Hi Folks. I have a NP-FA70 long lasting battery. It works fine except that it does not spring out of the camera like it should. I have to use a knife to give it a little nudge. Has anyone experienced this problem before? I thought I had a problem with the battery compartment with my camcorder. I therefore went to my local Sony Store with my battery and tried it on their demo. Same thing the battery was stuck inside. Thanks. Peter.

Peter,

do you have a Sony brand NP-FA70 or a non-sony version? I have the Sony and have never had a problem (actually, I have two that I switch out frequently).

Hi. Ian. I have a Sony Version. I will try calling Sony CANADA to see if the battery is under warranty. Peter.

I have the exact same problem with my brand new Sony FP70 battery.

If that wasn't bad enough, my one month old FP50 battery is totally intermitant.

This 'smart' battery technolgy of Sony really sucks!

JohnG

I just bough the Sony HC90 like yesterday and I bought an extended NFP70 and it is stuck also. How the heck do you get this thing out and what is up with this happening? Any ideas?

My HC90 arrived a couple of days ago - sorry I cant speak from experience with the higher capacity battery - didn't get one of those.

Is it the same size as the FA50? I cant imagine that it could be other than same size - otherwise you might expect it could be a potential problem?

For what it's worth, I've taken my battery in and out a few times so far and haven't noticed any problem with it.

I hope someone can provide some explanation - otherwise when time arrives for me to get another battery I'll be sticking with FA50.

good luck to all
darul

I bought two of the FA70s and have had no problems. They've been put in and taken out at least 30 times each without fail.

The FA70 is noticeably thicker than the FA50 that the HC90 ships with otherwise there wouldn't be any issues. My FA50 also goes in and out like butter, but the FA70 I got seems to be slightly too thick to do that.

I would have blamed it on the FA70 I got, but seeing as how someone else is having the problem with Sony branded FA70, I'm wondering if they've made a slight manufacturing error and made the compartment too thin or the batteries too thick.

here's a picture of the battery slot with the NPFA70 inside. This should give you an idea as to its thickness. Again, for me there's been no problem. Spring mechanism works fine and the battery pops out just like the FA50.

http://www.disneyfunsite.com/images...c90_battery.jpg

I measured (as best I could) the NPFA70 battery and came up with about 9.5mm. The Sony site says 9.8mm (width). My method of measurement will not grant me the benefit of adjusting in milimeters, so I can't be sure - but eyeballing the measurement it looks like 9.8mm would be a stretch from what I measured - it's impossible to tell.

What I can say is that I have both the US version of the battery and the Asian version. When tinkering with the batteries, lo and behold the Asian battery got stuck! I just tilted the camera (though) and it slid back out. First time! When I took it out, I held the batteries side-by-side, which revealed a few small differences - I think these differences shed some light on a potential problem. Here's what I found...

When looking closely at the batteries and how they slid in-and-out of the camera, I looked for anything that might give me a clue. The first thing I noticed was how the slot (on the camera) was "cut" to allow the full-sized battery to move in it (the slot is cut the same way the battery is with grooves to fit the bulges on the battery itself, if that makes sense). Here's a picture...

http://www.disneyfunsite.com/images...ttery_open1.jpg

What I found was that there was a groove (inside the camera) where the top and bottom portions of the battery slide through (looks like a track). Here's a photo looking up (at the top).

http://www.disneyfunsite.com/images...ttery_open2.jpg

As you can see, there's a groove for the battery to slide on. Now, when I compared the two batteries, I noticed that the plastic on the Asian battery wasn't completely straight, but had a slight bend in it (see this photo).

http://www.disneyfunsite.com/images...ttery_open3.jpg

This (in my mind) explained why the battery didn't come out the way it should have. The plastic on the battery was slightly curved and is intended to slide on a straight groove inside the camera. This means the problem has less to do with the thickness of the battery and more to do with the way it fits into these grooves.

I hope this makes sense to you guys. When you have time, check it out the way I did. If this isn't the case...back to the drawing board.

Be good.
Ian

Ian - in my case, the battery fits in fine, but there is an audible "click" when the battery engages, and once freed up, pops up without a problem. So the tightness is where the contacts between the camera and the battery are engaged.

you might want to look at the prongs where the electrical components join together. I noticed that the prongs on the two batteries were different. You may want to compare them to the FA50 battery (to see if they are different). I'll post a follow-up after I compare mine.

it just spring you have to straighten it out, it gets jammed and block battery from full insertion or removal

Got my hc90 yesterday with a FA70 original Sony...
But it won't come out...
Anybody find a solution yet?

love the cam, hate this battery

__________________
Camera: Sony DCR-HC90E
Desktop System: P4-2.66Ghz, 240GB HD intern, 250GB extern, 1GB Ram, 19" LCD. [use: premiere pro]

I bought my HC90 this past December along with an FA70 battery. The FA50 that came with the camera, popped in and out normally. The FA70 went in and wouldn't come out...I had to pry it out with a small metal tool. That sucked, so I contacted the place I bought it from and they sent me another. It got stuck too, but Ian told me that when they get stuck to just turn the camera so that the battery side is facing down and voila, the thing popped out. This is fine for me because it is better than using a metal tool to pop it out.

It is worth nothing that the tightness that causes the sticking is where the contacts on the battery join with the contacts on the camera. There are groves there that lock into e/o and my first battery had the black plastic not well put together there.