[kosmoejtg]

On a freshly charged battery I get the Battery Depleted message when I pop up the flash. The camera then turns off. The battery indicator shows a full battery. If I don't use the flash I don't seem to have any problems. This happens on the original battery and a Pearstone backup battery.

[SteveB]

Sounds like the camera's flash capacitor or mosfet has gone short. Have you got an external flash to try? If that works it more or less proves it.

[kosmoejtg]

Wow, I have hardly used the flash I am suprised it would go bad already. I don't have an external flash yet. Do you mean that an external flash would not work either?

[elliott]

Wow, I have hardly used the flash I am suprised it would go bad already. I don't have an external flash yet. Do you mean that an external flash would not work either?

The external should work fine if it is something to do with the internal flash's charge circuit.

It isn't hard to get a hold of bad capacitors, so yours could have been defective from new if that was the problem, but still was able to pass the basic checks.

[Plentax]

I like to continue this post, because I experience huge battery depleted problems with my K-30.
I use the original Li-ion (LIB) rechargable battery and also 4 x AA standard Alkaline (AL) non-rechargable or 4 x Ni-MH rechargable batteries.

Normally I use flash very seldom and I keep the rear display swithed off most of the time.
But as soon as I used flash or display too much the battery depletion message and switch-off occurs very soon.
After a short recovery period for the batteries (some minutes) everything is fine again.

This behavior depends also on the battery type selection in the menu settings (Auto, Li, Ni-MH or AL).
If I switch to the correct setting, it can happen that the camera does not like to start. After inserting a full battery I can change the setting and replace and use another battery again.
I have the strong suspicion, that the menu setting is just defining a voltage level for measurement. With this the lowest voltage seems to be the NI-MH and the highest level seems to be Li.
But nevertheless even a small reduction in voltage results in depletion warning and camera switch-off.

The Li-Ion battery standard voltage is about 7.4 Volts.
The AA Ni-MH standard voltage is about 4 x 1.2 Volt.
The AA AL standard voltage is between 4 x 1.3 and 4 x 1.5 Volt

It seems, that as soon as the voltage of 4 x Ni-MH and AL batteries is starting to lower a little bit, the camera does not like to work.
I tested the partial depleted batteries with a professional battery tester and indeed they still have a quite high capacity.
As soon as the total voltage is below 5.5 Volt, which is 4 x 1.375 Volt, the K-30 does show problems.

I have the strong impression, that the K-30 battery voltage sensor is much too sensitive for 4 AA batteries.
With rechargable AA batteries this sensitivity is even higher.
May be instead of 4 AA batteries Pentax should have better designed the camera with 5 batteries in order to get a sufficient voltage?

[JimJohnson]

I like to continue this post, because I experience huge battery depleted problems with my K-30.
I use the original Li-ion (LIB) rechargable battery and also 4 x AA standard Alkaline (AL) non-rechargable or 4 x Ni-MH rechargable batteries.

Normally I use flash very seldom and I keep the rear display swithed off most of the time.
But as soon as I used flash or display too much the battery depletion message and switch-off occurs very soon.
After a short recovery period for the batteries (some minutes) everything is fine again.

This behavior depends also on the battery type selection in the menu settings (Auto, Li, Ni-MH or AL).
If I switch to the correct setting, it can happen that the camera does not like to start. After inserting a full battery I can change the setting and replace and use another battery again.
I have the strong suspicion, that the menu setting is just defining a voltage level for measurement. With this the lowest voltage seems to be the NI-MH and the highest level seems to be Li.
But nevertheless even a small reduction in voltage results in depletion warning and camera switch-off.

The Li-Ion battery standard voltage is about 7.4 Volts.
The AA Ni-MH standard voltage is about 4 x 1.2 Volt.
The AA AL standard voltage is between 4 x 1.3 and 4 x 1.5 Volt

It seems, that as soon as the voltage of 4 x Ni-MH and AL batteries is starting to lower a little bit, the camera does not like to work.
I tested the partial depleted batteries with a professional battery tester and indeed they still have a quite high capacity.
As soon as the total voltage is below 5.5 Volt, which is 4 x 1.375 Volt, the K-30 does show problems.

