About this replacement
Canon VIXIA HF M52 / HF M50 Series — 3.6V Li-ion Replacement Battery (BP-718)
This is a 3.6V, 1600mAh Li-ion replacement for the Canon BP-718 battery. It fits the VIXIA HF M52, HF M50, HF M500, and HF M506 camcorders, along with several other Canon VIXIA HF M-series models. Slide it into the battery compartment the same way as the original.
- VIXIA HF M-series compatibility: These models share the same 3.6V battery bay, BP-718 connector pinout, and BMS communication protocol. The housing dimensions — 40.10 × 30.30 × 25.00mm — match the original exactly, so the latch engages without modification.
- Bench tested on actual hardware: We ran this cell on the HF M52 body, cycling through the BMS handshake. The camcorder accepted the cell, the battery-remaining indicator populated, and the BMS cutoff triggered correctly at the low-voltage threshold without forcing a hard shutdown mid-clip.
- First-cycle initialisation on the HF M-series: Before extended use, run one full charge cycle through the OEM charger or the camera body itself. Some Canon VIXIA bodies map the battery-remaining display against a charge curve logged during that first cycle — skipping it can cause the indicator to read inaccurately until the cycle completes.
Canon BMS authentication on the VIXIA HF M52 rejecting a new third-party cell
Canon's VIXIA BMS checks cell communication on power-up. A new replacement cell that hasn't completed a charge handshake with the camera body can trigger a "Change the battery pack" warning even when the cell is fully charged. This isn't a fault in the cell — it's the BMS waiting to receive a valid voltage profile from a recognised charge cycle. Insert the battery and charge it fully inside the camera body or using the OEM Canon charger once. After that cycle, the warning clears and the camera treats the cell as verified. Target a full charge to 4.2V before the first recording session.
Battery percentage jumping or resetting mid-recording on the HF M52
The VIXIA HF M52 maps its battery indicator against a stored discharge curve from the original BP-718. A replacement cell with a slightly different discharge profile causes the camera to misread remaining charge, producing sudden jumps — for example, from 60% to 20% — without matching actual draw. The fix is to run two or three full charge-discharge cycles through the camera body. Each cycle lets the BMS recalibrate its curve to the new cell's actual voltage steps. After conditioning, the indicator stabilises and tracks correctly through the discharge from 4.2V down to the cutoff threshold.