Why aren't AA batteries square?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

When I were young (36 years ago), my first torch was a rubber (waterproofish) Duracell (?) torch, taking two D cells. It had two buttons (which I suspect just pressed on the two ends of a rocker switch underneath). You could hold the off one down and tap the on one to make morse code. I got through a lot of batteries until they invented rechargeables, just by forgetting to turn the bloody thing off, as it would stand on the light end on a table and you couldn't tell it was on. I eventually lost it in a farmer's barn somewhere when me and a friend were playing in a huge pile of hay bales.

A cassette recorder?! Surely you don't hold it on for half an hour while you listen to a full album?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

What irritates me are hedge trimmers with two switches, some sort of safety nonsense. All it means to me is you need both hands, which is useless when you're reaching high up. So I always tape one of them permanently on.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I've seen that for the record button. A little red thing in the middle of "play". It locks when you press both.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

With the ones I've seen, you can release one of the buttons once it's started.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

That would defeat the whole purpose (of making you have two hands on the handles so one can't get cut off).

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I've never done that with anything that the battery couldn't kill first. It evaporated the end of my pliers, while I was holding the other end (I was tightening a bolt on the end of some 300A cable leading to a large invertor, but the bolt for the negative was only an inch or so from the bolt for the positive, and I contacted both).

I have had a battery explode, but what had happened was it dried out inside somehow, shorted, then the other 29 (solar power system) batteries in parallel with it gave it a very large amount of current. I came home to smell a lot of sulphur (from right outside the garage), and found pieces of battery scattered everywhere. My neighbour thought someone had been cooking huge quantities of eggs.

[alan_m]

If collecting for hurricane victims would not it be better targeting the donations towards the poor countries rather than to one of the richest countries in the world?

[alan_m]

PP3s contain round batteries.

[Bill]

It was intended to be sort of a joke. : )

[Max Demian]

Some do, some have rectangular layers. The original zinc/carbon type was always layers

[Max Demian]

Sorry, I meant for FF & rewind. The first Philips cassette recorder (£25 in 1965) had a joystick for play, FF & rewind, and the latter two functions you had to hold the stick in position.

[whisky-dave]

No, they contain round cells not round batteries. Batteries are made up of cells.

AA AAA are single cells not really batteries.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I remember a reel to reel taperecorder which didn't require you to hold = things, but you did have to tell it precisely what to do. For example e= ngaging rewind while it was playing would result in the tape spooling ra= pidly off the reels all over the floor. You had to engage "stop" before= another action. A bit like my old Range Rover automatic, which would a= llow you to select drive while reversing with your foot fully on the acc= elerator. With a 3.5 litre V8 engine, it did manage, by spinning all fo= ur wheels quite dramatically.

-- =

FART stands for FAst Repetitive Ticks, and herrings use them to communic= ate.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

It still makes it harder to get the thing started, and apparently that's what they want.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I remember one cassette machine where both FF & rewind had 2 functions. Push the button all the way in for the normal function. Push it part way (momentary) causes the tape to play at high speed.

IIRC (some?) Sony beta VCR's could do that too.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 18:55:03 +0100, Mark Lloyd wrote:=

Yes, and some were quite variable, as you gradually pushed it down, the = pinch roller was released bit by bit, like a car's clutch, so you could = get any speed you liked.

Never actually used one of those. By the time I persuaded my parents to= get a VCR, VHS was more prevalent so they got that.

-- =

Why is the front of an aeroplane called a cockpit? If you have female pilots do you call it a pussypit?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I was thinking about electric ones. Having to hold two buttons and pull a starter cord on a petrol driven one would surely require three hands?

[critcher]

and of course the sides are evenly loaded and will not bulge like a square tank will if not braced.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

OCD is a disorder. That's what the D stands for.

[whisky-dave]

rote:

E stands for Education, and while I don't mind calling AAs batteries we rea lly need to teach the students what the most basic battery is and that is c alled a cell, they'll forget anyway as most do. This is important whn talki ng about differnt 'battery technologies give you differnt voltages.