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 earlier dates which are fine, yet far newer batteries (e.g. bought in 2016 with expiries in 2022) leak like there's no tomorrow for the buyout team.
Interested to hear of others experiences, or I've just been amazingly unlucky.
I came across this recent youtube comment[1] on why older batteries didn't leak. I don't know if it's correct but sharing it anyway:
>ceptimus 2 weeks ago (edited) >> Old alkaline batteries contained mercury, which made them resistant to leaking. The mercury was there to absorb the hydrogen gas, which builds internal pressure when the battery is used, causing them to leak. Newer alkaline batteries don't have mercury, because it's harmful to the environment when disposed. Unfortunately, the mercury free batteries leak much sooner - many of them long before their 'use by' date, even if you've never used them. Now you've replaced the batteries, you should check the camera more frequently. The modern rechargeable Ni-mh batteries, with a low self-discharge rate, are a good alternative: less likely to leak; but they're only nominally 1.2 Volts per cell instead of 1.5 volts, so some equipment won't work with them.
EDIT... maybe there's more to it than just mercury because some low-effort googling[2] found that law prohibiting it in batteries was 1996 (~25 years ago). That doesn't match the timeline in the video because Alec says his old batteries (that didn't leak) were "use-by-date-2016". So maybe something else was different about the formulation in his Kirkland Signature batteries circa ~2008.
Duracell (the Mallory company) was bought by Dart in 1978, then by KKR in 1988, Gillette in 1996, Procter & Gamble bought Gillette in 2005, and Duracell was spun off and bought by Berkshire Hathaway in 2016. (source: Wikipedia)
The company has been under large-scale finance / conglomerate management for more than 4 decades by now. I don’t think there would have been any immediate change in battery quality circa 2016. Seems just as likely that corner cutting (assuming there is corner cutting; I have no insight) started before changes of ownership.
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.
In a past life I worked in the entertainment biz. Duracell ProCells were the go-to battery for important things. Britney Spears' headset would have had a Procell in it. They would all get tested before use and maybe 5 in a thousand were bad and not used. They weren't the absolute best in the world but they were acceptable and cheap enough to use and toss. After a show we would all take the 'used' batteries home and use them until they were actually flat. The only time I ever saw one leak in a device was if it got submerged or very hot. Now, the procell in my pencil-sized flashlight seems to leak after a month. I switched to energizer and, at least in my sample size of one, I haven't seen a leak.
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.
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Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection between charging / discharging states is cheap enough and effective. Its like you have "infinite" AAs since you can just keep recharging them.
EDIT: A few years ago, Alkaline was still needed for TV remotes. But most Low-self-discharge NiMH now lasts for over a year without self-discharging away. Sure, not as good as Alkaline's 10-year life span but surely 1+ year lifespans is good enough for your TV remote? Its not that big of a hassle to reach recharge your NiMH once a year is it?
That works well until you have kids running around... You going to put rechargeable cells in that Elena of Avalor wand your 4 year old chases the dog with? And her talking unicorn? How about all the light sabers?
In my experience, most of those types of toys don't go through batteries fast enough to justify a NiMH - they'd be in there for years. Invariably one of the kids will wind up mixing NiMH/LiIon/Alkaline in a toy, then the rechargeable winds up in the recycling bin a year later.
Fast forward 3 years, and your "infinite" AAs are all gone, lost, or in near-permanent use somewhere you can never identify, and you've wasted all that money.
In a few years when the kids move out and, and the number of battery powered gizmos is down to a manageable number, I'll try it again - until then, Amazon Basics AAA/AA are my friend.
Replying to boost this. We love Eneloop and have probably 40-50 of them in the house at this point, between remote controls, gamepads, children's toys, fairy lights, bike lighting, tools, etc etc. They all get funneled through a La Crosse charger with a simple two-bin depleted/charged system.
We've been buying them for years and I think I've only ever disposed of one that was unwilling to take a charge.
Not to mention a LOT of items now come with non-removable (mostly rechargeable) Li-Ion or NIMH batteries. Even small toys which used to require external batteries now come with it.
So I still have a small stack of alkaline batteries from 2017 I haven't replaced or depleted. Hopefully that stack remains untouched for another few years as well.
I'm (lackadaisically) building a version of it now, in order to get matched pairs and fours of the 40-plus eneloops that we have. And identify the bad ones, of course.
> 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 is powered by switching regulators which work fine with the lower voltages of NiMH cells!
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.
