks and ventilators.

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Jul 1, 2020 08:39:43   #
1grumpybear
 
Been there, done that. Won't be doing that again. Off brand battery wreck my D4 had to send it in for repair and it cost me about 7 hundred to get it fixed.

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Jul 1, 2020 08:44:07   #
smf85 Loc: Freeport, IL
 
chrissybabe wrote:
Interesting. 90% of the UPS's I have worked on or sold have non-name branded batteries in them. One UPS I even talked the owner into letting me fit a Panasonic (I consider Panasonic to be a name brand) battery in as a replacement when the no-name battery failed. It failed at the next power cut.


You would think that a third party basic lead acid battery 🔋 would be fine for use. The CIO wanted the 1/3 cheaper 3rd party batteries - UPS took about a 100 of these cells. Substantial savings. So here I am with 50 10 year old batteries and 50 new 3rd party.

Six months and two very brief outages later the 3rd party batteries had failed. One of them failed completely it swelled and got extremely hot. As in too hot to touch. Note lead acid batteries generate hydrogen gas - a lot of it when they fail. So we stuck it outside. Took 24 hours to cool. Meanwhile the OEM batteries were still operational. They did start failing a few months later after several more outages.

Pretty much the same with 4rd party laptop batteries. The 3rd party ones failed much faster and gave shorter run times. At least the vendor was upfront with most of the shorter times - the engineering specs were pretty clear about that.

Cameras may be different but ultimately I don’t want to save a few dollars in a 3rd party battery - if ultimately the battery takes out the $6000 camera. It’s a question of risk.

I do however use the battery pack - AA cells are cheap and easy to replace. A box of AA batteries is a cheap way for additional power during a shoot. Plus the battery grip has a nice drip plate if a battery leaks.

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Jul 1, 2020 10:21:42   #
NJphotodoc Loc: Now in the First State
 
I've used Wasabi batteries first on my D7000 and now for my D7200. Never a problem and I saved a lot. I also have a Vello battery grip which extends the amount of shots I can take so the combination of the two works out well for me

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Jul 1, 2020 10:25:34   #
DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX
 
No. Stick w with Nikon.

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