GR Battery Adventure

[JohnWolf]

I was on a couple wait lists for a second Ricoh battery, when I thought I'd try this Wasabi DB-65 kit on Amazon. No luck. The notches are too short. So I made them longer with a single-edged razor and the batteries and charger work fine.

Not happy with hacked batteries, I read that the Sigma DB2 Merrill batteries work, so I ordered this Wasabi.

It works fine. But before it arrived, I saw my brother, who has the Sigma and tried one of his Sigma brand batteries. It's works well and he gave me one.

Anyway, in a week's time I've gone from one battery to five. All of them charge in the Wasabi charger.

I have not tried it, but I assume this Wasabi kit for the Sigma would be a good option for a charger and extra batteries. Has anyone tried it?

John

 

[aleksanderpolo]

I have the Wasabi DB-65 and it works fine without any hacking...

 

[Tom Caldwell]

I took the plunge on a few no name batteries from a Hong Kong vendor at US$3.00 each posted. "Too cheap" I thought. Came with the correct notches and have worked perfectly so far ...

I did spray paint a distinguishing stripe on them so they would not get mixed up with others. I checked them all on charging for over-heating - cool as cucumbers - seem to last ok in camera as well.

Some of my very old batteries ones used for many years developed a bulge in the outer casing. Might have jammed inside the battery compartment so I never use any battery that develops a bulge. But over the years perhaps three out of (say) 20 batteries have shown this condition. So even good tyres can get punctures.

So the moral inevitably is: "if you can't be good be careful".

Tom

 

[fitzhenry]

I too had no problem with my Wasabi batteries from Amazon. I also ordered the Sigma BP41 2-battery and charger set from the seller luck-to-you on Ebay, which I read about maybe here or on another forum. Delivery took a couple of weeks and they also work fine and look exactly like the Ricoh.

All in all I'm satisfied with my battery situation, except that on the day that I received my first set of backups I promptly lost the original Ricoh battery after making my very first battery switch "in the field". Out a hole in my pocket, if you can believe it. I didn't have a system in place.

Batteries really don't last that long, so I always leave the house with two fully charged backups.