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 advised to us alkaine. This is very annoying because all they need to do is to fix the software which does the voltage check and generates annoying notifications to the users. Just a few lines of code (or maybe single constant) could have an immence environment impact.
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.
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.
I design some electronics in my spare time. As a user, I strongly prefer to have a choice of using a rechargeable battery. It somehow does not feel right to throw out a toxic battery when I could have another type potentially hundreds of times over many years.
It helps that there is a proliferation of quite powerful, low voltage, low power chips.
Some of the devices I design have USB interface which gives another option of charging the battery while it is connected.
I am currently working on a fully programmable mechanical USB/Bluetooth keyboard. It will work off of two AA NiMh rechargeable batteries and I plan these to be recharged any time the keyboard is connected to the computer.
How do you find good cheap low-self-discarge NiMH cells? I couldn't find any research on them (like the post article but for NiMH) because of SEO spam, and Amazon reviews are (of course) worthless.
Heck, I'm afraid to even buy NiMH batteries because of counterfeits. I bought a few batches of Amazon Basics batteries a year ago and 3/8 are dead already, but even if I purchased something labeled "Eneloop" on there, how do I know it's Eneloop?
Most of my remotes are still using the batteries they shipped with. It's hard to make the case for replacing batteries when the originals last 15+ years (and counting).
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 didn't know that, thanks for sharing! It seems to be a lot more civilised version of what I was doing for years - test by licking it... Can do it almost in one gesture: hold the battery between thumb and middle finger, lick index finger and touch it on one end of the battery, then lick the other. With some practice can get pretty good accuracy in 0.5-1.5V range. Bit barbaric though :)
Around ~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.
Not included in this analysis is leakage rate... by which I mean ooze leakage.
I have found that some batteries have a much greater likelihood of leaking ooze than others (yeah Rayovak, I'm looking at you!)
Except in the case of crappy toys, the damage that this causes radically outstrips the cost of the battery.
As a result, I buy batteries not based on electrical performance, but track record in not ruining the things I put them into. I am very happy to accept 50% less energy if I can avoid destroying my $200 gadget.
> As a result, I buy batteries not based on electrical performance, but track record in not ruining the things I put them into.
So do I. I'm now using low self-discharge NiMH batteries (mostly Eneloops) in pretty much every device that uses batteries, and I've never had one leak. I also use smart chargers to check battery health when I recharge them. A bit more initial outlay, but much cheaper in the long run, as the batteries can be recharged 1000s of times, and they hold their charge for many months.
Duracell used to be really good about replacing devices if their batteries leaked. They screwed me a couple years ago and refused to replace something (a $50 apple keyboard, I think they gave me $10 for it?). I went from buying exclusively Duracell for alkaline to now just buying Energizer Lithium for everything where it isn't specifically contraindicated (very rare).
As 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 considerably more expensive though (something like €4.50 a piece).
I have some similar Li-ion AA batteries for my Blink cameras. They work very well since the Blinks hate ni-mh batteries. Interestingly, these behave oddly in my camera speedlite. They can't seem to charge the flash, and the LCD flickers while on. My best guess is the charging the flash capacitor pulls more juice than the lithium batteries can handle. Thankfully, ni-mh work great.
For your Ni-mh that stop working, if they won't charge you can sort of jump start them using a good battery and they'll charge again. Use some aluminum foil strips and touch the contacts between the batteries together for a few seconds. Positive to positive, negative to negative if I remember correctly.
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.
We should get rid of consumer single-use batteries in my opinion.
There is an increasing number of smart home devices that tell people to avoid rechargeable batteries. This was understandable when smart home products were a small category, often run by small companies that couldn't possibly put in the effort to understand the discharge curve of every rechargeable battery out there. But given the size of the industry today, they should come together and create a standard for a rechargeable battery. Perhaps they can even partner with battery manufacturers and create a new form factor, so people can't just use alkaline batteries instead.
Professional uses like military, R&D, filming etc are often cited but in reality they are a very small percentage of batteries used, and don't need to change before consumer applications do.
Spoiler: they're all obsolete cost-reduced leaky pieces of shit. Use Eneloops or other NiMH rechargeables when possible, lithium primary cells otherwise.
For a while you could avoid leakage by steering clear of Duracell in favor of Energizer, but that's no longer true. Do not use alkaline AAs or AAAs in any equipment you want to keep.
Chiming in, I just recently was wondering how two seemingly equal by chemistry and size batteries just from different mfgrs could be so much incomparable by practical life-times.
