Sigh. Rayovac sent me coupons, so I went and bought more D cells. I figure when the world is off, I use a bunch of those in fans, and flash lights. And fluorescent room lights.
Storing these new in package, on the shelf. I may put the packs in plastic Ziploc bags, and put in an ice chest on the floor, to avoid temp swings, and summer heat.
Wish me luck.
I also bought some rechargeable "precharged" AA cells. I do use the most AA cells from day to day.
Hi, You must be a battery pack rat, LOL! I have ab out half dozen of each kind. I like Lithium ones.
Yes, that is very true. I also like the lithium ones.
. Christ>>
What does that accomplish?
. Christ> Don't forget to pack them in rice.
e when the world is off, I use a bunch of those in fans, and flash lights. And fluorescent room lights. Storing these new in package, on the shelf. I may put the packs in plastic Ziploc bags, and put in an ice chest on the fl oor, to avoid temp swings, and summer heat. Wish me luck. I also bought som e rechargeable "precharged" AA cells. I do use the most AA cells from day t o day. -- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
Why an ice chest, don't you have an electricaly powered refrigerator???
Looks like Stormin dropped one:
When they leak you will find your rice has a nice tangy taste.
I do have fridge, which is full of stuff. Including some batteries, of course. I've read the mfr don't recommend refridge, just room temp.
Ice chest is more temp stable than on the shelf.
. Christ> >> Sigh. Rayovac sent me coupons, so I went and bought more D cells. I figure when the world is off, I use a bunch of those in fans, and flash lights. And fluorescent room lights. Storing these new in package, on the shelf. I may put the packs in plastic Ziploc bags, and put in an ice chest on the floor, to avoid temp swings, and summer heat. Wish me luck. I also bought some rechargeable "precharged" AA cells. I do use the most AA cells from day to day. -- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
I've been looking ALL OVER for that!
. Christ>
My grandmother, until the day she died, referred to a refrigerator as an "icebox" despite the fact that she'd had either an electric or gas powered refrigerator for some 60+ years.
nate
If you bought one of the better brands of "precharged" you'll likely be very happy with them.
The cell adapters that I referred to in a previous post from the Chinese eBay seller showed up yesterday. I'm now 100% alkaline free! The cell adapters are being used in some seldom-used C and D cell flashlights, so they can still be used at a moment's notice, or else used to scavenge AA or AAA cells from if required for something else. I'm using LSD NiMH exclusively, save for one flashlight that uses 16340 (RCR123A) and a couple Energizer lithium AAs that I'd bought ages ago for a finicky digital camera and hadn't used.
I'm mostly happy with the cell adapters; the metal contacts may be a little light duty for multi-amp draw devices, but for an emergency use problem solver I feel better having them around.
nate
Shoot, I've never even seen an icebox in use, but I often call the refrigerator "the icebox". Probably picked it up from my grandparents.
Cindy Hamilton
I can easily imagine that. I like some of the old terms, also.
. Christ>>
You know, at least a couple people have recommended the LDS NiMH cells. I've got some LDS nimmies, in the last couple weeks. I'll have to figure out what needs cells, what's leaked, and how to convert.
I also have some C and D adaptors, so I can use the LDS double A cells.
. Christ>
LOL - Low Self Discharge, not Latter Day Saints... although I do see some conservatively dressed young men on bicycles a lot around here, don't know what they use in their headlamps :)
If you bought "precharged" that's marketing for LSD... you should be good
really, they're a drop in for their alkaline equivalents in many applications - remote controls being one example of an application where there really wasn't a good rechargeable available previously and now with the LSD NiMH you can go green without feeling like it's turning into a colossal PITA... they just work.
Probably most important is getting a good "smart" charger; mine is a Maha C9000 which seemed to be the top of the class when I bought it, there is a similar "SkyRC" brand charger that looks way cooler now but it's pretty new. LaCrosse makes good chargers too. Not sure about anything else. My backup charger is a Nitecore i4 because that will charge lithium ions as well - I bought some protected RCR123As for my one flashlight so I wouldn't have to feel guilty about using it. Not saying those are the best choices, but I'm happy with both.
I also went ahead and bought the Maha 4-bay 9V charger and some Tenergy
8.4V "9V" batteries. Everything's working apparently fine, even all my meters, which sadly I've had occasion to use as I think the battery is dying in my car and I wanted some verification before ordering a new one. Life good. Have not experienced the reported weak construction of the Tenergy "9V" batteries, all have been in and out of the charger and their intended devices w/ no problems.As a happy coincidence (or perhaps intelligence on the part of the mfgrs.) all three chargers will operate off 12VDC as well, so you could charge cells in an emergency off of a car, loose 12V battery, solar setup etc. I may still try to tap off one battery in my UPS but I don't know if that will cause any undesired operation.
If you wanted to have the capability of easily charging every size cell, you'd probably want yet another charger for C/D cells, the Nitecore will do Cs but not Ds natively. the C9000 will do both with adapters available off the bay, but with special instructions and only two at a time.
One note: all of the Tenergy branded cells/batteries came out of their packaging at about 20-25% charged, not 70-75% charged as with Eneloop, Maha Imedion, "Duraloop," etc. In their defense they are not advertised as "precharged" or "ready to use" though. They did test to spec on a break in cycle on my C9000. Will be testing unused cells in a couple months to make sure they are really LSD.
nate
CY: Oh, bother. The old typing habits die heart.
CY: I'll look for that.
CY: yesterday, my digicam said to replace the batteries. Bother, so I swapped them out with my mini mag set of batteries, and said those were bad also. Got home, and both worked OK in the camera. The lower voltage of NiMH doesn't work everything all the time. For example, won't light my four AA cell fluorescent. But where they work, they are good.
