C100: C100 Mark II immediately shuts down with Canon batteries

Eric Coughlin

Eric Coughlin

Veteran
My C100 Mark II is shutting down with some of my Canon batteries. I put the battery in, turn the camera on, it turns on for about two seconds, and then shuts off.

I then put some off brand Wasabi batteries in the camera, and it works fine. And, I put the same Canon battery in my C100 Mark I, and it works fine.

This originally happened on a shoot about a year ago. My C100 Mark II turned off in the middle of a shoot. I turned it back on, and it turned off after two seconds. So, I tried a different battery, and that solved the problem. Since the Canon battery causing an issue still worked with my C100 Mark I cameras, I continued using it with them, putting a marker on it so as not to use it with the Mark II.

Later, that battery started working with the Mark II again. Then it stopped working with it again. Now, after testing, I'm finding that a second of my four Canon batteries is having that same issue with just the C100 Mark II, while they work find with my C100 Mark Is; so now a second Canon battery has a marker on it. The other two Canon batteries I have still work fine with the Mark II, as well as my Wasabi batteries.

What could be the issue here?
 
I have the same batteries with my C100 MKI, two OEM Canons, the small one it came with a one big one and then the two big Wasabi batteries. Functionally, the only difference would be the chip inside the Canon's that reads the battery level with the LED lights on the back of the battery and the fact that the Canon's have something in them that communicates with the camera to display remaining run time on it's screen. Other than that, both batteries are merely straight power cells in a plastic case.

Are the Canons perhaps getting close to end of life? Do they hold a big charge fine? Like any other troubleshooting, this can be tricky and the only way to proceed is to eliminate variables. Unfortunately you seem to have three known variables, your somewhat defective Canon batteries and your two C100s. It makes little sense that the battery(s) in question will shut down with your C100 MKII, yet work fine with your C100 MKI. This would indicate your C100 MKII being the problem. But if your C100 MKII powers up and works fine with the Wasabi batteries, that makes little sense and you then have to eliminate the C100 MKII (probably) as a possible cause. Do you have an independent battery level instrument/test tool? If I was in your position, I would probably just throw out the two questionable Canon batteries (I know, that kills, those suckers were not cheap) but I will not take batteries I can't count on out in the field. You could replace them with a couple more of the Wasabis (mine have been bullet proof and other than missing the run time indicator in the camera and the lights on the back, I find them the same as the large Canon batteries) or you could spend the money to replace your much more expensive Canon batteries with more Canons. Perhaps they are right on the edge of required voltage output and your C100 MKII needs a tiny bit more voltage or amperage than the MKI to function? Who knows? I can tell you anectdotally that after two years, I usually throw out batteries and just get new ones.

Depsite being told that Lithium Ions are less susceptible to memory fatigue and discharged cells, to me they just work great until they don't. Luckily the C100s are so battery efficient, you don't really need many of them to shoot all day, unless you are in the cold. I did a shoot in the winter of last year in Texas where we were outside in 18F windy conditions for about half a day and my batteries and the sound mixers NP1s were dropping dead left and right, the large Canon battery, fully charged, for the C100 died after about twenty minutes! We couldn't keep up. Luckily after that morning, we moved inside and caught back up on battery charging. The LP-E6s running my Blade were dropping dead after each 5-10 minute take, it was crazy since in normal conditions they last about 90 minutes.

Hope this is helpful.
 
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I had a similar issue where I borrowed the batteries from a friends XF205 - batteries are virtually the same although didn't power my C100 for any longer than 2 seconds before turning off.
 
Can someone point us to the specific Wasabis that work with C300/C100? I bought some off brands, and they don't work.
 
we were selling wasabi batteries for awhile, but stopped after experiencing a much higher failure rate than with other replacement batteries from vendors like Lenmar & Swit.
 
I have a pile of the Wasabi LP E6s for my Blade and 80D, they work great, just as good as the thrice as expensive Canons. I also have a dozen Wasabis for my Go Pros, no complaints. But you probably see a much larger cross section of them than I do Terry, me being a small sample size. I just bought two new BP-U90s for my Kamerar Brightcast. I am trying the Watson brand battery and charger, supposed to be very good, according DSLR Video Shooter YouTuber Caleb Pike.
 
Well technically I resolved it before posting the topic, by putting tape on the two defective batteries and only using them with my C100 Mark Is.

I have five Wasabi batteries on top of the four Canon ones, so I still have a good amount of batteries in general. The last couple shoots I did I found it a bit cumbersome to put the correct battery in my C100 Mark II while avoiding the now two bad batteries for it, so I may need to buy another Canon battery or two just to save a little shuffling time on set. I do prefer the Canon's for their accurate readout time and generally like to use them first and then switch to the Wasabis later only if I need to. Also having the battery light indicator on the battery itself is useful for quickly finding out what is charged or not which the Wasabis don't have.

Anyway, the purpose of this topic was to find what the problem was, of which I suppose the best theory was that the C100 Mark II requires more voltage than the Mark I and the older Canon batteries are giving less voltage over time, if that's a thing. The batteries still hold their charge pretty well; I think I get around 3 hours from them, while maybe they got four hours in their youth.

The first C100 I bought about four years ago, got one spare Canon battery with it and two or three Wasabis. So theoretically the two original Canon batteries that are the oldest are the ones that are having issues as I'm sure they've gotten the most use over the years.



scoop2622 said:
Do the Wasabi Battery show any level indicator on screen or is it a crap shoot?
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You get a bar indicator on your screen that shows a level of three or four bars to indicate how much battery you have left. Canon gives you a display in minutes, which is more precise.
 
I do the same, I have a BP-955, a 975 and two of the largest Wasabis. I used up the Canons first then use the Wasabis, all of them work fine but yes, I like the minutes of battery left when using the Canon batteries.
 
I would tend to agree with the theory. However, V demand for both cameras is the same @ 7.4vdc. Depth of charge affects discharge I and this is where the difference comes in. The C100's I-draw is advertised @ 1.1A/8.1W, C100/II @ 1.3A/9.8W. Somewhat negligible unless the battery itself has low depth-of-charge which is probably the case if cycled daily. I would guess Canon has built-in some sort of circuitry for under V as well...
 
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