Sony infoLITHIUM battery

I bought a Sony DSC-75 camera off ebay so I can take beam shots (camera has full manual controls)
It uses Sony NP-FM50 battery (common to a lot of Sony cameras), I thought a spare battery would be handy and bought a third party battery once again from ebay, now the bad news the camera has a way of detecting whether the battery is genuine, the camera turns on and displays "for infoLITHIUM battery only" and then turns off, is there a way to bypass this function?, how is it done?. I done lots of googling and it seems to be a common problem but didn't find a solution.
Any ideas?
Norm

Norm said:

I bought a Sony DSC-75 camera off ebay so I can take beam shots (camera has full manual controls)
It uses Sony NP-FM50 battery (common to a lot of Sony cameras), I thought a spare battery would be handy and bought a third party battery once again from ebay, now the bad news the camera has a way of detecting whether the battery is genuine, the camera turns on and displays "for infoLITHIUM battery only" and then turns off, is there a way to bypass this function?, how is it done?. I done lots of googling and it seems to be a common problem but didn't find a solution.
Any ideas?
Norm

Click to expand...

i have found no solution, some sony products didnt KNOW, even though they used the same infolithuim system, the newer cameras got smarter, and the cheap replacments have not caught up yet.

it always took the cheap ink cartrige and refill people to catch up also to the crasy locking chips put into ink carts that further increases the prices of them too.

it is interesting to note that genuine sony batteries, in genuine sony packs that we have, outlasted every other one used, rayovac duracell and cheap china. And when a battery recall came around, for one device, sony replaced over $450 worth of of overpriced battery.
so your screwed but not terribly :tinfoil:
seperated sony li-ion cells are some of the best cell items you can purchace , and thier li-poly packs are used in other branded devices, even cheap ones, and they work excelent in the li-poly too.

Thanks for your answer, I thought as much.
Strange thing is from my google searches the third party batteries seem to work OK until the first time you charge them, this has been my experience as well.
Norm

Rip the cells out, solder/weld them in series and connect them to your camera with a power jack. Be careful about not going under 3v per cell when using them. The camera shouldn't apply the fake-sensing logic to the external pack as it assumes it's a DC adapter.

As far as I understand, most knockoff infolithiums will work, but a few won't. You just got unlucky.

I contacted the ebay dealer and they say they have sent me another battery , be interesting to see if it is any different.
The external pack is a good idea except for the strange plug they use
Norm

please PM me if you get a FM or F cells that work with the new stuff, so i can get one , i use the 4x or 6x ones

Norm said:

I contacted the ebay dealer and they say they have sent me another battery , be interesting to see if it is any different.
The external pack is a good idea except for the strange plug they use
Norm

Click to expand...

Oh right, forgot about that.
I hacked the plug off the DC adapter and used it to run my old Sony CDMavica (CD200) on a 7xAA NiMH pack. I used screw connectors so I could switch the cable between adapter and battery pack.
Everything went well until the day I wired the cable backward by mistake. The camera died and never came back to life despite my repeated attempts at resurrection, which included taking the thing apart and fixing the microfuses inside.

This is why I hate Sony with a passion. They have good ideas and they make good hardware, but they inevitably ruin their products with dumb proprietary stuff and bad decisions.
Why don't they just use barrel plugs like the rest of the world is beyond me. And apparently they don't feel it necessary to include a $0.01 diode as reverse voltage protection on a camera that cost $800 when it was new.

What really drives me up the wall is that most people don't care, and stubbornly insist on buying overpriced stuff just because it has the "Sony" logo.

I have some inFAUXlithium batteries for my sony camcorder, and they seem to work fine.

I don't think it applies to every Sony camera greenlight. My previous Sony camera uses rechargeable AA's, certainly no problem with using that on non Sony batteries.
Not really sure which infolithium cameras have the same problem, hopefully one of my daughters will be able to use the battery on her video camera.
Norm

Just gave the battery to my daughter to use on here video camera and it works no problem.
Norm

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...51&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=11038826

Sony's outlet store has refurb NP-FM50s for $20, free shipping until Dec 31st. Can't beat that.

I _assume_ these have fresh cells put in them, and $20 is certainly worth it considering the trouble I have cracking into packs like this.

I had an off-brand battery of this type, crapped out in a year or two. Have had 3 sony OEMs, 2 of which are still working.

I probably bought my S75 1st half of 2001 when it came out. The MiniDV cam one probably is the only dead one of my 3, and that was probably bought in ...1999? Figure shortly after the iMac DV was released.

WalMart OTOH, has "rolled forward" the price on these things to $70.
That's nuts!