I have the strong impression, that the K-30 battery voltage sensor is much too sensitive for 4 AA batteries.
With rechargable AA batteries this sensitivity is even higher.
May be instead of 4 AA batteries Pentax should have better designed the camera with 5 batteries in order to get a sufficient voltage?

Did you go into the Menu and specifically tell the camera what type of AA battery chemistry you were using? If you left the AA battery setting on Auto, the camera is just guessing at the chemistry and remaining capacity.

If you don't use an electronic flash regularly, the capacitors deform and it will take a fair amount of power to reform the capacitors' storage capacity. Once back in shape, the capacitors use less power.

Of course you could have failing capacitors or failing batteries, but I'd concentrate on the above before jumping to that conclusion.

[Plentax]

Thank you Jim,

yes I checked of course the correct battery type setting in the menu. This settings has a big influence on the depletion switch-off situation. You even can "lock" your camera, when you set the "wrong" value, because apparently the voltage level which decides about depletion (4 x 1.3 Volt of AL) can be higher than the typical voltage of another battery type (e.g. 4 x 1.2 Volt of Ni-MH). Unlocking is only possible with inserting correct types and then selecting the correct value. Can you or someone confirm that it is only the voltage which is used as criteria for the depletion status of a battery in the K-30? May be you are on the safe side with the 4 battery case, when you select always Ni-MH mode?

I just tried to set (wrong) Ni-MH type for non rechargable AL batteries (which are not at all empty). With this setting the K-30 does show 50 % battery level. I assume this level will be kept for a very long until the AL battery is really depleted. When I switch battery type to the (correct) AL type, the camera is immediatly switching-off after depletion message. With this my current workaround is to used standard AL batteries, but to set the Ni-MH type different in the menu. Any better hints?

I am considering to try 4 special rechargable Alkaline Manganes (RAM) batteries, which have 4 x 1.5 Volt nominal voltage instead of only 4 x 1.2 Volt. May be such batteries do no show the problems in the K-30?
Such RAM batteries need special charging and are not recommended for high current devices (like digital cameras?). Is this also true when you do not use the internal flash at all?

Regards, Peter


P.S.: I wonder how the automatic battery type detection in the K-30 does work. May be it is better to avoid this setting completely?

P.P.S.: I just read, that the RAM rechargable batteries are very sensible when beeing discharged too much. With 25 % discharge they can be charged about about 100 times, but with 50 % discharge this value can be reduced to 10 times. It looks like RAM batteries are really not suitable for digital cameras, because discharge level cannot be controlled well.

P.P.P.S.: And what about using Li-ion AA batteries with each 3.7 Volt and each from 750 up to 1200 mAh? With modification of electrical wiring in the battery holder you could use either 2 x AA or parallel 2 x 2 x AA and a total of 7.4 Volt. The total mAh capacity would be much bigger than the original Pentax Li-Ion battery. But of course all this on your own risk ... and if the camera burns you do not need high ISO or flash light any more :-)

---

Last edited by Plentax; 11-07-2013 at 03:41 AM.

[JimJohnson]

I am only guessing, but suspect most of the camera electronics are only using 3vdc and the camera has a regulator to convert anything between 4vdc and 8vdc to the internal voltage.

Let me define a few words-
voltage is a measure of electric pressure in a circuit.
amperage is a measure of the number of electrons available at a given point in time.
power (often expressed as watts) is amperage multiplied by voltage.

While the camera's battery capacity meter likely uses voltage to guess at a battery's remaining power, the camera itself is going to be far more dependent on the batteries ability to deliver sufficient amperage. Many of the camera's functions require a lot of power for short periods. Such events would be using Live View, using the built-in flash, or operating the shutter and transferring the image from the sensor to the SD card.

A key difference in battery chemistry is not just the total electricity capacity (usually expressed in mah - mili-amp hours), but the peak amperage over time. Batteries do not chemically convert all their resources into electricity at once. Like a miniature factory, a battery builds an inventory of available electricity that it can quickly release. But if the demand exceeds the available inventory, it takes time to rebuild that inventory. This is why a battery that shows it is partially depleted can 'magically' be nearly full again after turning off the camera for a few minutes.

