AA Battery Showdown

[Andy Dingley]

I'm surprised to see a difference between Duracell Procell and Duracell standard alkalines. I thought they were the same, except the packaging?

Would have liked to see Lidl, Aldi & Ikea too.

[Ericp]

clean a mouse last week when one leaked in it.

From the comments in the link, it might be that leaving any battery in a drawer for a long time invites leaks whatever the make. All our Kirklands are in almost daily use situation and promptly disposed of when dead.

[Clive George]

SP were blue, HP orange/red weren't they? Zinc-carbon and Zinc-chloride respectively.

[PeterC]

I use Eneloop in some things but it depends on the voltage: some clocks dip out at ~0.95V and are OK for ~10 months (but hardly worth the use of such a cell) and others go at ~1.3V. The camera does far better on Eneloops than on primary cells. The CH wireless 'stat/programmer has 2 batteries; one gives up at ~1.4V and the 2 cells are OK for nearly a year in clocks and the other 2 cells are close to 1V so dump only. As they last about 3 years and cost 33p...

[Alan Braggins]

Or as one of the comments on

it "If you're buying disposables in bulk on a regular basis in the first place, YDIW."

Yes, there are devices where alkalines work better. Generally those are low current devices where the batteries don't need changing often anyway.

[Man at B&Q]

• We use nothing but NiMH nowadays, but this thread was about other types.

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Zinc carbon are actually a better choice for very low draw devices like clocks.

[Tim Watts]

Actually, sir, you may be right there...

I thought they wer eboth zinc-carbon-chloride. Both had a carbon rod in as the +ve electrode and both need an electrolyte.

[Andrew May]

I seem to recall that Ever Ready used to do SP11 (standard power) and HP11 (high power) batteries and also a C11 that was designed for the sort of clocks with a electrically actuated balance. The '11' being what we now call a C.

[Fredxx]

I thought alkaline had a lower self discharge, and therefore most suited to low draw devices like clocks?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Dunno the full reasons - but it does seem true in practice. Tesco zinc carbon seem to last longer in clocks than alkalines. And are quite a bit cheaper.

[docholliday93]

=20

Since I stopped using a personal music player that used AA cells I've found= that my charger has almost become redundant - my remaining rechargeables a= re almost all in things like DECT phones which have their own charger, and = alkaline works best for most other things. For clocks, remote controls, the= rmostats and the like rechargeables didn't really make sense when I last lo= oked, and the same was true for my torches (relatively infrequently used) = as the self discharge of rechargeables often meant they were dead just when= you needed them most, to find your way around during a power cut.=20

What I did find annoying, though, was that my old digital camera didn't lik= e rechargeables - it would take maybe a couple of shots before giving up, w= hile a reasonable alkaline (I found Kodak quite good, which echoes the test= s mentioned by the OP) would last for many more. My newer camera is so much= less power-hungry that I've not yet had to replace the battery...=20

[Andy Burns]

I specifically mentioned the low self discharge ones, I've left them in torches, cameras and little-used remotes for over about 18 months and they still have plenty of juice when called on ...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If the old camera didn't like the 1.2v or so of a rechargeable, it probably wasn't exhausting alkalines either before quitting.

[chris French]

Low self discharge are much better in this respect, and makes in more reasonable to use them insuch things, as they will hold charge for a lot longer time.

Unusal, in most digicams, alkalines don't perform well, appearing to run flat much quicker than NimH

[AnthonyL]

I had the same problem and nearly threw the camera out. Eneloops fixed it.

[docholliday93]

Yes, I'll probably be revisiting this next time I need batteries - the last time I checked was a while ago and things have moved on...