Got this camera from a friend, battery door broken, no cables, no battery. There are some important photo's on this camera that I want to copy from internal memory to SD card. We first want to try this because USB requires an special USB cable we don't have and we even don't know USB will work when there is no battery at all.
The original battery is very expensive and because we didn't know the camera is fully operational, we want to try it first with an external battery (with some clip wires on contacts inside the battery compartment) to see it reacts on some juice. We verified the pin layout from a picture of the original battery, the DMW-BCG10E:
Connected our 4A powerpack ;-), must be enough and yep, we saw the first picture however the camera doesn't like the fake battery and shows us a message "This battery cannot be used" and turns off directly after this message. We also tried another battery, a LIPO, but same message.
There are some D and T pins on the original battery, this must be some kind of battery info data lines however we cannot find any info on this. We think it doesn't work because the camera cannot obtain some info from the battery or there is a problem with the camera itself. We want to know if we could use another battery, with same pin layout to fake the datalines. We don't know there is any standard. Before we try this, we want to know for sure there is no risk to damage the internals of the camera by doing this.
AC-adapter/DC coupler route
Panasonic also provides an AC-adapter/DC coupler with a case that fits inside the battery compartment, in fact a fake battery. I think there must be a (simple) trick (maybe a resistor or something, 'shorts' D and T for example) to let the camera think it is an AC-adapter/DC coupler.
Does anyone have experience with this or does anyone know where we can find more information?
EDIT/UPDATE #1:
very difficult to find info on these batteries, however, found the service manual!
They talk about "ID BAT DQ" (qualifier?) and later on "ID BATT DO". But what does it mean (unreg and DQ for example)?
Pin layout:
1. UNREG+
2. BAT THERMO
3. ID BAT DQ
4. UNREG-
EDIT/UPDATE #2:
The creator of this video (thanks to @KalleMP) shows that the thermistor is only required to be able to operate the camera, however, tried the same and in my case it doesn't work. Hopefully nothing internally is damaged by doing some experiments. I ordered an original second hand donor battery for less than 3 euro's (still waiting for it to arrive) and will try it soon to figure out the chip is required or not, or if there is something wrong with the camera itself.
EDIT/UPDATE #3:
YES, WE'VE DONE IT, with success. See also my answer.