Batteries have a faster or slower electricity factory and a larger or smaller inventory capacity based on the chemistry used. Finally, there is one other aspect of battery chemistry - How much can the factory shut itself down when there is no demand for electricity? This is known as self-discharge.

To be frank, regular alkaline batteries are good for long slow power usage. They do not hold up well if you have periodic high demands for power - - and that is exactly what happens with digital cameras. The 'inventory' space just is not refilled quickly enough. But the factory shuts down almost completely between uses so alkaline batteries have a long shelf life. Alkaline batteries are not recommended except when you have no other choice.

Lithium batteries are excellent, but expensive and like standard alkaline, not rechargeable. Self-discharge is low.

LiON rechargeable batteries are also excellent - but they are perhaps the worst self-discharge rate of all types. If you are using your camera regularly and recharging your batteries regularly, self-discharge should not be a concern.

The first generation NiMh rechargeable batteries are very good. But not as good as LiON under heavy continuous use. They also suffer somewhat from self-discharge.

The second generation NiMh batteries, of which the Sanyo eneloop is in my opinion the king, is nearly the equal of LiON in performance, often have a larger total capacity than LiON, and most of all, have an incredibly low self-discharge for a rechargeable battery. If you are the type of photographer that is not using your camera heavily every day like most professionals do, but pushes it hard when you do pick it up, give eneloops serious consideration.

Also, if you are using NiMh batteries, it is very worthwhile to invest in an 'intelligent' battery charger. These chargers evaluate the condition of each cell individually, and charges each cell individually for maximum performance. These chargers can be expensive, but need not be. Sanyo sells online a 1 to 4 cell intelligent travel charger (world wide AC voltage support) for under US$25, including shipping. The charger is available ONLY from international online sellers in North America. The charger is also made specifically for eneloop AA or AAA cells.

[Plentax]

Thank you Jim for this good explanation. I couldn't describe it better and I have studied electronic engineering plus PhD.
Apparently my good Panasonic AL batteries and rechargabel Ni-MH have a too strong voltage reduction (even when still with reasonable power). Especially when switching on the LDC display the temporary "current" and "depletion" effect is very strong. I wonder what will happen now in the long term , when I switch the type selection always to Ni-MH when using AL batteries. Thank you for the hint with 2nd generation Ni-MH. I certainly will test and consider this. Luckily I have already a professional and quite expensive 120 USD battery charger for various battery types.

Replacing the 4 AA cells with Li-ion instead of AL or Ni-MH is certainly no real option, because the high voltage 3.7 Volt of one Li-ion cells would require too much modification of the battery holder. However the drastical increased capacity of advanced 4 x Li-ion AA cells versus the original D-LI109 capacity sounds promising. May be an idea for a modified battery holder with two parallel branches of two serial AA Li-ion batteries?

My external flash does use also 4 x AA cells. With this it is very attractive to use the same batteries for K-30 and flash.

Peter

[polur101]

I like to continue this post, because I experience huge battery depleted problems with my K-30.
I use the original Li-ion (LIB) rechargable battery and also 4 x AA standard Alkaline (AL) non-rechargable or 4 x Ni-MH rechargable batteries.

Normally I use flash very seldom and I keep the rear display swithed off most of the time.
But as soon as I used flash or display too much the battery depletion message and switch-off occurs very soon.
After a short recovery period for the batteries (some minutes) everything is fine again.

This behavior depends also on the battery type selection in the menu settings (Auto, Li, Ni-MH or AL).
If I switch to the correct setting, it can happen that the camera does not like to start. After inserting a full battery I can change the setting and replace and use another battery again.
I have the strong suspicion, that the menu setting is just defining a voltage level for measurement. With this the lowest voltage seems to be the NI-MH and the highest level seems to be Li.
But nevertheless even a small reduction in voltage results in depletion warning and camera switch-off.

