Canon Battery Discharge Rates

[RichM63]

Following advice given here I sourced a Meike Battery Grip with inbuilt intervalometer and IR remote for the 700D.

Now I am delighted with the product, potrait orientation shooting is just so much easier and the camera feels markedly improved hand held.

However, the Canon Batt Charge indicator is somewhat, Full or Empty rather than gently running out, with or without grip.

The grip takes 2 LP_E8 batteries, but does anyone happen to know which of the 2 batteries runs down first?

Does the Canon favour the inboard battery or the ouboard battey, or are both drawn upon equally?

The reason for the question is that I almost never charge rechargeable batteries until they are flat but I have no convenient way of knowing which one might require attention first other than going through the rigmarole of pulling one battery out and seeing what happens over a lengthy trial and error period.

If I did know which of the 2 runs down first, then I could simply use a 3 battery rotation system, charge flat batt', move discharging batt' to batt' 1 slot and add fully charged batt' 3 to to batt' 2 slot.

I like to get as much life as possible out of my batteries and over cycling the charge system is a quick way to kill them off. (I've still got the original battery in my 5 year old Blackberry).

Many thanks,

[Dr_Ju_ju]

I don't about the grip on the 700, but on both of mine, 300d & 600d, the batteries are wired in parallel, so then 'run-down' as a pair...

Julian

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I'm not quite sure, but I believe it's a bad idea to mix batteries with different states of charge as current can flow from one to the other. Having two spares and swapping them both out together might work better.

[Tinker1947]

My Nikon grip appears to use both at the same time, not bothered with the Canon as its a Obby only and runs off a Power supply, I'm not sure if Lithium type batteries have a memory effect so half discharging and recharging may not have any ill effect on the battery's life.....

[Alien 13]

My grip runs both batteries down at the same time so I too always swap them out as pairs (1 pair are genuine canon ones the other duracels) I do also have a dummy battery made from an old cheap battery powered from a DC-DC convertor at around 7.5V.

Alan

[RichM63]

Very well, cheers folks, I'll treat them equally.