Rechargeable batteries and charger questions..

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: eelw
I love my Eneloops. For my Kodak digital camera, standard alkalines will only last 10 minutes when recording HD video. For 2800mAhr rechargables, I get about 30 minutes. But with the Eneloops, I have 1:30 hours.

Do yours have a "Made in" label on them? Might they be from Japan?

I've had AA's from China, and AA's from Japan. The Powerizer NiMH AA's from China, despite having a higher capacity rating, tend to be about equal to the Japan Sanyo AA's I have (2500mAh Powerizer vs 1700mAh). The Powerizers also have a bad habit of outright dying - their terminal voltage drops to less than 0.10V, and their overall capacity drops to 500-700mAh. Hurray for Japanese quality control.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
ic3 probably got dropped because other brand chargers do any battery in 15 minutes. the chargers do cost more of course.

Or because charging a battery that fast is bad for the long-term health of the battery.

I'd rather buy a few extra cells and keep them handy. The best chargers take a couple hours to charge a pair of cells; actually, they fully discharge them, charge them at a moderate speed up to 95% of their capacity, then trickle charge them to top it off.

NiMH sees no benefit from a full discharge first; I think it taps into total life in the same way nobody would discharge a lipo first, though they can be "refreshed".

Any powerful charger can get a battery done in 15 min but I assumed the IC3 were special and somehow could handle this high charge rate without being hurt.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
ic3 probably got dropped because other brand chargers do any battery in 15 minutes. the chargers do cost more of course.

Or because charging a battery that fast is bad for the long-term health of the battery.

I'd rather buy a few extra cells and keep them handy. The best chargers take a couple hours to charge a pair of cells; actually, they fully discharge them, charge them at a moderate speed up to 95% of their capacity, then trickle charge them to top it off.

NiMH sees no benefit from a full discharge first; I think it taps into total life in the same way nobody would discharge a lipo first, though they can be "refreshed".

Any powerful charger can get a battery done in 15 min but I assumed the IC3 were special and somehow could handle this high charge rate without being hurt.

All NiMH batteries can't handle a 15 minute charging. I destroyed a set of 1 hour Lenmar batteries by using an Energizer 15 min charger. After a few charges they started leaking

 

[Eli]

As has been echoed, fast charging isn't good.

In fact, I always charge my batteries on the "Slow" setting if possible.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: TheGizmo
I have a charger from Energizer that I got a long time ago from walmart.. it came with 4 rechargeable batteries, none of which seem to hold much of a charge anymore. I feel like I have to swap out my wireless mouse/keyboard/wii controller/gamecube controller batteries way too often. I guess they are about a year old.

Standard NiMH batteries aren't a great choice for use in a remote or other types of wireless controller. They have a high rate of self-discharge and will seldom last more than a month or two even without being used at all.

That said, there are now low-self-discharge batteries available on the market. Sanyo has a version called "eneloop" which are very good, Sony has a version called "cycle energy", which I use and have no complaints about, MAHA has a version called "imedion", which should be good since MAHA makes very good standard NiMH batteries, and Rayovac makes a version called "hybrid", which is reputed to be very good as well.

I would recommend using one of the above-mentioned brands of low-self-discharge NiMH batteries, they would suit your usage patterns much better than standard NiMH.

As far as chargers, I prefer to use a charger with an independent circuit for each battery, rather than the more common type that has one circuit per pair of batteries. Having an individual circuit for each battery ensures that all batteries are topped off as much as possible.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Energizer's 15 minute charger is good because it charges each battery independently. This means you can charge an odd number of batteries, unlike some others. You can only use the 15 minute batteries made by Energizer and maybe the Duracell ones.

Wrong. You can charge any NiMH batteries in this charger. You do not need special "15 minute" batteries.

The bit on the package about using Energizer 2300 mAh batteries refers only to achieving the stated 15 minute recharge time. It will charge lower-capacity and higher-capacity NiMH batteries from other manufacturers, but will take more than 15 minutes to charge batteries that are over 2300 mAh in capacity.

I charge my Sony CycleEnergy 2000 mAh cells in my Energizer 15 minute charger all the time. It also has a pulse-charge maintenance mode that it enters after the completion of the fast-charge cycle to top-off batteries with a 25 mA pulse charge, so it can get that last bit of charge too if you have more than 15 minutes available.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
ic3 probably got dropped because other brand chargers do any battery in 15 minutes. the chargers do cost more of course.

Or because charging a battery that fast is bad for the long-term health of the battery.

I'd rather buy a few extra cells and keep them handy. The best chargers take a couple hours to charge a pair of cells; actually, they fully discharge them, charge them at a moderate speed up to 95% of their capacity, then trickle charge them to top it off.

NiMH sees no benefit from a full discharge first; I think it taps into total life in the same way nobody would discharge a lipo first, though they can be "refreshed".

Any powerful charger can get a battery done in 15 min but I assumed the IC3 were special and somehow could handle this high charge rate without being hurt.

