p.1 #1 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
To all,
I found out today, after just buying a used Canon Speedlight EL-5 here on FM that there is an outstanding Product Advisory
Issued back in September of 2024. It can be found here on the Web.
When I searched the Canon forum here I could not see only previous post on it but admit my search may not have been thorough enough. I wanted to highlight this to the Canon community since this flash is designed for cameras with the newest digital hot shoe like the R5 Mark II and R6 Mark II. I don’t know what other newer cameras use this shoe.
I did buy this used here on FM since I recently bought the R5 Mark II new here as well but from a different supplier.
Also note the original owner bought the flash from Best Buy. I am following up with them as well.
No blame here but wondering if there is a place on the site where it’s possible to find posted Product Advisories? Or
Do just need to search the web in advance of buying any gear here since used gear does not typically carry the manufacturer’s warranty.
p.1 #2 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
It's decent of Canon to offer free repairs, but since it sounds like a design or production flaw, it's clearly the right thing for them to do. It would be nice to have a central repository for links to manufacturer's product advisories. You could propose that to Fred, for possible future implementation. First question; who is going to do it ? I suspect that some volunteers stepping forward to coordinate things would be helpful, but I don't know if that is consistent with how the site runs. Fred knows.
Like you, I would assume the seller didn't know this, either. This thread is a good way to handle it.
p.1 #3 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
swldstn wrote:
To all,
I found out today, after just buying a used Canon Speedlight EL-5 here on FM that there is an outstanding Product Advisory
Issued back in September of 2024. It can be found here on the Web.
When I searched the Canon forum here I could not see only previous post on it but admit my search may not have been thorough enough. I wanted to highlight this to the Canon community since this flash is designed for cameras with the newest digital hot shoe like the R5 Mark II and R6 Mark II. I don’t know what other newer cameras use this shoe.
I did buy this used here on FM since I recently bought the R5 Mark II new here as well but from a different supplier.
Also note the original owner bought the flash from Best Buy. I am following up with them as well.
No blame here but wondering if there is a place on the site where it’s possible to find posted Product Advisories? Or
Do just need to search the web in advance of buying any gear here since used gear does not typically carry the manufacturer’s warranty.
I have not had mine repaired yet, mostly because there is minimal impact to my usage. The flashes go in the checked luggage and the Li-ion batteries in carry-ons.
p.1 #4 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I have two refurbished units from Canon, one from end of September and one from December. Neither one exhibits this issue. Though it's maybe reasonable to think they were fixed before shipping out since they are refurbished/open units that came from Canon directly after the fix was made available.
I have not had mine repaired yet, mostly because there is minimal impact to my usage. The flashes go in the checked luggage and the Li-ion batteries in carry-ons.
EBH
EBH, thank you for providing the link and the posts there are interesting. Don’t know why my search didn’t find it.
When I travel I never leave in the batteries in my equipment going on the plane no mater if the equipment is in the passenger area or below in the luggage compartment. Safety is my number one concern. I’m more concerned about the problem of the battery being drained while in my house or hotel and it being dead and unable to function when I need it.
The original owner plans to provide me with the receipt so I plan to reach out to Canon once I have it to see if it needs repair.
Just wanted to make sure others were aware of it. Thank you.
p.1 #9 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
big country wrote:
charge your battery, put it in the flash ad let it set for a few days. if its dead, it suffers from the recall issue. if it holds a charge, its fine.
call canon, they will tell you to do the same thing.
Thank you. Will start that now and will do it over the weekend.
p.1 #10 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
Just a follow up note. After charging all night is it normal that the battery only gets to 89-90% when being read on the internal battery information menu? I’m using a standard LC-E6 charger. Is this typical ? The battery recharge performance is three solid bars which means good? Or does this indicate any other issues with the battery? I’m now going let the battery sit in the turned off flash for the next two or three days.
p.1 #11 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
swldstn wrote:
Just a follow up note. After charging all night is it normal that the battery only gets to 89-90% when being read on the internal battery information menu? I’m using a standard LC-E6 charger. Is this typical ? The battery recharge performance is three solid bars which means good? Or does this indicate any other issues with the battery? I’m now going let the battery sit in the turned off flash for the next two or three days.
You need to discharge the LP-EL lower than that in order for a charge cycle to start and get it to 100%. Fire off some pops and get it to 86% or less and then try again.
It is different than the camera batteries that charge below 94% IIRC.
p.1 #12 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
EB-1 wrote:
You need to discharge the LP-EL lower than that in order for a charge cycle to start and get it to 100%. Fire off some pops and get it to 86% or less and then try again.
