EN-EL3e - Can Nikon batteries be refreshed

<p><br /><br>

With Nimh batteries they can be refreshed by discharging completely and charging a number of times.<br>

Does any body know if there is treatment for EN-EL3e batteries which are going bad.</p>

<p>Julian Meehan</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p>I'd be surprised if there was. When you say the battery is "going bad," does your camera show that it is at the end of its useful life, or is it just performing poorly but is a relatively new battery? If the latter, has it been stored in a totally charged or totally discharged state for long periods of time, or at high temperatures? LiON batteries don't do well if stored fully charged at high temperatures. That's why batteries in laptops that are kept plugged in to their chargers tend to wear out before the typical 3 years, as the laptops, if they are running, get hot and the batteries are in a fully charged state.<br>

On the other hand, new batteries benefit from going through a few charge/discharge cycles, which seems to enable them to get to full capacity.</p>

<p>It's actually better for those batteries <em>not</em> to be fully discharged. Use 'em perhaps two thirds of the way, down, and recharge. If you keep them in use regularly, it's better to keep them continually topped off. Longer term storage is better at about half-discharged. Lithium Ion batteries are very different beasts than NiMH units.<br /><br />I've got EN-EL3e batteries that I've been using for <em>years</em> and which are still showing no sign of losing their capacity. I've had a couple of relatively new ones simply fail entirely, but that's a different problem. Always worth having a couple of spares around, no matter what.</p>

<p>I have two of them. No problems. I rotate them in and out as needed. I am not a spray and pray photographer so I usually go a month or more per battery. I think once they have lived their life span you just recycle them and buy a new one.</p>

<p>According to literature, the culprit appears to be the passivation layer which forms on the surface of the cell causing high cell resistance. While this protects the cell from self-discharge, it also causes a voltage delay on high current demand which causes an appliance to shut down immediately.</p>

<p>I've read conflicting literature on the depassivation method. Some suggest low current discharge (a few mA load) over long periods, others say high current rapid discharge (~1A). It's a bit of a mystery which I imagine relates to the resistive layer's thickness which we can infer through complex measurement. Regardless, both methods have been reported to be successful through repeated charge/discharge cycles. Strangely, I've not come across pulsing the battery which would make sense and is a common method of rejuvenating sulphated lead-acid batteries.</p>

<p>It won't hurt to try, but best to discharge through an external resistive load where the discharge current can be controlled and monitored.</p>

<p>I accidently had my charger on the wrong polarity when recharging the NiMH cells for my F5. When I realized what had happened, I recharged them at proper polarity. They have worked fine ever since.</p>

<p>these are Li-Ion batteries not NiMh. matt has the correct advice--dont let them run all the way down for longer life.</p>

<p >Everyone that says these batteries are not NiMh but Li-Ion is correct. It sounds like you have been treating these Li-Ion batteries like NiCad batteries by letting them down. My recommended treatment for damaged batteries is to replace them with Nikon brand batteries. Do not purchase Chinese knock-offs. True Nikon brand EN-EL3e are $41 at Adorama. I’ve had two sets of EN-EL3e since 2007. I purchased a D700 in 2008 and ended up with a third set. I always keep a set in the charger and just swap them out. None of these batteries have gone bad. </p>

<p>The EN-EL3e are lithium ion batteries and will not come back to life when they die. There should be a circuit somewhere to protect them from over discharge unless you bypass everything and discharge them manually. They also have a circuit to protect them from over charge unless of course you bypass that also.<br>

Just get rid of them at the recycle center and buy new ones.</p>

<p>Any experiences with the generic/ non-Nikon EN-EL3e's anyone ? Are they ok for a certain period of time or what ? They seem cheap enough.</p>

<p><br /><br>

With Nimh batteries they can be refreshed by discharging completely and charging a number of times.<br>

Does any body know if there is treatment for EN-EL3e batteries which are going bad.</p>

<p>Julian Meehan</p>

<p><br /></p>

My Nikon EN-El3e batteries when put in charger would blink orange only 4 times then go blank. Since there is

some electrical system that needs to reset I would have the battery touch the charger connections for 3-4 blinks then

connect again and again and again until there is enough charge to reset the battery. a 20 amp circuit US may be better than 15 amp electrical circuit. Doing this to 2 batteries they came back to life and recharged- Voila!