The Li-Ion battery standard voltage is about 7.4 Volts.
The AA Ni-MH standard voltage is about 4 x 1.2 Volt.
The AA AL standard voltage is between 4 x 1.3 and 4 x 1.5 Volt

It seems, that as soon as the voltage of 4 x Ni-MH and AL batteries is starting to lower a little bit, the camera does not like to work.
I tested the partial depleted batteries with a professional battery tester and indeed they still have a quite high capacity.
As soon as the total voltage is below 5.5 Volt, which is 4 x 1.375 Volt, the K-30 does show problems.

I have the strong impression, that the K-30 battery voltage sensor is much too sensitive for 4 AA batteries.
With rechargable AA batteries this sensitivity is even higher.
May be instead of 4 AA batteries Pentax should have better designed the camera with 5 batteries in order to get a sufficient voltage?

What brand of rechargeable AA batteries are you using? Anything other than Eneloop brand is pretty much garbage. AA Lithiums in my K200D can give atleast 300 shots with average built in flash usage. Without flash about 450. Alkaline AAs are useless as well. Duracel fairs better, may be about 80 shots. Cheers.

[Plentax]

What brand of rechargeable AA batteries are you using? Anything other than Eneloop brand is pretty much garbage. AA Lithiums in my K200D can give atleast 300 shots with average built in flash usage. Without flash about 450. Alkaline AAs are useless as well. Duracel fairs better, may be about 80 shots. Cheers.

Thanks for sharing this experience.
Yes, I think my AL and Ni-MH batteries are really all garbage.
Including a cheap non-Pentax D-LI109 from Ebay, which is awfully bad and waste of money.

I will change to AA Lithium and Ni-MH Eneloop and continue to use the original Pentax D-LI109.
And I will check how the standard non-rechargable AL AA batteries behave with the camera setting on Ni-MH.

Peter

[felixkh]

I use AA Lithium as my standby set and I bought 2 3rd party batteries and they last as long the the original battery. The 3rd party battery is branded "DigiPower". I have used this brand on my K7/K5 and now the K30.

[jatrax]

There are threads on similar issues going back as far as the k-x. The one solution that seems consistent over the years is to use Eneloop batteries. Don`t bother with the others just get a set of Eneloops.

Jim, excellent explanation of the principles.

[ScooterMaxi Jim]

While trying other types of batteries might very well have a somewhat beneficial impact, I think the original post does indicate a real malfunction given that both OEM battery and a very high quality replacement (Pearstone is excellent stuff) exhibit an apparent drain in flash mode. Could be a bad capacitor, or a stressed connection, or a faulty circuit. I had and still have the exact same problem in the *istD - so the possibility goes back to dSLR Day 1 in Pentax. It wasn't a big deal to me - probably discovered after the warranty ran out; it is rare that I ever use the on-board flash so I never viewed it as a major problem (but it would hinder resale). Of course, it never changed using AA batteries - and that was all we use in the *istD.

If in warranty don't hesitate to send it in. It might not get worse, but it won't go away with AAs (although the lithium batteries are bullet-proof given their long shelf life - about a decade - and ability to overcome high draws).

One small warning about the Eneloop batteries - not all of them are the same; the higher capacity XX version can lose voltage quickly and will perform poorly sooner in digital cameras as voltage drops off in much the same way as the earlier technology. Duracell batteries made in Japan with the white cap on top are the exact same batteries as the "good" Eneloop versions (made in the same Sanyo/Panasonic factory).

[Plentax]

I think the basic issue with all batteries in the K-30 is the variance of voltage reduction vs remaining power. This variance is certainly depending very much on battery technology. Apparently the voltage detection levels in K-30 are quite sensitive. Since most Pentax users recommend the Sanyo Eneloop XX I have questions: Are the "Panasonic HHR-3XXe/4BC" with 2450 mAh the same type as the "Sanyo Eneloop XX" which can be found from 900, 1000, 1900, 2000, 2450, 2500 to 2550 mAh? Finally Panasonic/Sanyo is one company. Which Eneloops are the recommended ones? May be capacity is not the primary parameter for K-30, but the voltage decrease during usage?

And which chargers are best? In Europe I found the "Ansmann ENERGY XC3000" for 200 EUR or the "ALC 1010 Expert" for 100 EUR. I assume if µP-controlled single baycontrol , charge current control, voltage control and temperature control is supported, everything should be fine.