CY: Yes, the charger is essential. I have two which say they do NiMH.
CY: Glad that works for you.
CY: Yes, that sounds good. Two of my chargers came with 12 volt lighter socket cord. Which hasn't been needed, but who knows?
CY: I have a couple Battery Manager Ultra, which are said to do NiMH (and nicad and CZn, and alkaline) cells up to D cell size. How good is it? Not really sure.
CY: Worth knowing. Sounds like a good idea to charge them up, before relying on them. After the first charge up (or two?) they might be LDS?
Chris
P.S. Nice to have intelligent conversation about batteries. And, I haven't called you a moron or idiot, yet!
I had one like that, a Nikon. Did you go into the menu and tell it that you were using NiMH batteries? Should be a setting in there. that said my @#$%#$ Nikon wouldn't work worth a crap on anything other than Energizer Lithiums, I even bought Nikon brand NiMHs in case that made a difference, now I have a pair of HSD NiMHs that I don't know what to do with (camera is long retired.)
That's only half the battle, make sure that they terminate on negative delta-V (and with thermal protection even better) not just a timer based charger. Adjustable charge rate is good too if you use a lot of AAAs as "by the book" you don't want to regularly charge NiMHs at above 1C (that is, you would not charge a 800 mAh cell at >800 mA rate, or in other words, anything faster than a "one hour" charge is bad, "two hour" is better.)
Dunno... did a quick google (very quick) but didn't come up with anything.
If it is sold on Amazon and "NLee the Engineer" has reviewed it, he seems to totally geek out on this stuff and at the same time do pretty decent reviews. I read his reviews a lot before realizing that there was no one perfect charger, which is why I now have three :/ But I would trust his opinion. Also there's a Dutch guy on CPF that posts some good reviews too.
Tenergy "Centura" which is what I bought is their LSD line, but as with pretty much everything that's made in China these days I "trust but verify." One reason why I like having the C9000, I can really see what the cells are doing while charging/discharging. Example - right now I'm breaking in the last four of a 16-pack of Imedion AAs that I bought from Thomas Dist.; I'm keeping an eye on slot #1 as it only discharged 14xx mAh on initial discharge as opposed to the 17xx+ that I expect. On the break in discharge cycle I'm hoping it shows the typical 23xx mAh that I got from the rest of the cells... if not, I'll have to set that one aside as "special" and not use it in a set. Yes, the Imedions are rated
2400 mAh but if you read the fine print they are only guaranteed 2250 mAh, I've been seeing low 2300s typically. Still a good deal at $40 for 16; cheaper than the 2000 mAh Eneloops which usually come in a little above spec, although Eneloops really are the gold standard for LSD NiMH AA and AAA cells. They might come up a bit in capacity after a few cycles as well; I have only really cycled one set of cells so far. I started converting all my stuff within the last year; I've been keeping my charger busy breaking in all the new cells before putting them into service and recharging the ones that I've actually run down through use, haven't had time to mess about cycling cells just to try to see if I can improve their capacity.But anyway, point was that I'd rather geek out on this stuff now rather than ASSume that I know that the cells are going to be at 70-80% capacity after a year in the drawer and be disappointed when I'm counting on them in a critical situation. Makes life much less stressful that way!
Give it time, give it time!
The funny thing about this whole discussion is we wouldn't have been having this more than a year ago; it's only within the last year that I've given rechargeables a good honest try with good equipment (after lots of OCD interweb research) now I feel somewhat knowledgeable about the subject, but more importantly, I've actually had uniformly good experiences with my purchases, as opposed to a few years ago when I
*didn't* do my research and just bought some stuff off the shelf of a store, which didn't work very well. (Energizer brand, which I now know went through a real bad spell with rechargeable NiMH and the charger I got was probably timer based as well.)Now ask me again in another year if I'm as happy. I hope that I am.
nate
CY: My choices are either alk/NIMH or Oxyride. I've got it set on alk/NiMH. I read in CR, that the lithium advanced last longer than lithium ultimates.
CY: I'd have no way to know. I've heard that there is some optimal rate of charge, but I can't remember what that is. My Batttery Manager Ultra says that the two chargers I have end up about 1.45 volts, which seems good, to me.
CY: I got the first one about 1999, and the second one near after that. They might not be on the web, at present.
CY: Ja? Gut!
CY: Yes, I've had plenty chinky junky.
One reason why I like having the C9000, I can really see what
CY: You da man!
CY: And that moment is typically along the side of the road, when your
12 volt charger is home?CY: Hey, all things in time.
CY: Hmm. I've tried a few different NiMH, and had varies results. Chinky off Ebay were total disappointment. Rayovacs and Duracell from photo dept of Walmart, have been OK. The Rayovac LDS were also good.
CY: Can't promise to remember.
Well, Gilligan, this thread is drifting.
I've found that NiMH cells from Ebay (bought for great price) turn out to be low quality, don't last long, and way over hyped as to mA capacity.
They don't last very long in any device, and ended up, had to put most of them in the scrap. The false economy led to no savings at all. Just wasted money.
The Duracells from Walmart lasted a couple years, and the Rayovacs, also. I still have the ROV, and cycle the 24 of them through the charger every month or so. For no really good reason.
I did buy a pack of ROV, LDS cells, which fail me now and again. (Can't let anyone know I've been dropping LSD batteries on the floor, my Bishop would put me in drug rehab.)
I also tried Powergenix, which are a whole different cell, and require their own charger. The higher voltage of 1.7 is nice. Thy are damaged if they fall below 1.1 volts, and I've had a lot of these fail after a while. I may buy more, I'm down to just a few. I like them in my computer speaker, louder than the 1.2 volt NimH.
Glad I'm not buying single use alkalines for 75 cents a cell. I'd be more broke than I already am.
. Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
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