I have a BP945 that will no longer take a charge. I have heard that there is a trick that can sometimes revive the dead cells. Anything sound familiar to you guys or am I stuck with buying another battery?

Don't think of it as being "stuck buying a new battery". Think of it as "having the opportunity to upgrade".

I think on a chemistry level, if your battery is dying from old age, its from the deposits of some chemicals accumulating at the anodes; in which case, nothing you can do about it, time for a replacement..

If it was a Lithium Ion battery (which it is), I would not be very comfortable trying any sort of unregulated charging. They hate to be charged incorrectly in a nasty, property destroying way.

Ha! Typing this and Aloha Joe on internet radio is talking about the case of the cell phone that went through the washing machine (it exploded and burned), he has a song for it...

AFAIK, the idea of "zapping" dead batteries relates to NiCad's and not LiOn or NiMH. My father, who was an engineer, liked to tinker with this sort of thing years ago. He had a huge capacitor the size of a coffee can which he charged up, connected to a battery, and then.... ZAP!. He said it worked in many cases. I can't remember the details, but I think the issue was one of internal shorts in the NiCad cells and zapping them vaporized the material which caused them.

Regardless, it was pretty scary, and I know the batteries had the potential to explode. So the bottom line is that I don't think this is something the average person should mess around with. If you need to ask how to do it on the internet then it ain't for you! ;-)

Those Canon LiON batteries have circuitry boards inside (one of mine dropped, case broke - battery no more working). So, the idea of shocking it sounds like it would only hasten its ultimate demise.

rj

One more battery for the recycling can! Was in NYC today on business. Stopped at B&H (right near the train station - gotta love it!) and bought a replacement!

Glad I asked - Thanks all!

If I got anywhere near B&H I would be walking for the rest of my life!

for nicd battaries check this out.

http://coldc.com/batthelp.html#cads

Found a link for real cheap replacement batteries http://www.power101.com
the batteries usually have more AH than the ones that come with your equipment....but beware these batteries have a tendency to heat up...more power more heat....some say it can be bad for digital cameras...I use 2 bp-511's in my canons and they work just fine....would be curious to what others have to say on this topic.....Thanx Dana

For NiMH and NiCD, there are some battery chargers (LaCrosse BC-900) which will repeatedly drain and recharge batteries until their maximum capacity is reached. Apparently, for NiMH, you have to cycle them 3-4 times before they reach full capacity. Though, that has not been my experience with Energizer, Sanyo and PowerEx AA's NiMH batteries.