NEEWER Battery Charger Problem?

[Dwardski]

Hi Folks!

I recently bought a Neewer Triple Charger, complete with three LP-E6NH (equivalent) batteries. I got a great deal - it was on sale on Amazon for just over £30, instead of the usual £70. So far, I've been very pleased with it; the batteries are recognised by my R5, and seem to last just as long as my genuine one. The fact that the charger can charge three batteries at a time, using a USB C cable rather thatn a mains lead, is a big advantage, as I could - theoretically - use it in my car whilst driving between locations.

However, I have one problem. If I try to charge the genuine battery in the charger, it doesn't appear to be recognised; the little LCD screen doesn't light up, as it soes whenever I plug in the Neewer batteries. As I was a bit wary of the charger damaging the geniune battery (or vice versa) I haven't actually left the battery in the charger to see if it would charge.

So, the big question: do I have a faulty charger, or do I simply have an incompatability between the third-party charger and the genuine battery? If anyone out there has one of these Neewer chargers, could you let me know your experiences?

 

[SYSO]

While I don't have the same Triple Charger, I do have several Neewer Double Chargers, and my experience with these is that they work perfectly fine with the Neewer LP-E6NH batteries but not so much with the Canon OEM batteries. Unlike your experience with the Triple Charger, though, my Double Chargers do charge the OEM batteries but only to about 95%, never to 100%. So, there is a certain degree of incompatibility. I now charge Neewer batteries with the Neewer Double Chargers and the OEM batteries with the Canon chargers that came with the camera purchase.

 

[Dwardski]

While I don't have the same Triple Charger, I do have several Neewer Double Chargers, and my experience with these is that they work perfectly fine with the Neewer LP-E6NH batteries but not so much with the Canon OEM batteries. Unlike your experience with the Triple Charger, though, my Double Chargers do charge the OEM batteries but only to about 95%, never to 100%. So, there is a certain degree of incompatibility. I now charge Neewer batteries with the Neewer Double Chargers and the OEM batteries with the Canon chargers that came with the camera purchase.

Thanks for the reply, and for confirming my suspicions! I'm also going to have to use both chargers accordingly, which is a bit of a pity. However, I suspect that if, in the future, I need more batteries, I'd go with the Neewer batteries and - maybe - "retire" the Canon one.

 

[SYSO]

Thanks for the reply, and for confirming my suspicions! I'm also going to have to use both chargers accordingly, which is a bit of a pity. However, I suspect that if, in the future, I need more batteries, I'd go with the Neewer batteries and - maybe - "retire" the Canon one.

I've been using 4 Canon and 8 Neewer LP-E6NH batteries for the past 2 years, and like your experience, Neewer batteries have been as good as the Canon's with no sign of deteriorating performance. Should I need more batteries in the future, it's no brainer that I go with Neewer even though the price has gone up 3-4x since I purchased them.

 

[Dwardski]

I've been using 4 Canon and 8 Neewer LP-E6NH batteries for the past 2 years, and like your experience, Neewer batteries have been as good as the Canon's with no sign of deteriorating performance. Should I need more batteries in the future, it's no brainer that I go with Neewer even though the price has gone up 3-4x since I purchased them.

That makes sense. I was quite surprised - although I shouldn't have been - that the Neewer batteries had gone up so much, but they're still a bagain in comparison to £90 for a genuine Canon one! As I said in my original post, I managed to get batteries (plus charger) for just over £30. Now that was a bargain!

 

[Dave Williams]

That was a bargain at £30, back to £71.49 today in the UK but still a good price compared to a Canon one.
As for performance, they seem to last as long as the Canon one in the camera although it's difficult to judge. Certainly two would well outlast the Canon.
As for charging, they are USB chargers and they do take an age. I charge them in the Neewer charger while my Canon one is being used then top them up in the Canon charger. I haven't tried using the Neewer on the Canon battery and won't!

 

[Dwardski]

That was a bargain at £30, back to £71.49 today in the UK but still a good price compared to a Canon one.
As for performance, they seem to last as long as the Canon one in the camera although it's difficult to judge. Certainly two would well outlast the Canon.
As for charging, they are USB chargers and they do take an age. I charge them in the Neewer charger while my Canon one is being used then top them up in the Canon charger. I haven't tried using the Neewer on the Canon battery and won't!

I haven't tried charging all three batteries from flat, so can't comment on how long that would take but, from my experience with previous-generation batteries, I should imagine that the USB chargers will take much longer than the mains- powered ones. As to charging the Canon battery using the Neewer charger, the reason that I tried it was that I've done that with my 5D batteries for many years, without any problems.

