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Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

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Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#31

Post by dragontamer »

klodolph wrote: post #18
dragontamer wrote: post #9

I think the main issue with AA Alkaline is the proliferation of cheap low-self-discharge NiMH cells (aka: Eneloop, but also Energizer and other brands have good LSD NiMH available). A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now. Perhaps a random TV-remote still prefers Alkaline but most seem to work fine with NiMH. ----- Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection be…

> A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now. Yes, this is my experience too. One of the problems with NiMH is that appliances have helpful low-battery indicators which might light up as soon as you put NiMH cells in them, even though the appliance might continue working for a long time yet. A prime example is the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which was released in 2001. The thing i…

> Newer appliances have solved these problems. For example, the Yamaha PSS-A50 (a fantastic, inexpensive portable keyboard) has an option to configure the low-battery indicator for alkaline or NiMH chemistry.

Different NiMH chemistries have slightly different voltage curves.

Its an insidious problem. Different brands of NiMH just discharges in a "flat" manner, and all of them are at slightly different voltages. The electronics assume a voltage curve of Eneloop (typically, since Eneloop is the most popular NiMH brand), and other brands with their slightly different voltage-curves will throw it off.

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I find it more important to locally source NiMH batteries (ie: what I can buy from Walmart / Home Depo down the street, rather than paying for Amazon shipping) rather than standardizing upon the Eneloops that everyone else is buying, lol.

When I need a new AA cell, I buy it in my typical shopping runs, rather than waiting for shipping. I don't care enough about the voltage-curve problem to mass buy Eneloops yet. I largely just accept that the "low-battery" indicators are perpetually wrong.

Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#32

Post by divbzero »

dragontamer wrote: post #9

I think the main issue with AA Alkaline is the proliferation of cheap low-self-discharge NiMH cells (aka: Eneloop, but also Energizer and other brands have good LSD NiMH available). A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now. Perhaps a random TV-remote still prefers Alkaline but most seem to work fine with NiMH. ----- Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection be…

I finally switched to Duracell’s rechargeable NiMH batteries last year and won’t be going back to alkaline. They work well even for things like flashlights that need low self-discharge, and I no longer feel like I’m creating waste every time I burn through a battery.

I also came across some rechargeable lithium batteries packaged in 1.5V AAA, AA, C, D form factors, but they appeared to be newer and I was unsure about long-term reliability.

Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#33

Post by silisili »

On the subject of AA alkaline batteries - one thing I learned a long time ago somehow I'll share that people seem amazed by is that you can approximate their charge by bouncing them on a hard surface. Drop an AA battery negative/flat side down an inch or two onto a hard surface like a counter or table. A new battery will just land and thud. A dead battery will bounce repeatedly(you'll hear it more than see it).

Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#34

Post by pomian »

zh3 wrote: post #2

Let me leap in here to ding Duracell. They used to be my goto battery, but over the past few years (there was a hedge fund takeover, which IME rarely results in improvements to long-standing quality products) they've turned into liabilities - specifically, they are extremely prone to leaking once even a little bit discharged. To this day I open old kit and there can be duracells in there with "use by 2010" or even ea…

That possibly explains the mysterious leaking battery problems. I remember that was an issue over twenty five years ago, which taught us not to leave batteries in devices. But then we accepted that they don't leak anymore. Then in the last five years or so, I keep finding gadgets that are destroyed, or almost so, from massive battery leaks. And alkalines don't seem to last very long, even though they are more expensive than they were.

Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#35

Post by iancmceachern »

silisili wrote: post #33

On the subject of AA alkaline batteries - one thing I learned a long time ago somehow I'll share that people seem amazed by is that you can approximate their charge by bouncing them on a hard surface. Drop an AA battery negative/flat side down an inch or two onto a hard surface like a counter or table. A new battery will just land and thud. A dead battery will bounce repeatedly(you'll hear it more than see it).

I wonder what phenomenon is driving this. A spent battery weighs more?

Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)

#36

Post by dragontamer »

iancmceachern wrote: post #35
silisili wrote: post #33

On the subject of AA alkaline batteries - one thing I learned a long time ago somehow I'll share that people seem amazed by is that you can approximate their charge by bouncing them on a hard surface. Drop an AA battery negative/flat side down an inch or two onto a hard surface like a counter or table. A new battery will just land and thud. A dead battery will bounce repeatedly(you'll hear it more than see it).

I wonder what phenomenon is driving this. A spent battery weighs more?

The physical chemistry changes as a battery is spent. The internal chemicals are being converted from one molecule into another.

Its not surprising to me that the two different chemicals have different physical properties. (Elasticity, density, who knows? They're a fully different chemical once the electrons move around)

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