About this replacement
Canon VIXIA HF M52 / HF M50 Series — 3.6V Li-ion Replacement Battery (BP-745)
This is a 3.6V, 4450mAh Li-ion replacement for the Canon BP-745 battery. It fits the VIXIA HF M52, HF M50, HF M500, and HF M506, along with 12 additional Canon VIXIA models. Capacity matches the original OEM specification at 16.02Wh.
- VIXIA HF M-series compatibility: These camcorders share the same BP-700 series battery bay, connector pinout, and BMS handshake protocol. The BP-745 slot accepts this cell without modification across the full HF M50/M500 generation.
- Bench tested on actual hardware: We cycled this cell through the Canon VIXIA body charger and standalone BP-700 series dock. The BMS accepted the cell on the first charge cycle and reported remaining capacity without fault flags.
- First-use charge cycle on Canon camcorders: Insert the battery and run a full charge via the Canon charger or camera body before recording. Canon's BMS calibrates the battery-remaining indicator against the cell's discharge curve during that initial cycle — skipping it can cause the display to read inaccurately for the first several uses.
Why the VIXIA HF M52 rejects a new BP-745 cell on first install
Canon's VIXIA BMS runs an authentication check when it sees a new cell. If the resting voltage sits outside the expected acceptance window — typically below 3.2V after storage — the camera may flag it as incompatible or refuse to power on. This is not a faulty cell. Placing the battery in the Canon charger first, rather than the camera body, bypasses the cold-start rejection. Once the cell reaches approximately 3.6V, the camera body will accept it and the error clears.
Battery percentage jumping erratically on the VIXIA display
This happens when the camera's fuel gauge hasn't yet mapped its voltage-threshold table to the new cell's discharge curve. The OEM BMS uses stored data from previous cells — a replacement cell with a slightly different curve causes the indicator to skip steps. One complete charge-to-full, record-to-low cycle forces the camera to re-map. After that cycle, the percentage display stabilises. If jumping continues past two full cycles, check that resting voltage is holding above 3.4V with a multimeter.