Nikon MB-D10 AA Battery Pack Problems on D300
Photography Equipment, St. Louis Wedding Photography Blog Add commentsI was out visiting my uncle in Belle, MO this weekend and brought my D300 and a few lenses along. I generally keep my MB-D10 on the D300 and I always bring the AA adapter with some spare batteries with me. I have never had the occasion to use the MB-D10 with the AA battery adapter but this weekend I endedup needing it. I had two EN-EL3e batteries with me but I didn’t charge them after last use. I got a few hundred shots out of them but I didn’t want to take a chance of losing power because I was doing some arial photography with my uncle in his Sesna Birddog. I threw the AA adapter pack into the MB-D10 and made sure the camera was set to use regular AA batteries and to use the MB-D10 pack first. The battery meter still showed one bar. I tried everything I could through the settings menu and had no luck. The camera wouldn’t recognize the AA battery pack. I ended up having to remove the EN-EL3e battery from the D300 in order to get the camera to recognize the battery pack. I have not had time to upgrade the firmware to the newest version that Nikon released but I’ll make some time to complete the upgrade and report my findings.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Same problem with me, I have a D300 and the battery grip most of the time does not register the battery grip (Though in the battery info menu it still shows its connected but with no battery life)
The trick is to take out the D300 battery like you did, then it forces it to recognize the battery grip.
Also its a camera issue not an Mb D10 issue, I tested numerous Mbd10′s and its always a problem with AA’s, or the EN-EL3e insert.
I had my camera sent to Nikon with the battery grip, and they updated the firmware to 1.03 and sent it back, The problem was not fixed or even acknowledged by them. I will upgrade to 1.10 and see if that fixes anything, but It looks like Nikon is refusing to admit there is a problem.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Hey, thanks for sharing your experience. I just upgraded to the 1.10 firmware and have only used the camera twice since then. I did notice some mention in Nikon’s notes about the MB-D10… I’ll see if I can recreate the problem this week.
December 24th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Interestingly, I just started having this problem *after* I upgraded to firmware 1.10. I had 1.03 since March and have had no problems.
December 29th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’ve had the same problem, and sure enough when you pop out the EN-EL3e, put the MB-D10 back on the camera see’s the AA’s. You can then take the MB-D10 back out, put in the EN-EL3e, and put the MB-D10 back on, and sure enough you have the AA’s and the EN-EL3e up and running with the 8fps. Thanks for the tip!
February 20th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Yes, great tip from Vincent! I agree that it is a problem with the D300, not the grip. Voltage across pins coming out of grip shows correctly, no matter whether you have EN-EL3e or AAs in the grip, so the camera software is just not responding correctly when AA battery pack is inserted with an EN-EL3e in the body.
Has anyone managed to get Nikon to acknowledge this problem and tell them what the issue is? I’m trying to do that now…
March 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I have noticed the same issue when using AA MB-D10 and D700, recently went for bird shooting in a near by national park and a few times I needed to shut off the camera and take off the battery pack before the pack was recognized again, quite annoying when shooting birds and needing the 8 fps rate. Has this issue been addressed recognized at all by NIKON? It appears that few people are experiencing the same issue, I also upgraded to 1.01.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I haven’t had an occasion to use the AA battery pack/MB-D10 on my new D700 or my D300. I’m on vacation right now but I’ll try to break it out and play around with it and when I’m back and see if it occurs on either camera. I did finally upgrade the firmware on my D300 so I’ll see if I can replicate the issue.
I have not seen any updates/releases from Nikon addressing or mentioning this issue.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Since I first discovered the issue I have talked to about 5 other people who have had the same problems. One guy had tried 5 different grips he was getting so frustrated with the error. Nikon had taken 3 of their camera’s and fixed none of them.
(Also has refused to admit there is a problem still)
I’ve been working without a battery in the camera for a while now, Its only really for sports / wildlife that it bugs me. But when the AA’s bite the dust 400 or so pics in, Its a pain having to change all 8 AA’s before you can take a single picture again.