On so many occasions Panasonic or Sony (Japan made) batteries which come included with devices (like remote controls etc) would last years (!) (in some odd case I had Sony AA battery functional after more than a decade), yet any recent replacements from Duracel or Energizer the ones bought from a pharmacy would get exhausted within a year of similar use.
There must be some difference there, just how to tell what is that?
"By Chemistry" seems to be the keyword here. AFAIK Alkaline also have several chemistry differences, and batteries especially OEM would be matched to the use (low energy-long storage for remote). General purpose/OTS battery seem to optimize for power for ease-of-use. Avoid the scenario of "Oh this toy doesn't work with this battery brand so I'll avoid it". Have you tried specific long-use batteries? Non-alkaline or Alkaline branded as such?
I think the way we went to 1.2v for rechargables when we design to higher nominal voltage is really confusing. Why we didn't either shift the design basis to use 1.2-1.1 as a signal so we had better outcome when 1.2 drops off, or design the 1.2 cells to deliver 1.4 dropping to 1.2 and 1.1 is beyond me.
Because in practice, we're not designing for the consequences of 1.2 It shelves on 1.2 forever, tails, and then BOOM its gone. we should have designed for that curve, not for 1.5 -1.4 -1.3 -1.2 ....... BOOM
something that didn't exist in 2016 and does now, are AA batteries that are composed of an internal lithium ion cell, a DC-DC converter for 1.5VDC output to the end terminals, and internal 5V-USB to li-ion charge controller circuitry.
With a USB port literally built into the body of the battery. They're more expensive, but can pay for themselves...
It's an old article, but still mostly correct. Several developments have changed the landscape over the past decade. The Chinese have pretty much taken over the battery manufacturing industry. As a result, the quality of many low-production battery series has gone down dramatically. Some cells that once had a 10-year shelf life will now be completely useless within two years.
A more positive development has been the improvement in power electronics. Quality consumer electronics will now often include power conditioning circuits so the "cut off" voltage from a battery is no longer relevant. The batteries can now continue to power the device until they are completely discharged.
(See: https://www.ti.com/tool/TPS61280EVM-585)
> This can be implemented basically with a fixed value of resistance, but because of the way resistance interacts with voltage, it’s actually very gentle on the battery. As the battery voltage falls, the current falls accordingly, so the delivered power falls even further. For modern appliances, this type of loading is not common.
Dumb question - is it at all possible to design a modern device which operates this way? (As battery voltage falls, device performance also falls? It's been a really really long time since my EE classes - are transistors just unable to operate this way?)
Apple did this with iPhones, where the CPU throttles itself when the battery can’t keep up with the peak demand anymore. They got sued for it (mostly because they didn’t tell anyone and people bought new phones when the old ones started mysteriously slowing down).
Have you ever used an old flashlight in the 80s or 90s?
As AA charge fell, the light got dimmer and dimmer. Today, we have devices that do the exact _OPPOSITE_, pulling the last bits of electricity out of the cells through boost-converters or whatnot (boost converters existed back then, but weren't as efficient or cheap as today).
Consumers demanded consistent and reliable performance no matter if at full-battery charge or nearly empty. People preferred their devices to suddenly "shut off".
> It's been a really really long time since my EE classes - are transistors just unable to operate this way?)
Yeah, most CPUs nowadays have dynamic frequency adjustment to maximize battery life. Lower frequencies also mean transistors can operate at lower voltages, so by reducing the operating frequency, you can reduce the voltage and therefore power draw on your battery.
[+] [-] zh3|4 years ago|reply
Interested to hear of others experiences, or I've just been amazingly unlucky.
[+] [-] jasode|4 years ago|reply
>ceptimus 2 weeks ago (edited) >> Old alkaline batteries contained mercury, which made them resistant to leaking. The mercury was there to absorb the hydrogen gas, which builds internal pressure when the battery is used, causing them to leak. Newer alkaline batteries don't have mercury, because it's harmful to the environment when disposed. Unfortunately, the mercury free batteries leak much sooner - many of them long before their 'use by' date, even if you've never used them. Now you've replaced the batteries, you should check the camera more frequently. The modern rechargeable Ni-mh batteries, with a low self-discharge rate, are a good alternative: less likely to leak; but they're only nominally 1.2 Volts per cell instead of 1.5 volts, so some equipment won't work with them.
