charging li ion 3.6V

[news]

I have an old sony with a discharged NP-FT1 cell, charger is lost. Is there any way I can get some charge back into the cell to see if the rest of the camera still works?

AJH

[John Williamson]

Google for "universal lithium charger". Mine's made by Kodak, and I've seen one in the dreaded Maplins.

[dennis]

They sell one in asda but its about £20.

[news]

Thanks but the Maplin one specifically says it is not compatible with NP-FT1

AJH

[The Natural Philosopher]

my worry would be that the cell itself has inbuilt protection and charge circuity. I know how to charge raw cells but not consumer device packs.

[Martin Brown]

Most of them do since the tendency of Li ion battery packs to self immolate is well known and has caused trouble for some makers. Easy way to tell is that there are more than two terminal connections (often 4).

Almost all Li ion packs have a failsafe that prevents a battery that is too far gone from being recharged. Finding someone locally with a NP-FT1 cell and charger is your best bet. Or looking on eBay for one.

[Dom Ostrowski]

My Sony camera uses an NP-FR1 battery and had a similar problem, in that once the battery was completely flat, plugging in the charger to the camera would not wake up the camera to start charging the cell (which seems quite a significant design shortcoming).

I bought a genuine Sony external charger secondhand through ebay (and a spare battery) - and found that the original battery and camera came back to life and would charge normally thereafter - once a little charge had been injected by the external charger.

[Dave Liquorice]

Sometimes just leaving stuff plugged in for a day or two will reset things. Might need a disconnect and restart after the period of "doing nothing".

[modernoutpost]

I recommend the Ansmann Digicharger Vario universal chargers...

Canon LP-E6 is the only pack I have come across that the Varios won't f= it. The advantage in getting a high-quality universal like these is that it= will serve you for years to come for just about any other camera you might= own. As for the revival of the Sony battery, it depends on its age. If it is sti= ll quite young, it should revive fine. NOTE: the only battery chemistry tha= t needed to be fully cycled was the old NiCd. All other chemistries enjoy b= eing babied and not deep discharged. Fully cycle/refresh NiMh every year pe= rhaps, but take it easy on the lithiums and they will have a long service l= ife. Hope this helps.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]