Can charging via a shaver outlet damage cameras

Can it be just a coincidence that my Olympus Stylus/mju300 died and a
Nokia cell phone nearly died after I had charged their batteries using
an electrical outlet for shavers while on a trip in Spain?

Is it a no-go to charge batteries via a shaver outlet? Is this a known
problem?? Is the shaver outlet's power output too small or wrong type
for a charger? My quick Googling around didn't yield any warnings about
this, nor did the camera shops know about this.

....the Olympus Lithium battery was nearly empty so I charged it using
the Olympus charger. I connected the charger to the hotel bathroom's
shaver outlet. The outlet had three holes: the other side's two holes
read 110V and the other side's two holes read 220V. I used the 220V
holes because it is what I use at home.

The charge went as usual (red charger light turned to green after a
couple of hours) but the Olympus didn't power up using this battery or
any other known-good battery. The charged battery did power up other
cameras so the battery seemed to be OK.

Also a Nokia cellphone was charged via the same shaver outlet and it was
initially dead after the charge. The phone was OK after it was recharged
using a outlet for a TV I later found.

BTW, the Olympus is still dead. Olympus wants an outrageous fixed price
of 224 euros for _any_ procedure which requires opening the camera. I
then heard that Olympus is the only vendor who now refuses to sell parts
for independent repair shops (one repair shop was so disgusted at
Olympus' recent parts policies that they don't now even touch Olympus
cameras). So I couldn't get it even looked at anywhere at a reasonable
price.

My older camera was Olympus OM2N but after this repair experience I
ditched Olympus and got a Nikon instead.

--
Matti Haveri mattiDOThaveriATsjokiDOTutaeiroskaaDOTfi remove ei roskaa

In Matti Haveri
wrote:

The charge went as usual (red charger light turned to green after a
couple of hours) but the Olympus didn't power up using this battery or
any other known-good battery. The charged battery did power up other
cameras so the battery seemed to be OK.

Was the battery in the camera at the time you charged it? It's -possible
that there was some sort of high-energy "noise" on the power line which
passed through the charger circuitry and damaged your camera's
electronics.

Otherwise the entire scenario sounds quite unlikely.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN

Matti Haveri wrote:
Can it be just a coincidence that my Olympus Stylus/mju300 died and a
Nokia cell phone nearly died after I had charged their batteries using
an electrical outlet for shavers while on a trip in Spain?

Is it a no-go to charge batteries via a shaver outlet? Is this a known
problem?? Is the shaver outlet's power output too small or wrong type
for a charger? My quick Googling around didn't yield any warnings about
this, nor did the camera shops know about this.

...the Olympus Lithium battery was nearly empty so I charged it using
the Olympus charger. I connected the charger to the hotel bathroom's
shaver outlet. The outlet had three holes: the other side's two holes
read 110V and the other side's two holes read 220V. I used the 220V
holes because it is what I use at home.

The charge went as usual (red charger light turned to green after a
couple of hours) but the Olympus didn't power up using this battery or
any other known-good battery. The charged battery did power up other
cameras so the battery seemed to be OK.

Also a Nokia cellphone was charged via the same shaver outlet and it was
initially dead after the charge. The phone was OK after it was recharged
using a outlet for a TV I later found.

BTW, the Olympus is still dead. Olympus wants an outrageous fixed price
of 224 euros for _any_ procedure which requires opening the camera. I
then heard that Olympus is the only vendor who now refuses to sell parts
for independent repair shops (one repair shop was so disgusted at
Olympus' recent parts policies that they don't now even touch Olympus
cameras). So I couldn't get it even looked at anywhere at a reasonable
price.

My older camera was Olympus OM2N but after this repair experience I
ditched Olympus and got a Nikon instead.


Hi Matti...

The risk of electric shock in a bathroom is much
greater than elsewhere in a house, so the rules for
electrical outlets in them are much more stringent.

I can't speak for Spain, but here we have two ways of
meeting the extra requirement.

