Thanks for the tips, everyone. And Chris, thanks for the offer, but it's
not necessary. Plenty of aftermarket batteries are available in the U.S.
The BLM-01 has been discontinued (so much for support of the earlier
models). The only battery now available new from Olympus is the BLM-5,
which is recommended for the E-5, and has a bit more capacity than the
BLM-01 (1650 mAh vs. 1500). It also "conveniently" requires a different
charger.
I did find some "real" BLM-01 at Amazon, so I bought one for $25. I should
get it by this weekend. The question now is whether it's relatively recent
or is "old stock" that has lost its shelf life. Time will tell. I'll give
it the recommended initial conditioning--three full charge/discharge
cycles--and hope for the best.
I went though this same issue with my Leica M8. Just before a major trip,
I realized that my original batteries were not holding as much "juice" as
before. Leica-branded batteries were at the time unavailable, and
obscenely priced anyway. I ended up buying a couple of aftermarkets, of a
brand that a friend had used successfully. The only problem with them is
that you have to discharge them fully before recharging or the camera
gives false "low battery" indications way too early in the next use.
Anyway, the choice for users of any Oly DSLR prior to the E-5 will soon be
to fork over $80 for a BLM-5 and the new charger, or buy an aftermarket
BLM-01 equivalent. I have read that the quality of aftermarkets vary
(thanks Siddiq!). The concensus "out there" seems to be that batteries
that use Japanese cells are usually OK, they are in the $15-$30 range.
Batteries with Chinese cells ($5-$20) may have substandard chips or worse,
and often don't hold as much charge as the better aftermarkets or the OEM
units. The problem is that there's no way to tell short of dismantling
the battery.
Lithium batteries represent the ideal FUD device. They might be OK, or
they might ruin you camera and set your house on fire. No way to know.
Caveat emptor. Have a nice day :-)
-Peter
Chuck Norcutt (chucknorcuttchucknorcutt.com) wrote:
> You are correct. The all work perfectly... until they don't. Lithium
> ions have a very nasty habit of catching fire from time to time.
> Unfortunately, water does not extinguish the fire (but may help cool it
> if you flood it well enough). Fire and even a possible explosion can
> result if the battery is short circuited. Since this is well known a
> properly built lithium-ion has a small computer chip inside to monitor
> charge rate, temperature and discharge rate. Should something go awry the
> smart little chip is supposed to disable the contacts to shut the battery
> down. But those little chips are costly relative to the total battery
> price. You can put a resistor in there at a fraction of the price. Guess
> which manufacturers do that. Hint: You can't tell without disassembling
> the battery. Your only protection is the brand name of a well known
> manufacturer who cares for his reputation.
--
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