On an unrelated note, the Fuji S5 Pro has replaced my D300 as my landscape and wedding camera. Its extremely slow to operate comparatively (1.5 fps at 400% dynamic range). BUT the 2 extra stops of dynamic range are real and make a huge difference. Just thought you guys may be interested since they are dirt cheap now (if you can find one).
http://www.photocross.org/s5/
(Few landscapes if you wanted to see some post processed samples)
March 12th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Vincent, thanks for the update and your continued input. Also, thanks for the tip about the Fuji – I’ll take a look and see if I can spot one on Ebay. Also, those shots look great!
March 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Thanks you guys!!! I just got my MBD10 yesterday and put 8 LR6 batteries in then sat around for a couple hours changing config trying to get it to be recognized. Did what you guys said and now I have 8 FPS/MBD10 is seen and MB displayed on the top LCD.
By the way I have firmware 1.10 for A and B
March 28th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Hey Ray, I’m glad we were able to help you. It is definitely frustrating when these problems occur.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 am
I’m so glad I came across this thread. My brand new MB-D10 is experiencing the issues mentioned above. BUT, while I can force the camera to see the grip by taking out the battery in the camera and it shows 8FPS, when I put the battery back in the camera and attach the grip, it goes back to not recognizing the battery grip and to 6FPS. I’m at Firmware 1.10
Any suggestions ?
April 6th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Great thread. I’m having the same problem and have been reviewing it with Nikon on the “My Stuff” site since March 8th. Same sort of issues:
- everything worked fine under D300 firmware 1.03
- problem seemed to arise after U/G to 1.10 on the D300
- symptoms are:
-works correctly with EN-EL3e battery in the MB-D10
- with AA batteries installed (8) in the MB-D10, the D300 recognizes the
MB-D10, but does not see the AA batteries
- consequently I do NOT get the improved frame rate.
Nikon wants me to send back D300 & MB-D10 but it seems, from this thread, they have not yet identified the problem. I tried removing the D300 battery to force it to recognize the AA batteries to no avail. I’ll try it again with fresh AA batteries. I’m measuring ~10v on the two large Cu contacts on the MS-D10 AA holder, but can someone describe the pinout on the top of the MB-D10? I’d like to measure the voltages at the MB-D10/D300 connection.
Thanks,
Mike Bergeron
April 6th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Mike,
There’s lot’s of good info in the d300 group on flickr. I figured out what was going on with mine. I thought it would see both power sources at the same time, but it will only see one. AND you will only get 8FPS from the Grip supply.
Here’s a link and there are several others in the group. http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikon_d300_users/discuss/72157613010551825/
Rich
April 6th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Hey Rich, thanks for sharing that link. It appears that one possible cause of the problem may be that the plastic tab (that holds the batteries in place) folds over and prevents some of the batteries from making contact.
April 7th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Thanks for the link Rich. Looks like lot’s of folks with the same/similar issue.
April 12th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Thanks for the info. Going to the internet was my last option before going to the camera shop and then Nikon. However, after removing the EN-EL3e battery from the D300 in order to get the camera to recognize the battery pack with AA batteries, then inserting the EN-EL3e, and remounting the MB-D!0 with the AA Battery Pack, all worked well. I was perplexed because the MB-D10 worked with the EN-EL3e battery mount. Thanks again.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Hi all,
I got my MB-D10 today and having the same issue. i can only only 8fps by putting 8AAs (rechargeable, not alkaline) in the grip and removing the main battery. I have two EN-EL batteries but they do not work in the grip. I can get it to recognize the grip when I have one EN battery in it, but it does not shoot 8fps. This sucks. I called Nikon and they did not have a solution for me.