Edited January 3, 2021 by drp

<p >Everyone that says these batteries are not NiMh but Li-Ion is correct. It sounds like you have been treating these Li-Ion batteries like NiCad batteries by letting them down. My recommended treatment for damaged batteries is to replace them with Nikon brand batteries. Do not purchase Chinese knock-offs. True Nikon brand EN-EL3e are $41 at Adorama. I’ve had two sets of EN-EL3e since 2007. I purchased a D700 in 2008 and ended up with a third set. I always keep a set in the charger and just swap them out. None of these batteries have gone bad. </p>

 

Not buying Chinese knockoff but buying genuine Chinese made Nikon battery?

<p>Any experiences with the generic/ non-Nikon EN-EL3e's anyone ? Are they ok for a certain period of time or what ? They seem cheap enough.</p>

 

Issue, cross branding may or may not work.

At school they got "brand X" batteries from Amazon for their Canon T7.

Problem. The Cannon batteries would not charge in the brand-X charger, and the brand-X batteries would not charge in the Canon charger.

You HAD TO put the Canon batteries in the Canon charger and the brand-X batteries in the brand-X chargers.

This created a LOT of confusion with the kids.

 

I understand that some of this has been solved with "decoded" batteries which will charge in the OEM chargers.

 

Considering that my Nikon dSLR battery will last me the entire weekend and Monday on a single charge (no flash), I don't worry about a spare battery anymore. If the battery does not last me a day, it is time to replace it. And the Nikon battery lasts for YEARS. My D70 are still on the original battery (2005), so I don't bother with brand-X batteries.

My D7200 is on it's second battery, but that is because it has shot over 90,000 frames. I wore out the first battery.

What size cells are inside an EnEl3e?

<p><br /><br>

With Nimh batteries they can be refreshed by discharging completely and charging a number of times.<br>

Does any body know if there is treatment for EN-EL3e batteries which are going bad.</p>

<p>Julian Meehan</p>

<p><br /></p>

 

I do not agree with that.

I have had many NiMH batteries that have deteriorated to where one of my chargers will NOT charge them, and cycle charging did NOT help. I think there are simply so many charge/discharge cycles that a battery can go through, before the chemical reaction is not able to be reversed, or reversed enough to give you a usable charge.

 

Discharging completely is a tricky term. Batteries have a certain MINIMUM voltage spec. If you drain the battery below this, you could damage the battery. Not being a battery engineer, I don't know how the battery is damaged. But there are enough cautions that I've read, that there has to be some truth to it. And some chargers will NOT charge a battery that has been discharged below a certain point. In the case of lithium batteries, if you drain the battery too low, the charger will simply refuse to charge it.

 

BTW, why the question? How MANY batteries do you need?

I have Nikon and generic En-El3e(and other) batteries. All of the generics have a greater mas capacity than the Nikons, all function and charge equally, and other than cost, I see no difference in performance. The Nikon branded and generic batteries are all made in China, as are the chargers. I recharge my batteries before they are completely depleted, and have NEVER (10+years) had a lithium Nikon or generic battery not accept a charge. I have at least 3 or more batteries for every camera since I used to travel extensively ( not in Covid19 era), occasionally to cold areas, and wanted to always be 'ready.'. My Nikon and generic batteries charge INTERCHANGEABLY normally in generic and Nikon chargers. They all work well, there is no need for replacement, and I have saved hundreds of over the years. Someone is overthinking the whole process, ignoring facts. FYI : I do not sell, market, advertise or have anything to do with the battery industry except to buy then online

I’m getting good results from Nikon and off brand batteries. In 2019 I shot close to 2k images on a two week trip in Eastern Europe. I had spares and a charger but they weren’t needed.. Camera was a D300S with a battery grip.

 

Rick H.

There is a lot of stuff going around on revivifying camera batteries. Likely some experienced folks can do this, but be careful, never mind the camera, you can burn down your house. There are reasons that there are restrictions on shipping Lithium Ion batteries. Even for ordinary recharging, I make sure the charger is on something that won't burn.

What size cells are inside an EnEl3e?

I can't remember the type number, but they were Sanyo made cells when I split open an En-el3e to swap the cells over from an older, but still good battery. Same cells as in a Canon battery for the original Eos 5D.

 

Getting the casing apart without damage is the tricky bit.

 

Easier to just buy cheap 'RavPower' clones. I have quite a few sets of their batteries for various cameras now, and they've worked fine so far.