All NiMH batteries can't handle a 15 minute charging. I destroyed a set of 1 hour Lenmar batteries by using an Energizer 15 min charger. After a few charges they started leaking

Wow, a junk-brand battery failed. I'm shocked! Next thing we know you'll be telling us that a Yugo you used to have broke down a lot.

You use junk, it's going to fail. Any quality NiMH battery will be 100% fine in the Energizer 15 minute charger.

ZV

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Wow, a junk-brand battery failed. I'm shocked! Next thing we know you'll be telling us that a Yugo you used to have broke down a lot.

You use junk, it's going to fail. Any quality NiMH battery will be 100% fine in the Energizer 15 minute charger.

ZV

Lenmar isn't a junk-brand. Not all batteries are made to be fast-charged. Heat destroys batteries, and 15-minute charge cycles will heat up batteries a lot more. The good 15-minute chargers have some kind of active cooling or temperature monitoring.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Wow, a junk-brand battery failed. I'm shocked! Next thing we know you'll be telling us that a Yugo you used to have broke down a lot.

You use junk, it's going to fail. Any quality NiMH battery will be 100% fine in the Energizer 15 minute charger.

ZV

Lenmar isn't a junk-brand. Not all batteries are made to be fast-charged. Heat destroys batteries, and 15-minute charge cycles will heat up batteries a lot more. The good 15-minute chargers have some kind of active cooling or temperature monitoring.

I have yet to hear of anyone having a good experience with Lenmar batteries. They are like Powerizer batteries. They only good thing there is to say about them is that they are cheap.

And the Energizer 15-minute charger has both active cooling (a very effective fan, the batteries are cooler in the 15 minute charger than they were in my old overnight charger) and temperature monitoring.

I say again, it was the low-end Lenmar batteries that are to blame, not the charger.

Just look at where the Lenmar batteries fall in the evaluation here. The "2000 mAh" Lenmar batteries don't even come close to rated capacity. Energizer's 1850 mAh batteries have more capacity and last longer than the "2000 mAh" Lenmars. They're cheap, but there's a reason that they're cheap.

ZV

 

[RESmonkey]

I've got some Energizer NiMH. Haven't tried them, yet.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Wow, a junk-brand battery failed. I'm shocked! Next thing we know you'll be telling us that a Yugo you used to have broke down a lot.

You use junk, it's going to fail. Any quality NiMH battery will be 100% fine in the Energizer 15 minute charger.

ZV

Lenmar isn't a junk-brand. Not all batteries are made to be fast-charged. Heat destroys batteries, and 15-minute charge cycles will heat up batteries a lot more. The good 15-minute chargers have some kind of active cooling or temperature monitoring.

I have yet to hear of anyone having a good experience with Lenmar batteries. They are like Powerizer batteries. They only good thing there is to say about them is that they are cheap.

And the Energizer 15-minute charger has both active cooling (a very effective fan, the batteries are cooler in the 15 minute charger than they were in my old overnight charger) and temperature monitoring.

I say again, it was the low-end Lenmar batteries that are to blame, not the charger.

Just look at where the Lenmar batteries fall in the evaluation here. The "2000 mAh" Lenmar batteries don't even come close to rated capacity. Energizer's 1850 mAh batteries have more capacity and last longer than the "2000 mAh" Lenmars. They're cheap, but there's a reason that they're cheap.

ZV

yea i haven't had great experience with lenmars either. they just dont' last.
decent brands do just fine. and yea the batteries with active cooling feel no warmer than batteries in most slow chargers. as for heat, if the battery is old or shoddy with high internal resistance the chargers will reject them outright

 

[TheGizmo]

Welp you guys talked me into buying the BC-900 from Amazon for $40 shipped

Just looking for a good deal on batteries now, I'm not in a huge rush as I have 20 or so right now that hold about 1/2 a charge in them.. that'll hold me over til I find a good deal.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: TheGizmo
Welp you guys talked me into buying the BC-900 from Amazon for $40 shipped

Just looking for a good deal on batteries now, I'm not in a huge rush as I have 20 or so right now that hold about 1/2 a charge in them.. that'll hold me over til I find a good deal.

I've basically switched entirely from high capacity fast drain nimh to slow drain ones, my fave being the rayovac hybrid due to availability at walmart, target, etc. You can buy vast amounts of bulk ones online for a song but it appears that they may be prone to leaking and I've not found online deals much cheaper than brick and mortar for the good bats like eneloops or energizer, etc. so I don't bother with online for them.

 

[JoPh]

just ordered me some eneloops and bc-900 charger. thanks!

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
the best cheap charger is the lacrosse bc-900

the nicest AA batteries are the sanyo eneloops.

Rayovac has batteries liek the eneloops that hold their charge as well and I think can be found cheaper.

But other then that :thumbsup:

 

[Jhill]

http://www.break.com/index/how...oney-on-batteries.html

Awesome way to get batteries!












Edit. That was a joke.