It is different than the camera batteries that charge below 94% IIRC.
EBH
Thank you again. I think I can try that after letting it sit in the flash for a few days. If the flash leaks off the change and there is a problem with my EL-5 unit I deal with that and then try to recharge it to 100% by intentionally discharging it.
p.1 #13 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
The other strange thing is that the LP-EL seems to drain by itself outside of the flash faster than the other LP-E6x variants so you might need to test both in and out of flash to compare loss rates.
Given that the LP-E6P has a BMS with 8A limit and that the LP-EL has only a 4A limit and both have the same Wh capacity I'm not sure why the flashes could not simply use the LP-E6P. Maybe the battery chemistry is slightly different and the LP-EL uses larger cells to better dissipate heat or something.
p.1 #14 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I just called Canon and they are sending me a shipping form. I also mentioned to them that my batteries will not charge to 100% and they said to send them along as well. I am going to try the suggestion above to pop off a number of flashes to get the charge down below 80% and then try to re-charge.
As far as the advisory goes - I remember when it first came out it was for Japan only and then when I was looking for something the other day I "fell into" the current product advisory. My guess is this was not sent to anyone registered because it was not a recall but an advisory. I wonder if they send recall notices to people that are registered.
If you have not done it - register your equipment with Canon. If you are a CPS member you might also get better service. To join you need points. Not sure if points carry over years.
I'll update once I get my flash back to let you know what they did.
p.1 #15 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I’m currently testing the flash I got to see if discharges the battery rapidly as identified in the advisory.
In the mean time I took delivery of a new battery and as expected it showed up dead on arrival from B&H. I’m now charging it to see if it charges to full 100% or not. Will see.
I do find that the LP-EL battery, when charging, does not go thru the same lighting up sequence of the green LEDs like an LP-E6 or LP-E6NH and appears to skip all that and when charged just indicated with only turning on one green LED. I’ve used two different LC-E6 chargers I have and both appear to exactly the same thing.
Is that expected?
p.1 #16 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I have not checked the charging profile but the LP-EL discharge profile is reasonably similar to the LP-E6NH. It charges fine in my older LC-E6s and in a Nitecore USB charger that I have used in the field with a power bank to avoid the need for extra LP-ELs.
p.1 #17 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
EB-1 wrote:
I have not checked the charging profile but the LP-EL discharge profile is reasonably similar to the LP-E6NH. It charges fine in my older LC-E6s and in a Nitecore USB charger that I have used in the field with a power bank to avoid the need for extra LP-ELs.
EBH
Which Nitecore do you have? I previously had a Nitecore I used for charging two Sony FZ100 batteries but I did have that charger die on me.
The new LP-EL battery finished charging and charged up to 98%. Also found there was a firmware update for the EL-5 to version 1.1.0 (it came to me with version 1.0.1) and I updated it. Went really smoothly.
So I’m going to continue seeing if the flash discharges the original battery that is currently at 85%.
p.1 #18 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I had all three Nitecores for Canon. I think it was the dual-sided, both LP-E6x, max 1A. Many of the cheap generic LP-E6x chargers are upright and don't fit the LP-EL battery at all.
What does the FW update do?
p.1 #19 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
EB-1 wrote:
I had all three Nitecores for Canon. I think it was the dual-sided, both LP-E6x, max 1A. Many of the cheap generic LP-E6x chargers are upright and don't fit the LP-EL battery at all.
What does the FW update do?
EBH
I haven’t found yet to find a third party charger that can deal with the taller LP-EL batteries. So right now I’m stuck using the Canon LC-E6 chargers from the R5’s I own.
Also admit I haven’t read what the firmware update really handles. Just decided to risk installing it more to see how the firmware supported accessories update thru the camera body. Had to put it into the new multi function shoe to do it. Also since the information menu is the only real way to tell how much charging is being done to the battery of the flash I wanted to see if the new firmware changed the amount of charge reported after charging the LP-EL battery. It does not appear to.
p.1 #20 · Canon EL-5 Speedlight Service Advisory heads Up
I'm still using the older LC-E6 chargers with the 1.2A current since they are faster. The UCN3 are still around *b*Y and the nice display is much more informative than the blinking lights. I also have the UCN2 which goes up to 1.2A, but it is bulkier and must use a thin USB 2.0 micro cable snaked around underneath. The way the 2-bay chargers work is not very good for different charge levels (time division), so I normally only use one bay. It's really too bad that Canon doesn't make USB chargers like Nikon.
