OT Battery Insanity

[Grainger49]

My camera, a Canon, has been eating batteries.  It acts up when the batteries are low but doesn't indicate low batteries.  I burned out my first charger, bought another.  I have 4 sets (of 4AA) of batteries.  It has been driving me crazy!  Now I have thrown away the second battery charger.  It was a POS.

So I posted over at AK and got some suggestions that I will pass on if you guys are as ignorant about these as I am.

I bought a LaCrosse BC 700.  It will discharge/charge batteries.  It will "renew" them.  The display can select current, voltage, charge time or the AH rating the battery.  When it is through it says so.  If the battery is dead it doesn't recognize it.  Amazing technology for $30.

Along with the charger I bought hybrid NiMH AA rechargeables.   They have very low self discharge.  That means after 6 months 80% of the charge remains.  That is quite unlike normal NiMH batteries.

It hasn't been long but so far I highly recommend both the charger and the batteries.  The hybrids come charged.  I have been having fun with the charger torturing the previous batteries that I had.  I have discarded two of them because they were much weaker than the others.

[ironbut]

That sounds great Grainger.

I don't know about the other cats on this fence, but I've got a lot of battery powered devices that don't get used all that often. I try and remember to pull the batteries and do what needs to be done to preserve them but the reality of the matter is, that only happens about 50% of the time. As a result, sometimes I have to toss them after just a few charges because of sitting with no charge.
I'd love to see a link to the charger and the hybrid batteries since I just got a new flash recorder that uses AA batteries and I need to get some rechargeables for it anyway. The recorder has an incredible battery life (I can record for around 20hrs @ 24/96 on 2 AA's) and except for not having a digital input, it fulfills my wish list. I expect to use it for a number of years (famous last words) so investing in some good batteries and a "real" charger makes sense.

[mrarroyo]

I have had good luck with Lenmar R2G and Sanyo Eneloop batteries. Both have low discharge rate and low internal resistance.

[Grainger49]

D'oh!  I thought I gave links:

Charger:   http://www.amazon.com/Crosse-Technology-BC-700-Battery-Charger/dp/B000RSOV50/ref=sr_1_1

Batteries (this is 8 batteries)     http://www.amazon.com/Rayovac-Rechargeable-Batteries-AA-size-4-count/dp/B001KYFZ6Y/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_b

I can't get them both to show up as a link, but you can cut and paste.

For some reason I can get one link to work as a hot key or the other but not both.  The addresses are both correct, I have cut and pasted them from working links.

[ironbut]

Cool,.. thanks you guys!

Every time I get on the subject or batteries, I tell this story (sorry if I've posted it before,.. )
 
Back when JC Penny first came out with their "Lifetime Car Battery" (70's I think) my Mom put one in the Volvo she was driving at the time.
One day she came complaining to me that the JC Penny wasn't standing behind their lifetime warranty and I asked her for details on what had happened.
To make a long story short, one foggy day she forgot to turn off her headlights while she went shopping and AAA had to give her a jump. She drove straight to JC Penny to get a new battery since she figured there must be something wrong with the one she had.
I was dumb struck and told her if a battery like that existed, everybody would just have a stack of them in their garage and they'd never have to pay an electric bill again.
I kind of wish I'd been there when she was arguing with the garage guy at JC Penny's. That must've been a hoot!

[Grainger49]

Penny's lifetime warranty Gel Cell automotive battery was a legend.  It wasn't cheap but for the life of the car, maybe the owner, they would keep giving new batteries if it failed to charge and keep a charge.

I remember them well.

[Grainger49]

I have had good luck with Lenmar R2G and Sanyo Eneloop batteries. Both have low discharge rate and low internal resistance.

Eneloop was another brand of Hybrid AAAs mentioned. I don't remember if Lenmar was mentioned.

[Paul Joppa]

Seems to me I saw some low-discharge NiCd (or NIMH?) batteries with charger at Costco a couple months ago.

[ironbut]

After reading about them for a bit today, I did see that some folks were buying them from places like Costco. I've got Amazon Prime anyway so I ordered some of the Sanyo Eneloop's since they're a little more suited for my needs.
If these things are as good as folks are saying, I don't think it'll be that long before you'll be able to get them just about anywhere.
I think the slow charge times, fast discharge times and somewhat limited number of recharges on previous batteries were keeping folks from going the rechargeable route. Some of that is just a bad rap that comes from years ago and I've been really stoked at the progress that batteries have made since cell phones and laptops have flourished. I think that's good news for the environment. I know several live concert tapers that use solar cells to keep their remote power topped off.

[VoltSecond]

Sanyo EneLoop is the rechargable battery with good shelf life.  If you have a device where you recharge the batteries once or more every 2 weeks because you've used them up, use a higher mAhr capacity battery like the 2700 mAhr PowerEx. However, if go a couple weeks or more between recharging the battery, you'll want the EneLoop.  All the remotes, my small camera and the hand held games in my house are running on Eneloops. My "bulky "good" camera" and 10 year old headphone amp (solid state) runs from 2700mAHr PowerEx rechargeables.

The batteries at Costco is a EneLoop, but the charger is a trickle charger. For best battery life, you want a pulse charger.
http://www.mahaenergy.com/store/item.asp?idproduct=178  This is the one I have and I am very happy with it.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mahaenergy.com%2Fstore%2Fcatalog%2FMH-C401FS-DC.jpg&hash=bcec57ceb559caabe7c6986134a60d9b5a76cf66)

http://www.robertphotoblog.com/home/nimh-batteries/ One battery test of many.  I haven't found the good test page back that had the 2700 mAhr PowerEx down to the 900mAHr ones from Harbor Freight.

http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/sanyo_eneloop.html Shows Eneloop's measured self discharge.

[ironbut]

Sanyo EneLoop is the rechargable battery with good shelf life. ,.. if go a couple weeks or more between recharging the battery, you'll want the EneLoop. 

Cool, that's exactly what I gathered from the stuff I found. My recorder will sit for weeks (or months sometimes) and then I'll be using it for 10 hours a day for a few days. Once I get it home and transfer the recordings to my computer for processing, it's back in the box for a while. I really expect a lot from these things and I want it to work perfectly at the drop of a hat. If it had a little more processing power it would say that I take it for granted!

[Grainger49]

A nice thing about the LaCrosse charger is that it can select the charging current.  It has a quick charge at 700mA and you can also select 400mA and 200mA.  The discharge rate when refreshing is one half the charge rate.

I admit, $30 for a charger seems steep but I spent more than that for the first two cheap a$$ed chargers and they both got thrown out.

[VoltSecond]

At $30, the charger comes with the car adaptor too.

[Grainger49]

I didn't get one.  Maybe they used to.  Amazon didn't send anything but the charger chassis and a wall wart to feed it.  Those were in a blister pack.