EDIT... maybe there's more to it than just mercury because some low-effort googling[2] found that law prohibiting it in batteries was 1996 (~25 years ago). That doesn't match the timeline in the video because Alec says his old batteries (that didn't leak) were "use-by-date-2016". So maybe something else was different about the formulation in his Kirkland Signature batteries circa ~2008.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5s6xerRqVY&lc=UgztQzUKV5BJQ...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=mercury+removed+from+alkalin...
[+] [-] jacobolus|4 years ago|reply
The company has been under large-scale finance / conglomerate management for more than 4 decades by now. I don’t think there would have been any immediate change in battery quality circa 2016. Seems just as likely that corner cutting (assuming there is corner cutting; I have no insight) started before changes of ownership.
[+] [-] pomian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandworm101|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragontamer|4 years ago|reply
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.
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Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection between charging / discharging states is cheap enough and effective. Its like you have "infinite" AAs since you can just keep recharging them.
EDIT: A few years ago, Alkaline was still needed for TV remotes. But most Low-self-discharge NiMH now lasts for over a year without self-discharging away. Sure, not as good as Alkaline's 10-year life span but surely 1+ year lifespans is good enough for your TV remote? Its not that big of a hassle to reach recharge your NiMH once a year is it?
[+] [-] djrogers|4 years ago|reply
In my experience, most of those types of toys don't go through batteries fast enough to justify a NiMH - they'd be in there for years. Invariably one of the kids will wind up mixing NiMH/LiIon/Alkaline in a toy, then the rechargeable winds up in the recycling bin a year later.
Fast forward 3 years, and your "infinite" AAs are all gone, lost, or in near-permanent use somewhere you can never identify, and you've wasted all that money.
In a few years when the kids move out and, and the number of battery powered gizmos is down to a manageable number, I'll try it again - until then, Amazon Basics AAA/AA are my friend.
[+] [-] mikepurvis|4 years ago|reply
We've been buying them for years and I think I've only ever disposed of one that was unwilling to take a charge.
[+] [-] zwieback|4 years ago|reply
- need to establish a system of keeping track what's charged
- train family to participate
- train family to stop buying alkaline (mainly because in the alkaline recycling process you'll lose a lot of your eneloops)
- grow immunity against complaints from family
[+] [-] r00fus|4 years ago|reply
So I still have a small stack of alkaline batteries from 2017 I haven't replaced or depleted. Hopefully that stack remains untouched for another few years as well.
[+] [-] tuatoru|4 years ago|reply
I'm (lackadaisically) building a version of it now, in order to get matched pairs and fours of the 40-plus eneloops that we have. And identify the bad ones, of course.
[+] [-] klodolph|4 years ago|reply
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 is powered by switching regulators which work fine with the lower voltages of NiMH cells!
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.
[+] [-] vzaliva|4 years ago|reply
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 advised to us alkaine. This is very annoying because all they need to do is to fix the software which does the voltage check and generates annoying notifications to the users. Just a few lines of code (or maybe single constant) could have an immence environment impact.
[+] [-] divbzero|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mrjin|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] lmilcin|4 years ago|reply
It helps that there is a proliferation of quite powerful, low voltage, low power chips.
Some of the devices I design have USB interface which gives another option of charging the battery while it is connected.
I am currently working on a fully programmable mechanical USB/Bluetooth keyboard. It will work off of two AA NiMh rechargeable batteries and I plan these to be recharged any time the keyboard is connected to the computer.
[+] [-] fouric|4 years ago|reply
Heck, I'm afraid to even buy NiMH batteries because of counterfeits. I bought a few batches of Amazon Basics batteries a year ago and 3/8 are dead already, but even if I purchased something labeled "Eneloop" on there, how do I know it's Eneloop?
[+] [-] jandrese|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silisili|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rytis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iancmceachern|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpaddock|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] symby|4 years ago|reply
I have found that some batteries have a much greater likelihood of leaking ooze than others (yeah Rayovak, I'm looking at you!)
Except in the case of crappy toys, the damage that this causes radically outstrips the cost of the battery.
As a result, I buy batteries not based on electrical performance, but track record in not ruining the things I put them into. I am very happy to accept 50% less energy if I can avoid destroying my $200 gadget.
[+] [-] mitchbob|4 years ago|reply
So do I. I'm now using low self-discharge NiMH batteries (mostly Eneloops) in pretty much every device that uses batteries, and I've never had one leak. I also use smart chargers to check battery health when I recharge them. A bit more initial outlay, but much cheaper in the long run, as the batteries can be recharged 1000s of times, and they hold their charge for many months.