The current system is using a ground fault protector
outlet. Delivers full current, trips as soon as the
tiniest fault occurs.

The previous, and of course due to grandfathering still
in existence is the use of a tiny isolation transformer
between the supply and the outlet. This style
severly limits the output current to only a few watts.

Given that you had a choice of 110 or 220 my bet is that
there were two transformers in your Spanish one, with
very little current available - not nearly enough to
quick charge your batteries.

Now my next bet is that you have a timed charger...
that it simply ran for two hours and said OK, they're
charged. They weren't.

Bottom line - charge them again with a "regular" outlet
and they'll be fine

Next trip charge them in the kitchen or living room, or...

Hope this helps...

Ken

Matti Haveri wrote:
Can it be just a coincidence that my Olympus Stylus/mju300 died and a
Nokia cell phone nearly died after I had charged their batteries using
an electrical outlet for shavers while on a trip in Spain?

Is it a no-go to charge batteries via a shaver outlet? Is this a known
problem?? Is the shaver outlet's power output too small or wrong type
for a charger? My quick Googling around didn't yield any warnings about
this, nor did the camera shops know about this.

...the Olympus Lithium battery was nearly empty so I charged it using
the Olympus charger. I connected the charger to the hotel bathroom's
shaver outlet. The outlet had three holes: the other side's two holes
read 110V and the other side's two holes read 220V. I used the 220V
holes because it is what I use at home.

The charge went as usual (red charger light turned to green after a
couple of hours) but the Olympus didn't power up using this battery or
any other known-good battery. The charged battery did power up other
cameras so the battery seemed to be OK.

Also a Nokia cellphone was charged via the same shaver outlet and it was
initially dead after the charge. The phone was OK after it was recharged
using a outlet for a TV I later found.

BTW, the Olympus is still dead. Olympus wants an outrageous fixed price
of 224 euros for _any_ procedure which requires opening the camera. I
then heard that Olympus is the only vendor who now refuses to sell parts
for independent repair shops (one repair shop was so disgusted at
Olympus' recent parts policies that they don't now even touch Olympus
cameras). So I couldn't get it even looked at anywhere at a reasonable
price.

My older camera was Olympus OM2N but after this repair experience I
ditched Olympus and got a Nikon instead.


Hi Matti...

The risk of electric shock in a bathroom is much
greater than elsewhere in a house, so the rules for
electrical outlets in them are much more stringent.

I can't speak for Spain, but here we have two ways of
meeting the extra requirement.

The current system is using a ground fault protector
outlet. Delivers full current, trips as soon as the
tiniest fault occurs.

The previous, and of course due to grandfathering still
in existence is the use of a tiny isolation transformer
between the supply and the outlet. This style
severly limits the output current to only a few watts.

Given that you had a choice of 110 or 220 my bet is that
there were two transformers in your Spanish one, with
very little current available - not nearly enough to
quick charge your batteries.

Now my next bet is that you have a timed charger...
that it simply ran for two hours and said OK, they're
charged. They weren't.

Bottom line - charge them again with a "regular" outlet
and they'll be fine

Next trip charge them in the kitchen or living room, or...

Hope this helps...

Ken

In article ohQMc.106650$Mr4.50334@pd7tw1no,
Ken Weitzel wrote:

Bottom line - charge them again with a "regular" outlet
and they'll be fine

I have tried this many times but it doesn't help. The offending battery
now works in other cameras. And other batteries don't power up the
offending camera.

It was an external charger, BTW.

So it feels like there was something wrong with the power outlet and the
batteries weren't properly charged. It is odd that putting the battery
would break the camera. Maybe the battery initially had some odd charge
which could break the camera's circuits (immediately after the charge
the camera's LEDs very briefly and dimly lighted when the battery was
inserted, after that the camera has been completely dead), then maybe
after a proper charge the battery was reset more to the specs??

