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Different Panasonic CGA-DU21 batteries?

Camcorder-battery-shop.com 2006-12-29

A customer tell me that he bought a Panasonic CGA-DU21 battery and noticed that CGA-DU21 battery pack is different in size and weight. The one that was supplied with the PV-GS500 battery weights around 70g and the new Panasonic CGA-DU21 around 90g. The new one also looks bigger, of course it fits and works, but it hangs out more, so it is deeper. Is this normal, like did they change production or something? Or might this be a fake one which is going to explode soon

My answer is

There are probably hundreds if not thousands of vendors selling batteries made from various manufacturers and the quality of the battery from these vendors is generally unknown. It is a big industry. Panasonic camcorders are not sensitive to battery packs like Sony camcorders. Lithium Ion batteries start to degrade from the time they are manufactured. Manufacturers seem to remain silent about this issue. Reading through a variety of references it seems Lithium-ion batteries generally have a life span of 12 to 36 months. Your experiences may vary; mine have been over 24 months. Are you sure you want a larger battery? Sometimes they weigh a lot more, sometimes they interfere with looking through the viewfinder. I personally prefer two smaller batteries than one larger battery. It is difficult to tell when a battery is going to fail so I like to have a back-up.

There is the rare possibility that any battery can explode. Some battery designs are more prone to this than others. Being a name brand battery isn't always a good indicator that a battery isn't one of those that might possibly explode. Sometimes even name brand stuff does this.

Li-ion batteries do not explode, at least I have never been able to find a reliable report of the battery exploding however they have been reported to get very hot, hot enough to reach 6,000 degrees which could in some cases being more dangerous than exploding.

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