Introduction
If you let your Sony NEX camera sit for too long, the removable lithium ion battery will go completely flat. At that point it may become impossible to charge the battery back up. Instead, when you attempt to charge the battery in the camera, the charge lamp flashes continuously to indicate a charging error.
The Sony instruction manual says, "When the charge lamp flashes, remove and re-insert the battery." What do you do when you've removed and re-inserted the battery a dozen times and still get the flashing charge lamp?
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I have had great success reviving a seemingly dead Sony NP-FW50 lithium ion battery by bypassing the USB charger that came with the camera. Instead, I simply plug the camera charging cable into my Macintosh. It charges up without a problem!
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Why should this work? The Sony power brick that comes with the camera produces the USB standard 5 volts at 500 mA. According to Apple's support site, some Apple computers can produce up to 1100 mA of current to their USB devices, to function or to allow for faster charging.
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In any event, I have been able to revive both of my Sony NP-FW50 lithium ion batteries for my NEX3 camera in this way. If I had limited myself to the Sony branded USB power brick that came with the camera, I would surely have discarded the old batteries and purchased new ones by now.
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To be clear, even with this technique it will probably be necessary for you to repeatedly insert the battery, until it starts taking a charge. Recently, even I surprised myself by finally reviving a battery that had repeatedly refused to take a charge.
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Do not throw away your old Sony camera batteries until you have tried this procedure.
