Cold weather and batteries

[howard_roarke]

Every day is a surprise. The weather is getting pretty cold, and I

have some of my camera equipment stowed next to a wall in a room of

the house that is pretty cold because I leave the heat off. Picked up

an M6 with fresh batteries and the meter works. Picked up an M7 with

fresh batteries and the meter works. Picked up another M6 and the

batteries were dead. Pulled some spares from the bag the M6 was

stored in, changed the battery. Still dead. And another, and

another. All the spares looking dead. Loaded the set of batteries

from the other M6 that worked, and they work fine.

 

Question: if one leaves good batteries in a cold room for an extended

period, will they die even though others that are newer might be fine?

If one warms them up again to room temperature, will they get their

charge back? I've got one sitting on the bedroom heater right now to

see if I can get some life back into it.

[terence_mahoney]

Just don't try the heater with mercury batteries. As I said in another thread, Leica can't afford to lose customers.

[Rob F.]

In my experience, when the battery warms up it will be fine. The cold just slows the chemical reaction temporarily. It doesn't kill the battery.

 

Lithium batteries perform best in cold weather. Silver oxide are less good.

[james_lai]

I don't think your choice of storage location is ideal. A cold room in an otherwise heated house probably gets some condensation on the walls and you may well end up with mouldy walls (and cameras).

 

As for the batteries, sometimes I keep them in the fridge. When they warm up they should be fine.

[howard_roarke]

Thanks guys ... I will give the batteries another shot once they have warmed up. James, your point about the condensation and mold is a good and scary one. I am going to have to rethink my storage. Actually, I think I just start heating the room!

[robweatherburn]

And what about tropical heat and high humidity? How do they perform then? The Amazon, for instance?

 

Rob

[robweatherburn]

I lost all power in three sets of batteries first time in Amazonia - not with Leica digital - and could not replace them. Wasted my time trying to find batteries, and from then on I've used totally manual cameras in any harsh environment. Dead batteries were my reason for buying my first LTM. Best move I ever made.

 

Rob

[frederick_muller]

Age of the battery matters too. I stress-tested an M7 by loading it up with a fresh out of the pack set of batteries and sticking it in a refrigerator for maybe 45 minutes. It came out with the meter working fine. On the other hand, I had the same M7 outdoors at maybe 13 celsius or so with a pair of older batteries (near death) and the meter performed very erratically.

[david-m]

With two M6TTLs for three weeks in Bolivia with temperatures ranging from plus 15 each

day to minus 20 degrees C each night (and sleeping in a tent), I found the only problem I

had was snapping three

rolls of Kodak E100G film midway through the roll (I presume because it was minus 20

degrees).

I was with someone whose 'fresh' Nikon film camera batteries died at about 4pm the first

afternoon and was unable to use the camera! (That was not to say anything against Nikon

- I own and use one myself).

 

David