I had a Promaster EN-EL15 (also Li-Ion) that abruptly went totally dead and would not take a charge. It wasn't all that old, so I suspected it of some other fault. So I hooked it up to an unregulated power supply of somewhat higher voltager, and zapped it very briefly. It came back to life, and now takes a charge and works. Not something I'd do indoors, nor if I had any other hope for reviving the battery. And I don't know even now if it was an electronic glitch or a whisker on a cell, or discharged accidentally beyond the ability to trigger the charger, or what. It was never a great battery even when new, and I don't trust it much, but it's useable,

I had a Promaster EN-EL15 (also Li-Ion) that abruptly went totally dead and would not take a charge. It wasn't all that old, so I suspected it of some other fault. So I hooked it up to an unregulated power supply of somewhat higher voltager, and zapped it very briefly. It came back to life, and now takes a charge and works. Not something I'd do indoors, nor if I had any other hope for reviving the battery. And I don't know even now if it was an electronic glitch or a whisker on a cell, or discharged accidentally beyond the ability to trigger the charger, or what. It was never a great battery even when new, and I don't trust it much, but it's useable,

That is pretty much the latest idea, as well. I suppose because I bought a few camera batteries recently, there is a neat tip or two in my Email box every morning. I recall a guy I knew, and neither stupid nor incompetent, who carried scars from fast charging a car battery. He kept his sight because he was wearing sunglasses. I'm certainly "thrifty" and not unwilling to take a risk, but to put it in perspective, those 4 "off brand" camera batteries bought recently for my Nikons came to under $50.

That is pretty much the latest idea, as well. I suppose because I bought a few camera batteries recently, there is a neat tip or two in my Email box every morning. I recall a guy I knew, and neither stupid nor incompetent, who carried scars from fast charging a car battery. He kept his sight because he was wearing sunglasses. I'm certainly "thrifty" and not unwilling to take a risk, but to put it in perspective, those 4 "off brand" camera batteries bought recently for my Nikons came to under $50.

 

I can see going for 3rd party batteries when:

• You have several cameras, and thus need several batteries.
  
• You are doing multi-day shoots/trips where you are away from power long enough that you need several batteries.
  
• You are using a mirrorless, where you NEED several batteries to do a day of shooting. Mine just SUCKS power, and will go through FOUR batteries in a full day of shooting.
  

A couple years ago, I got a practically new (very low cycle count) Nikon battery from MPB for $11.

I've seen good prices on KEH also.

The problem with my original EN-EL3e that was supplied with my D700 12 years ago is that it still reads O. I also purchased a second battery to have as a spare at the same time and it too reads O, it's as if they never go bad or lose their capacity. I find that hard to believe as my 12 year old batteries don't last full day. I've gotten into the habit of using the MB-D10 with either two EN-EL3e batteries or a EN-EL3e plus a 3rd party EN-EL4 to get through a full day of heavy usage. I recently purchased a PowerExtra EN-EL3e from eBay but haven't received it yet. If it works and hold a charge I'll get a couple more because I know that someday batteries for these old dSLR's will no longer be available.

I can see going for 3rd party batteries when:

• You have several cameras, and thus need several batteries.
  
• You are doing multi-day shoots/trips where you are away from power long enough that you need several batteries.
  
• You are using a mirrorless, where you NEED several batteries to do a day of shooting. Mine just SUCKS power, and will go through FOUR batteries in a full day of shooting.
  

A couple years ago, I got a practically new (very low cycle count) Nikon battery from MPB for $11.

I've seen good prices on KEH also.

 

Indeed.

And you can go for third party batteries simply because they are (much) cheaper and they work just as well.

I have more cheap China made third party batteries than original Nikon batteries, and they work just as well. I have yet to experience a first failure. But when that occurs (and it certainly will at some point in time), i don't think i'd try to revive it. They are cheap enough to replace. Unless you buy only original Nikon ones.

A couple years ago, I got a practically new (very low cycle count) Nikon battery from MPB for $11.

I've bought a couple of 'part used' genuine Nikon batteries, and yes, they were cheap. Trouble is you have no idea how much use they've had, apart from the manufacturing date.

 

Mine were about 3 years old when I bought them, and they have a noticeably shorter useable time than the ones that came with the cameras. With comparable, or slightly less, run-time than the cheap off-brand clones I have.

 

IIRC the used Nikon batteries still cost me more than the cheap copies.