June 21st, 2009 at 9:42 am
Hi, After 11 months of flawless operation of my MB-D10 on my D300, without notice the D300 stopped reconizing the MB-D10. All the other switches worked. I was using recharchable AA’s. Sent the MB-D10 to Nikon and they rturned it claiming it was working and when I tried it, it was still not functioning. I called Nikon and it took a while but I finally rec’d a response after I sent a not so happy email. I sent both the D300 and MB-D10 in and Nikon claims to have replaced the battery box and it is now working fine. I had much better luck with my email complaint rather than the telephone 800 number which was answered in the Dominican Republic I believe. The turn around time on the repair was about one week.
September 12th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
You are ALL wrong.
There are absolutely NO problems, you just haven’t read the instructions.
Go to the Nikon menu -> d11, battery order.
Set it to MDB10, and voila, 8fps, you need not remove the internal battery.
With d11 set to mdb10, the camera will try to use the pack first. Even with the camera on and you remove the battery pack, it has a collapsible circuit and will switch to the internal…
September 12th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Do you work for Nikon? Do you represent Nikon? Have you worked on my camera or any of the cameras owned by other posters here? No, I didn’t think so.
We know how to use the menus in our cameras. There is a problem. Do you really think that there are that many incompetent people that all of us combined can’t figure out how to use the menus in our cameras? There is/was a problem with the camera…. Even when the MB-D10 pack was selected as primary, it wasn’t detecting the pack.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Same problem here. I posted to this thread back in April. Nikon will not acknowledge, they asked mne to send battery pack and D300 back for repair. I noticed that Steve talked about “voltage accross the pins” back in February. Does anyone have the pin outs and voltages for the MB-D10??
December 17th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
My brand new D700 with MBD10 pack recognizes the AA pack of 8 new Duracell 2650 mAhr (charged on a MAHA/Powerex 801 AA charger)OK. but I only get 5-10 shots and then 2 bars on the battery indicator. A few more and the battery indicator shows empty. Took pack out and connected my lab DVM with 0.01 percent accuracy across pack and it showed 10.050 volts. Then with a 5 ohm load resistor (2 Amp draw at 10 v) the batteries dropped down to 9.3 volts so the batteries were no way exhausted or had a bad cell in the group. All cell voltages read 1.26 under no load.
Seems to me a 2650 mAHr pack should last a few hundred shots, maybe at least half as long as Nikon 1500 mAHr EN-EL3e, given the fact that NiMH have higher internal resistance and are not really designed for high drain loads as their internal resistance is somewhat higher.
I have the menus set up correctly, and battery order and type correct, and also, I hold a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and have 40+ years experience, so I think I know what I am doing. Or is this something deliberately done by Nikon in their firmware to force use of their ELN4 battery and expensive charger and adapter, for about another $250?
Anyone else had this problem?
December 20th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Bill Sheets, I also upgraded to a D700, while keeping the same MB-D10. Now the grip works fine for me. It definitely appears to be some sort of camera body issue.
Now I’m not sure how your error is related to mine Bill, but the easy fix for me was to just take out the internal battery and let the grip be the only power source. Maybe try that and see what happens.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Everything I’m seeing is the same EXCEPT that when I load my MB-D10 with the AA tray and no battery in the camera body there’s no power at all. If I load the EN-EL3e in the MB-D10 with no battery in the camera body it works fine.
However when I put the AA tray back in, with fully charged AA batteries, it does not recognize that there are batteries present. However the AF and shutter release buttons on the MB-D10 work OK (getting power from the camera body).
My next step is to go to borrow a AA tray to see if mine is busted.
I’ve used two different sets of batteries, NiMH rechargable and alkalines.
I had this problem running firmware 1.03 and just upgraded to 1.10 after seeing the problem.
Anyone?
January 3rd, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Followup – it was the tray. I tried a new AA tray and it works in my MB-D10.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Resolution:
A friend took a look at the AA tray and saw that when I had my overheat the plastic melted and flowed towards gravity. When it cooled it made a bulge that kept the batteries apart. A few scrapes with an Exacto knife and it’s as good as new.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Hi Guys, i have had same problem with MB-D10 not being recognized by D300.I found the – terminals of AA battery’s not making contact with -terminals on the grip.If you look at both you will see the flat wide gold plated contact flap in the grip overlaps the – base of the AA battery ever so slightly. The plastic foil wraparound of some if not all AA battery’s especially re-chargeable ones sometimes gets in the way of contact between the two. I found twisting the battery’s around once fitted solved problem. Have a good look at each battery when you remove and replace them you will see what i mean. Hope this helps it fixed mine.