BTW, it was very difficult to find a similar replacement Lithium battery
for the Olympus on my trip when I was troubleshooting. My new Nikon can
also use regular AA batteries which are easy to find if rechargeable
batteries break.

thanks for the input,

--
Matti Haveri mattiDOThaveriATsjokiDOTutaeiroskaaDOTfi remove ei roskaa

In article ohQMc.106650$Mr4.50334@pd7tw1no,
Ken Weitzel wrote:

Bottom line - charge them again with a "regular" outlet
and they'll be fine

I have tried this many times but it doesn't help. The offending battery
now works in other cameras. And other batteries don't power up the
offending camera.

It was an external charger, BTW.

So it feels like there was something wrong with the power outlet and the
batteries weren't properly charged. It is odd that putting the battery
would break the camera. Maybe the battery initially had some odd charge
which could break the camera's circuits (immediately after the charge
the camera's LEDs very briefly and dimly lighted when the battery was
inserted, after that the camera has been completely dead), then maybe
after a proper charge the battery was reset more to the specs??

BTW, it was very difficult to find a similar replacement Lithium battery
for the Olympus on my trip when I was troubleshooting. My new Nikon can
also use regular AA batteries which are easy to find if rechargeable
batteries break.

thanks for the input,

--
Matti Haveri mattiDOThaveriATsjokiDOTutaeiroskaaDOTfi remove ei roskaa

Paul W. Ross wrote:
I just got back from a trip to Germany and Austria via river boat. I
have an Olympus C-5000. The charger is marked 110/220 volt, 50-60 Hz.
I ran it in the 220 volt floor jack with an adapter without any
problem My battery does come out of the camera for charging.

My guess is this is a coincidence. Unless the batteries could be induced
to produce a higher voltage or polarity reversal (against which devices
are normally protected anyway), it's difficult to see just how a battery
charged external to the camera could possibly harm the camera, inserting
with camera on, but even then that shouldn't cause a problem.
Look on the bright side, you're much better of with the AA's, cheaper
and readily availabe.
Dave Cohen

"Matti Haveri" wrote in message
...
Can it be just a coincidence that my Olympus Stylus/mju300 died and a
Nokia cell phone nearly died after I had charged their batteries using
an electrical outlet for shavers while on a trip in Spain?

Is it a no-go to charge batteries via a shaver outlet? Is this a known
problem?? Is the shaver outlet's power output too small or wrong type
for a charger? My quick Googling around didn't yield any warnings about
this, nor did the camera shops know about this.

...the Olympus Lithium battery was nearly empty so I charged it using
the Olympus charger. I connected the charger to the hotel bathroom's
shaver outlet. The outlet had three holes: the other side's two holes
read 110V and the other side's two holes read 220V. I used the 220V
holes because it is what I use at home.

The charge went as usual (red charger light turned to green after a
couple of hours) but the Olympus didn't power up using this battery or
any other known-good battery. The charged battery did power up other
cameras so the battery seemed to be OK.

Also a Nokia cellphone was charged via the same shaver outlet and it was
initially dead after the charge. The phone was OK after it was recharged
using a outlet for a TV I later found.

BTW, the Olympus is still dead. Olympus wants an outrageous fixed price
of 224 euros for _any_ procedure which requires opening the camera. I
then heard that Olympus is the only vendor who now refuses to sell parts
for independent repair shops (one repair shop was so disgusted at
Olympus' recent parts policies that they don't now even touch Olympus
cameras). So I couldn't get it even looked at anywhere at a reasonable
price.

My older camera was Olympus OM2N but after this repair experience I
ditched Olympus and got a Nikon instead.

--
Matti Haveri mattiDOThaveriATsjokiDOTutaeiroskaaDOTfi remove ei roskaa

I've charged batteries in a 120 V charger in Europe using the razor outlet
in a hotel, with no problem. Usually, there is a simple transformer behind
the outlet, since razors or electronic circuits don't usually care about 60
Hz vs 50 Hz supplies.