Finally just had a look at battery prices on amazon; the price of a genuine Canon battery is just shy of £100, which makes the Neewer triple-pack a bargain. Even when compared to other third-party batteries, on a per-unit basis it's cheaper to buy the triple-pack and get a "free" charger. Perhaps I'll buy another set in the future, then I can keep the second charger in my camera bag, or perhaps in the car.

 

[Nick L]

I also have a number of neewer batteries (7) and four different chargers but not the 3 battery charger, I have noticed one the two battery chargers (with a display) will only work if two discharged batteries are added together and left in till both charged, the other of of these does not do this, I have had no issue with the canon battery but I tend to use the Canon charger if i have only one battery to charge.
As far how good the neewer batteries are I have noticed they work nearly as well as the canon batteries but do tend to die quicker when they hit the last third (if I am doing bird shoots i tend to swap in a new battery before i hit the last bit rather than have a battery suddenly die.

 

[Dave Williams]

I went out today for the first time since my R5 was returned from having a shutter replaced and I have upgraded to Firmware 1.8.1.
Guess what!
The R5 no longer recognises the Neewer battery.
It works OK but doesn't give a current charge status so half way through a shoot I was suddenly in a position of having to change batteries in the middle of some decent action.
Thank you Canon

 

[SYSO]

I went out today for the first time since my R5 was returned from having a shutter replaced and I have upgraded to Firmware 1.8.1.
Guess what!
The R5 no longer recognises the Neewer battery.
It works OK but doesn't give a current charge status so half way through a shoot I was suddenly in a position of having to change batteries in the middle of some decent action.
Thank you Canon

I've heard several other reports of the R5 not recognizing Neewer batteries after the latest firmware upgrade. Mine still recognizes even after the firmware upgrade. I wonder why some R5s recognizes Neewer and some don't after the firmware upgrade....

When you said, "doesn't give a current charge status," did you mean the Battery Info in the Menu or the battery icon in the viewfinder, or perhaps even both? If only in the Battery Info in the Menu, that's not a big deal, but I'd be concerned if the battery icon in the viewfinder is affected, as well.

 

[Dave Williams]

The battery info in the viewfinder shows a battery with no bars in it.Empty but not red.
When I turned the camera on it said the battery wasn't recognised, just like the !DX2 did with my Hahnel battery that the 1DX was happy to read. Canon also seemed to manage to nobble the Canon charger to stop it charging the 3rd party battery but at least the Neewer one has just recharged in the Canon one to a full green light. I'll check the menu option later .

 

[Nick L]

Hi Dave, do have more than one Neewer batteries, is the same on each of them? I have been running 1.8.1 for a while and have not seen this issue with any of the neewer batteries

 

[Dave Williams]

How very weird. Both my Neewer batteries now seem to work perfectly including the one that didn't before. I checked both as I'm not sure which was which!

 

[Nick L]

Glad they are ok again I was aware that Canon have declared war on the fake batteries but the third party ones have never been and issue and until Canon's own are a more reasonable price I will use third party ones and neewer are the best NH bettery I have found so far.

 

[Nick L]

There is a new firmware 1.8.2 in serviced cameras, lets hope it likes Neewer batteries, I will wait for others to install I think

 

[Kerro]

I have 2 Canon R5 batteries and 4 Smartree 3rd party batteries from eBay. My battery charger is by Andoer and chargers 4 batteries at a time. All were cheap except the extra R5 one which I bought when I got the R5 last April. The charger has no problem charging all 6 batteries including the R5's.
I get about the same time and usage out of the 3rd party batteries as the original R5's. I use a battery grip so I have always got 2 batteries in camera and 4 spares. I have no problems with any of them. If I recall I got the 4 3rd party batteries included with the battery charger.

 

[Dwardski]

Just a quick heads-up for any UK Amazon Prime members: the Neweer triple-battery set is on sale for £57, rather than £71. Nowhere near as good as my bargain of a few months ago, but perhaps worth a look.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I looked at the Neewer batteries, but I stuck with Canon OEM. I am able to shoot an entire days event, about 5 hours of on time and over 1500 photos with the R6Mk2 and I’ll be at 50% battery by the end of the day. I have three LP-E6NH Canon batteries and I don’t think I need any extras.

 

[Dave Williams]

Just a quick heads-up for any UK Amazon Prime members: the Neweer triple-battery set is on sale for £57, rather than £71. Nowhere near as good as my bargain of a few months ago, but perhaps worth a look.

Thanks for the heads up. Even at £57 you can buy 6 for the price of one Canon one and I find they perform equally well. Canon don’t make batteries, they outsource them to China but for many the brand name is all that matters. It’s a matter of trust and perceived quality. I only buy Canon lenses for the same reason. Probably stupid! Not long ago Samsung was a “Mickey Mouse “ company but look at them now. On the other hand look at Hoover, Kodak and Saab. All but gone.