Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just to ignore it.
Haha try as I might, my child brain still panics when I see that red LED and I end up saving more often because of it haha
Haha, PTSD from the Gameboy suddenly dying on you isn't easy to shake :P
Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
181–190 of 195 posts
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#182I 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 probably have around 100 NiMH AA batteries at home, around 30 AAA ones, most of them are Eneloops, around 20 are Energizers and around a dozen are some misc. brands. Most of them time they are good but still a couple of Eneloops died just around 5 years. Moderate leaks but did not cause any trouble. Seemed to be caused by the fact I left them in toys and let them run flat for fairly long time(not sure how long, but should be less than a year). In the same period, I threw away double the amount of other brands ones. Most of the rechargeable ones are still going strong. I do observe a few of them are pretty weak and most likely going to die in a couple of months. In general, the cost to use rechargeable ones are only 1/4 to 1/3 of alkaline ones.
The only things is that some of the appliances does not like NiHM batteries. I'm no saying NiMHs do not work at all but rather they stop working with around 75% charge left, which is quite annoying. I use alkalines with them if I observe such behaviors.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern chargers are microprocessor controlled and are able to keep track of each battery individually.
Yes, but only the ones that does not require charging in pairs. Most people only use the bundled chargers and they all work with pairs.
I have never seen a charger that charges in pairs. Every charger I have ever used or seen has charged each cell individually. Charging in pairs is a terrible idea - the chargers should be returned as unsuitable for purpose.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#184As a test I recently bought a pair of Li-ion AA batteries, that are recharged through a micro USB connector in the battery. They are rated 2880 mWh and are advertised to provide a flat 1.5v during the whole discharge cycle (they have internal circuitry to convert from the native 3.7v). I wonder how those compare to my current rotating stock of Ni-MH ones that regularly stop working. Jury is still out, they were consi…
The AAA versions of these are a godsend for my Bose noise cancelling headphones. I tried using NiMH batteries, but the headphones would cut out every time I shook my head or chewed something, because they didn't have a high enough voltage.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious if you're having these leaks in Duracells you bought from a big box retail store, or shipped from Amazon.
You mean ... gasp ... they might be fakes. The EU has a quality mark "CE" - Conformitè Europëenne. Sometime the font is a bit wonky and it is alleged that CE in that case stands for China Export instead. I imagine that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#%22China_Export%22 is policed quite carefully.
those are just self-certified, CE is only on the authority of the people who put the label on not on some EU agency. They can be held accountable for not following CE correctly but not having the correct logo is not a problem.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#186Around ~2005 one of our products was featured in a Duracell commercial.
In 2011 manufacturing for all but the 9V was moved to Tunisia and the design of the battery was changed. In pre-2011 batteries the cylinder was the negative terminal. In the newer design the cylinder is the positive. Look at the bottom of the newer ones and you will see a very small O-Ring separating the positive from the negative. It is very easy to breach this O-Ring when inserting a battery, resulting in it getting hot. Well over 100'F has been measured. The new design WILL leak.
Because of our commercial connection we discussed this with Duracell. The end result was "We don't care". Today they are riding on the reputation of the past.
We then evaluated all the batteries on the market at that time. Technically the Energizers and the RayOVacs came out the same, with the RayOVacs being cheaper we switched to those. Shortly there after Energizer bought RayOVac. Look at the Fine Print on the package today and it says they are made by Energizer.
Has anyone noticed the scam that Home Depot and Walmart, and probably others, are running? C and D cells are the same price. The marketing campaign tells us this is a Good Thing, without explaining how. If the energy density is not the same, then the price should not be the same.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#187There's very little reason to continue using Alkalines in the majority of cases. Rechargeable batteries both last longer, and, perhaps even more importantly, do not leak.
Batteries are so cheap these days that I consider them essentially single use, like a paper plate. I buy the 60 pack of Rayovac AAs at Home Depot and always have fresh batteries -- and I don't have to worry about a leaking issue.
Single use batteries aren't good for our planet, please try rechargables?
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've switched to rechargables for home electronics years ago. It makes me feel better doing my share of lessening environment impact caused by disposable cells. One notable exception for which I am still buying alkaine batteries is the August Smart Lock. When using NiMH batteries it starts complaining about depleted battery in a week, while it still Ok and works for much longer. It was reported to them and they advis…
I think this explains the problem, though If you could configure the battery type, a software fix would work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29910710#29912483
that's exactly the problem. there is no option to configure battery type.
Re: Great AA Alkaline Battery Test (2016)
#189I built a similar test rig from a $15 plane controller to test some VTC6 batteries I bought: https://notes.stavros.io/maker-things/battery-discharge-curv... It was a lot of fun!
I actually learned a lot from your reports when I geeked out on flashlights and battery formats that were new to me, the 27xxx size.
Thanks very much!
(It was sometime in the past 18 months, in which all time sequences have been shredded in a lockdown blur.)