Nikon D50 dead battery

[reb78]

I have an old Nikon D50. Its fine for my needs so dont want to change it and I have a number of good lenses for it.

I havent used it for a while. The battery is original (so perhaps 25 years old). Until recently it held a charge. I charged it the other day, charger said all charged so I put it in the camera and the battery light flashed which indicates the battery is exhausted and needs replacement, it wouldnt take a photo or auto focus. The picture display screen also wouldnt work.

Accepting that the battery had done well, I ordered a duracell replacement off of ebay. It arrived, I charged it and got the same as above.

So I either have a defective replacement battery or there is something else wrong.

Anyone else familiar with this model and know what I might need to do to troubleshoot. Google says clean the contacts etc but no effect.

 

[Bullet2012]

Faulty charger ?

 

[dave h 2]

original battery chipped? I have a ancient Sony that only likes proprietary batteries.

 

[JEZGUZ]

I've got a Nikon D-60 and your post made me think about charging the battery, so I bunged it in the charger for a few hours with the result being a dead battery. I have flashed it with a pp9 in the past and that got it going, something you might try to wake it up. I've also ordered a replacement direct from Duracell. I'll try the wake up on it tomorrow as it's pub time.

 

[reb78]

Faulty charger ?

Possibly. Any idea how to check a charger? Measure voltage on the pins?

 

[reb78]

original battery chipped? I have a ancient Sony that only likes proprietary batteries.

I dont actually know. The duracell are sold as suitable and the symptoms are the same as the original.

 

[reb78]

I've got a Nikon D-60 and your post made me think about charging the battery, so I bunged it in the charger for a few hours with the result being a dead battery. I have flashed it with a pp9 in the past and that got it going, something you might try to wake it up. I've also ordered a replacement direct from Duracell. I'll try the wake up on it tomorrow as it's pub time.

As in joining the terminals from one battery to the other briefly with two wires? I can try that. Will the 7.2v battery be OK with 9v? Assume a pp3 will do the same.thing?

 

[Bullet2012]

Possibly. Any idea how to check a charger? Measure voltage on the pins?

not a clue,but more than one “faulty” battery may point to a different issue

 

[JEZGUZ]

Should be ok as they're only connected for a few seconds, it worked ok on mine.

 

[reb78]

I checked the voltages on both batteries tonight. They both read just under 8.4v - this is what the charger puts out. They are marked as 7.2v. I know that's not a load test but I'm wondering if the cmos type battery is flat in the camera. A few sites say just put a charged battery in for a few days and leave it (turned off) to see if you can get some charge into it. It looks like a pretty intensive strip down to get to it and replace it! A lot seems to need desoldering on the way - I found the repair manual online.

 

[Farside]

I have an old Nikon D50. Its fine for my needs so dont want to change it and I have a number of good lenses for it.

I havent used it for a while. The battery is original (so perhaps 25 years old). Until recently it held a charge. I charged it the other day, charger said all charged so I put it in the camera and the battery light flashed which indicates the battery is exhausted and needs replacement, it wouldnt take a photo or auto focus. The picture display screen also wouldnt work.

Accepting that the battery had done well, I ordered a duracell replacement off of ebay. It arrived, I charged it and got the same as above.

So I either have a defective replacement battery or there is something else wrong.

Anyone else familiar with this model and know what I might need to do to troubleshoot. Google says clean the contacts etc but no effect.

I also had a dud (new) Duracell battery, but fortunately I had another good one to make sure it wasn't the camera.
Duracell replaced it immediately and didn't want the dud one back.