Panasonic HMC150 VW-VBG6 battery - Decoded / Chipped $40

I bought two of the Hong Kong eBay batteries and they seem to work fine, but the capacity shown in the viewfinder is not correct. Both batteries show 240 minutes at full charge but this decreases by 1 minute every 40 seconds....so..in effect, it's 33% less capacity than shown.

I tested this with a stopwatch and the original Panasonic battery and the original was fine (decreased by 1 min every 1 min). Still, almost 3 hours per $35 battery is very good. No major complaints here.
 
William said:
Thanks for the tip on that 29 dollar battery... it fits fine, works fine... no problems or issues... 3+ hours.
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I just received two of those batteries yesterday.
One fits my cam the other doesn't so I sent it back to replacement.
The one that works displays the time correctly as I timed it.
 
When you are inserting the battery, place your index finger at the space between the camera and the battery (at the top near the back of the battery) and press down firmly and it will click into place. It also takes a lot of pressure to insert the battery into the charger. Just to note...this battery does not fit a TM 700.
 
Nick Pompadelaquisio said:
When you are inserting the battery, place your index finger at the space between the camera and the battery (at the top near the back of the battery) and press down firmly and it will click into place. It also takes a lot of pressure to insert the battery into the charger. Just to note...this battery does not fit a TM 700.
Click to expand...
Inserting batteries should be an easy process and should never be forced on any unit. The battery did not fit the cam nor the charger.
I received the replacement today and it fits perfect.
These batteries are a great deal. I'm picking up two more and I should be good.
 
Can anyone confirm whether there is any disadvantage of using the 6600 mAh battery compared to the 5400 mAh 7.2v battery?
 
If it is true 6600 mah battery, there would be no disadvantage; you would get a little longer run time. I doubt it really is; as far as I know nobody makes them in the Panasonic form factor, there is just not enough space to fit in bigger capacity cells.
 
Thanks for the info everybody -- particularly the find at Adorama. After getting years of use out of my DVXUser batteries for the DVX100 and HVX200 I hated to pay upwards of $150 for a new battery!
 
I went with two from Adorama. I charged one and it came in at 225 min. The other would not click into the camera or charger.

Non-real world tested the working battery. Zoomed/focused on a television screen for movement, using 32gig memory (199 minutes of memory recording time reported by camera). Started recording and left in that state until the camera powered down for lack of power.

At 1 hour recorded, the camera reported 169 minutes of power remained, so 86 minutes of battery used in 60 minutes.
At 2 hours recorded, the camera reported 83 minutes of power remained, so 86 minutes of battery used in 60 minutes (consistent with 1st hour).
At 3 hours recorded, the camera reported 7 minutes of power remained, so 76 minutes of battery used in 60 minutes.
At 3 hours 7 minutes recorded, the camera shut down. The last 7 minutes were reported accurately.

Maybe more than the last 7 minutes were accurate.

From this I can say that the battery power state is consistently incorrect for at least the first two hours of steady recording.

In looking up Adorama's return policy, they do not accept returned batteries. Still, I'm returning the bad battery. Maybe they'll send a replacement -- if they don't, I'll post it here (and cancel the credit card charge for that battery).
 
I used Adorama's pdf return form and sent the non-working battery back. I did get it to fit by jiggling it around, but the HMC150 reported the battery would not work. I received a replacement battery. It did not want to fit either, but by pulling it slightly away from the camera when seating it, it locked into place and worked. It also charged and continued working after charging. I am happy with the running time of these batteries. For the price ($29), they seem too good to be true, and only time will tell. If all of them fit as well as the first one I tried, I would not be hesitant to recommend them.

If I can see why the batteries fit differently, I'll report back here.

I jiggled both batteries when inserted into the camera (with power on), and there was no disconnect due to the slight "wiggle room" in one of the batteries.
 
I just purchased 4 of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320568395024&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

$44.99 each including shipping from China and the seller has a 99.9 positive rating!

They "say" Panasonic, but I'm pretty confident they are counterfeits. But at least the have the Panasonic lablel so I don't "appear" to be cheap to anyone that might be looking. They also display the time remaining (which starts with a full charge at about 260 minutes) although it will fluctuate somewhat and drops faster than just 1 minute per minute.

They are a VERY good fit. No problem there. And I received them from China in just slightly over a week.

So here are my thoughts (they may change). Pay the "big bucks" for the reliable name brand SD cards. Most of use can NOT afford to loss the data. Then, if you need to save some money, go with the inexpensive batteries.

I'll let you know how things go from here.

Tom
 
I did some testing this evening on my "China" batteries that I mentioned above. I was mainly wondering how accurate was the battery minute counter.

If the LCD monitor is closed and you do NOTHING else (no zooming, no recording, etc.) except just look at an image through the viewfinder, then one minute on minute counter equals one minute in real time. However, if you have the LCD monitor open, one minute on the counter equals about 40 seconds in real time.

How does this compare to the "real" Panasonic batteries?

Tom
 
I did some MORE testing with my "China" batteries. I put a fresh charged battery on the HMC150 and just started a continuous recording. I was using the the LCD screen but did NO zooms or made any other adjustments. The only exception was I had to stop once to put in and formate a new SD card (16gb).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320568395024&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT


Total Contiuous Recording Time at 1080/60i w/LCD open: 2:24 (144 minutes).


That seems pretty good to me. How does it campare to the Panasonic batteries?


Tom
 
Please, please.

Can some one please tell me what is the continuous record time of a "real" Panasonic VW-VBG6 battery?

Thanks,
Tom
 
The Lenmars are well received, the first shipment sold out almost instantly, so far only positive feedback - not a single issue. We had to wait for the new shipment as they were back ordered in February.
 
TomBoisseau said:
I did some MORE testing with my "China" batteries. I put a fresh charged battery on the HMC150 and just started a continuous recording. I was using the the LCD screen but did NO zooms or made any other adjustments. The only exception was I had to stop once to put in and formate a new SD card (16gb).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320568395024&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT


Total Contiuous Recording Time at 1080/60i w/LCD open: 2:24 (144 minutes).


That seems pretty good to me. How does it campare to the Panasonic batteries?


Tom
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The Panasonic batteries are real time, even if you use the LCD, the zoom and you are recording. It runs for about 240 minutes.
 
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