[+] [-] msie|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zh3|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maarten88|4 years ago|reply
I wonder how those compare to my current rotating stock of Ni-MH ones that regularly stop working. Jury is still out, they were considerably more expensive though (something like €4.50 a piece).
[+] [-] discreditable|4 years ago|reply
For your Ni-mh that stop working, if they won't charge you can sort of jump start them using a good battery and they'll charge again. Use some aluminum foil strips and touch the contacts between the batteries together for a few seconds. Positive to positive, negative to negative if I remember correctly.
[+] [-] mnw21cam|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RicoElectrico|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diebeforei485|4 years ago|reply
There is an increasing number of smart home devices that tell people to avoid rechargeable batteries. This was understandable when smart home products were a small category, often run by small companies that couldn't possibly put in the effort to understand the discharge curve of every rechargeable battery out there. But given the size of the industry today, they should come together and create a standard for a rechargeable battery. Perhaps they can even partner with battery manufacturers and create a new form factor, so people can't just use alkaline batteries instead.
Professional uses like military, R&D, filming etc are often cited but in reality they are a very small percentage of batteries used, and don't need to change before consumer applications do.
[+] [-] pengaru|4 years ago|reply
Alkaline batteries have always been prone to leaking and ruining electronics when left in them too long for as long as I can remember (I'm in my 40s).
It's worse in my experience if subjected to extreme temperature swings.
Rechargeables tend to be more robustly made in this department.
[+] [-] CamperBob2|4 years ago|reply
For a while you could avoid leakage by steering clear of Duracell in favor of Energizer, but that's no longer true. Do not use alkaline AAs or AAAs in any equipment you want to keep.
[+] [-] zoomablemind|4 years ago|reply
On so many occasions Panasonic or Sony (Japan made) batteries which come included with devices (like remote controls etc) would last years (!) (in some odd case I had Sony AA battery functional after more than a decade), yet any recent replacements from Duracel or Energizer the ones bought from a pharmacy would get exhausted within a year of similar use.
There must be some difference there, just how to tell what is that?
[+] [-] raihansaputra|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warpech|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggm|4 years ago|reply
Because in practice, we're not designing for the consequences of 1.2 It shelves on 1.2 forever, tails, and then BOOM its gone. we should have designed for that curve, not for 1.5 -1.4 -1.3 -1.2 ....... BOOM
[+] [-] walrus01|4 years ago|reply
With a USB port literally built into the body of the battery. They're more expensive, but can pay for themselves...
https://www.amazon.com/AA-Batteries-ANVOW-Rechargeable-Capac...
there are lots of other models if you search for "AA battery lithium ion USB"
I would recommend these over anything that is NiMH based (memory effect) or needs a proprietary charger.
[+] [-] intrasight|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wrjensen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymousiam|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stavros|4 years ago|reply
https://notes.stavros.io/maker-things/battery-discharge-curv...
It was a lot of fun!
[+] [-] watersb|4 years ago|reply
Thanks very much!
(It was sometime in the past 18 months, in which all time sequences have been shredded in a lockdown blur.)
[+] [-] bentcorner|4 years ago|reply
Dumb question - is it at all possible to design a modern device which operates this way? (As battery voltage falls, device performance also falls? It's been a really really long time since my EE classes - are transistors just unable to operate this way?)
[+] [-] orev|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragontamer|4 years ago|reply
As AA charge fell, the light got dimmer and dimmer. Today, we have devices that do the exact _OPPOSITE_, pulling the last bits of electricity out of the cells through boost-converters or whatnot (boost converters existed back then, but weren't as efficient or cheap as today).
Consumers demanded consistent and reliable performance no matter if at full-battery charge or nearly empty. People preferred their devices to suddenly "shut off".
[+] [-] gruez|4 years ago|reply
Yeah, most CPUs nowadays have dynamic frequency adjustment to maximize battery life. Lower frequencies also mean transistors can operate at lower voltages, so by reducing the operating frequency, you can reduce the voltage and therefore power draw on your battery.
[+] [-] sbierwagen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wrycoder|4 years ago|reply
The final post, an addendum, is [0].
The post with the energy ratings is [1]
[0] https://goughlui.com/2017/01/31/great-aa-alkaline-battery-te...
[1] https://goughlui.com/2016/12/19/great-aa-alkaline-battery-te...