Just plugged in my depleted NC-E3 battery... The connection was surprising snug... There was an actual feel of grooves connecting to reference that it's securely linked... Here's what it looks like connected to the recharging unit...
The "red" LED indicating that it's charging the battery... Plug-in/charging time started at 10:32am (PST)... It's now 11:10am (PST) and the LED is still "red"... M3rocket, as you can see in the last two images, the recharger isn't that big at all... It's roughly the same length as the NC-E3 battery itself... I hope that helps as a frame of "size" reference since I didn't take a picture of both the NC-E2 OEM charging unit...
If you have any questions, comments, and/or inquiries, please put them here or send me a PM... At this point, I'm pleased with the unit... We'll see if we get a "green" light in 90 minutes to show a fully charged battery... More info to come...
m3rocket wrote:
Thanx for the photos! Looks nice and compact.
You're welcome...
And FYI... The NC-E3 battery is fully charged as of 12:36pm (PST)... A little over two hours from empty to full... Now a few observations from the recharging unit:
- The recharging unit was warm after completely charging the depleted battery
- The battery itself was a little bit warm, too, but cool than the charger
- Full charge was a little over 2 hrs (compared to what it said on the box (90min)
- The "green" LED showed that it has completed the recharge
Take these observation with a grain of salt... Only time will tell how this product will perform against the Canon version... The charging unit doesn't have dual chargings (like the Canon version), nor does it have a "refresh" feature... But at almost 5x cheaper than a new Canon NC-E2 charger and smaller dimension, it's a decent alternative especially for its traveling size... As I mentioned, only time will tell on how this product will perform... My initial charge worked like a charm... I'm currently charging my second battery to see how quickly it will charge (it was half-way depleted)... Stay tune...
Andrew J wrote:
I have used the mydigitaldiscount charger for more than a year and it's great. When used with a battery like the Lenmar, reconditioning is not needed.
Canon really goes all out, managing to still produce a battery with memory effect.
almost all NiMH batteries have a memory and need to be refreshed at some point in their life span. otherwise they'd be useless after a couple hundred, or even less in some cases, charges.
Can anybody tell me how to manually 'refresh' my 1d batteries?
My 1d didn't come with an original charger so I bought a 3rd party charger without a refresh function.
refresh usually means a full drain, e.g. to 0v or close to it. I'd rig up a small light bulb(s) to the battery to manually drain it. Or you could use a resistor bank to just dissipate voltage as heat. Or just get the NC-E2.
Interested to know how this charger performs over time. I posted on this forum a while back, asking about 3rd party chargers & was resoundingly advised to get the Canon charger. Like one of the earlier posters here, I was led to believe the third-party chargers were best avoided.
Well... It's been about 4 months since I purchased this charging unit... I've taken it on one trip (cruise) and a few wedding gigs to charge my 1Ds2 and 1D2N batteries whenever it needed charging... The verdict?! It's still functioning perfectly... No hiccups whatsoever... The long week cruise was the big test and it passed with flying colors... I brought two batteries with me... One was on the camera and the other was always connected on the charger... Every morning I would switch batteries to make sure I had a fully charge one on my camera... No issues, problems, and/or errors during the trip... It charged them efficiently and thoroughly...
Anyhoo, I personally wanted to give an update since I purchased it... I'll chime in again in a few months to give another update... So far, so good...
Mine lasted just over a year before it quit. I contacted Eastgear about a warranty or repair and was told it was out of warranty and there is no repair service. I won't be buying another one, I'll stick with the OEM charger.
