Hi,Before Christmas I bought lots of toys that needed batteries. I waitedand waited for Lidl to do an offer on rechargeables but could not waitforever so I bought a pack of 40 alkaline AAs from CPC for about £7.They also sell 40 AAA for about the same price. I think that works outabout 17p per battery.When Lidl sold their NiMH batteries a few weeks later, I think theywere £2.99 for 4, which I think makes them about five times moreexpensive than the CPC alkalines, or in other words, I would have touse them five times to get payback. That's not including theelectricity or charger to recharge them.I just wonder whether it is worth the hassle of recharging batterieswhen alkalines seem so cheap and convenient. CPC also sell zinc carbonbatteries for even less. I know alkaline is for more heavy duty loadsbut I wonder if Zinc carbon would be enough to flash a few lights andmake a few sounds on children's toys. If so, they would seem to be abetter choice than NiHM.What does the panel think? TIA

IME, no. I gave up with rechargeables for most things some years ago.

rechargeable batteries: are they worth it?

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meow2222 13 years ago

a setting for recharbles then it's unlikely recharables would be a good id= ea, some cheap toys might not work for very long due to the lower voltage 1= .2V compared teh 1.5V alkaline and that can make quite a differnce with 4 c= ells or more. I've had cheap LED torches that work well with Alkaline batte= ries but quickly fail when useing recharbles as those =A31 shop torches use= the relatively high intenal resistance of alkaline cells to current limit.= When usoing recharables they get rather warm and tend to stop woring after= an hour or so and it's not the batteries that 'die' the LEDS do .

ce that they are a good idea and well worth while, but putting rechargable = batteries in equipemtn not designed for them isn't a good idea.

et that on the camera, not tried setting the wrong ones yet for obvious rea= sons :-)

It tends to be low end products can't use rechargeables these days, plus so= me goods designed before they became common.

If you change the camera setting it just reads the remaining charge wrong. = But since it does that anyway with NiMH its of no consequence.

NT

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Windmill 13 years ago

NiMH are only a nominal 1.2 volts instead of 1.5, but NiZn are 1.5 if you can find them.

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polygonum 13 years ago

So what we really need is a five-battery compartment. Four alkalines or five lower-voltage rechargeables. 6V whichever you use.

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charles 13 years ago

I did come across a piece of equipment some years ago, that was just like that. They even provided a dummy cell for you insert if you weren't using rechargeables. I can't rememebr what it was, though. (20+ years ago)

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polygonum 13 years ago

Neat - and I thought I was being silly!

Mind, I have often wished that you could get a box into which you can fit an arbitrary number of single cells (whether all the same size or mixed), which would cycle through all of them charging each one individually. Maybe several at a time. So you could have a stock of batteries, all but a few fully charged, permanently available.

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John Williamson 13 years ago

Radio Shack hand held CB radio? I've still got a pair that uses either

10 NiCds or 8 alkaline cells. They were supplied with a pair of dummy cells each. I know one of them worked last time I powered it up.

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Grimly Curmudgeon 13 years ago

Istr a ghetto blaster like that.

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chris French 13 years ago

Using the Low Self discharge type, once they are charged they last ages before they lose an appreciable amount of charge.

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Jim Newman 13 years ago

I love the simplistic logic you get on uk.d-i-y.

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Jim Newman 13 years ago

Ooops, the follow up suggest you were being 'ironic'; good to see some of the simplistic logic here is meant to be ironic. :)

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Dave Liquorice 13 years ago

But I had a radio that took 10 rechargeables and was supplied with a dummy battery if you fitted primary cells.

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PeterC 13 years ago

4 LSD in place of the old 4.8V bell battery - what's wrong with that? Ah, needs a holder for 1 or 4 units - there's radical!

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polygonum 13 years ago

'twas a mixture. One part "well this would get over the voltage issue", one part "obviously impossible in any kit not made to work like that", another part "how on earth could you ensure people don't break things by using wrong number/type combos", and several other parts, probably including a pile of poo.

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rechargeable batteries: are they worth it?

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