Regards Brian.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Same components but different problem. One more akin to that of Bill Sheet above.
I’ve got the battery pack with the D300 firmware up to date at 1.10. When the AA tray is loaded with Maha Imedion AA cells (long life NiMHs) the camera sees the AA cells with the fully charged icon, as well as the Nikon ion battery in the body. However, if I switch out the Maha Imedions with fully charged Maha Powerex AA cells, the D300 gives me an empty battery icon for the battery pack. Checked tip to base contacts on the individual cells and found no gaps. I want to use up those Powerex cells from another camera, they’re still at 2400 mAh according to the Maha C9000 analyzer.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Similar issue with my D300s.
I attach the MB-D10 with fully charged AAs and a BP (Battery Pack) logo appears next to the battery indicator on the top LCD.
However, very randomly, after a period the BP logo will then disappear, just showing the status of the internal battery. Turning the camera off and on makes no difference, BP only returns when the AA battery tray is slid out and back in.
In the custom options, d11 is correctly set to Ni-MH and d12 to use MB-D10 first.
My assumption is that I’m not achieving 8fps when BP is missing.
Any ideas?
I’m on D300s 1.00 firmware.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:16 am
Why is it you only find a potential solution AFTER you ask for help?!
It looks like firmware 1.01 may solve this.
February 24th, 2010 at 4:38 am
I seem to have a different problem with my MB-D10. I was taking an overnight long exposure for the first time with my D300. I set the d10 menu to use the battery pack first. Then locked the shutter with the shutter release cord. I then went out several hours later to stop the exposure, however the entire camera was shut down and the shutter remained open. After I took the grip off, the camera then powered up and the LCD screen displayed ERR without any code. The crazy thing was, the battery that was in the camera was still 100 percent charged. So for some reason the battery that was in the camera was never used??
I had an after market EN-EL3e 7.4v 2200mah in the camera. While the standard nikon 7.4v 1500mah in the power grip. The after market battery works fine in the camera and the power grip when I am not doing long exposures, so I dont think the battery itself is a problem.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
March 19th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Similar problem for me, but mine is that the grip with the EN-EL3 battery in it discharged very very quickly and even though setting was to use the grip battery first, camera locked up and I had to take grip off, then checked the camera battery it was still fully charged.
Haven’t even attempted the 8fps rate yet.
Using firmware 1.10
November 24th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Hey Gang, I too have similar battery problems with the MBD10 and AA batteries. But after alot of testing I figured out a few things that helped me.
Fresh batteries (like very fresh) I have no problems.
But if I turn off for a few days I will get inconsistent results maintaining 8 fps without doing the “take battery out and put back in” trick ti get them recognized.
So this leads me to believe that the very small drain(to keep the card count on) even when camera is off for a few days , is enough to lower the overall AA batteries to not have enough juice to always get the 8 fps.
So my solution was to switch the battery order when not in use. That is to use the primary camera battery as first priority while in the bag, thus whatever small drain is put on that battery not the AA’s. Then when shooting – put the order back to the MBD10 as first. It seems this has worked for me.
What I dont know is at what level of drain the AA batteries start developing the hit and miss syndrome.
So you just have to remember to make the switch when starting to shoot and putting away. I created a shortcut on “my Menu” so I dont have to dig for the menu item.
I think the moral is that the battery strength indicator on the camera does tell the real story. AA’s may in fact have a decent charge left, but maybe not enough to constantly be recognized.
December 12th, 2010 at 1:55 am
I have a nikon D300 and I have recently bought the battery grip (MB-D10). With the grip the camera is suppose to shoot 8fps per second. When i put the camera on CH it will only shoot 6frames. Do you have any thought on why this may be?