Let me leap in here to ding Duracell. They used to be my goto battery, but over the past few years (there was a hedge fund takeover, which IME rarely results in improvements to long-standing quality products) they've turned into liabilities - specifically, they are extremely prone to leaking once even a little bit discharged. To this day I open old kit and there can be duracells in there with "use by 2010" or even earlier dates which are fine, yet far newer batteries (e.g. bought in 2016 with expiries in 2022) leak like there's no tomorrow for the buyout team.
Interested to hear of others experiences, or I've just been amazingly unlucky.
I came across this recent youtube comment[1] on why older batteries didn't leak. I don't know if it's correct but sharing it anyway:
>ceptimus 2 weeks ago (edited) >> Old alkaline batteries contained mercury, which made them resistant to leaking. The mercury was there to absorb the hydrogen gas, which builds internal pressure when the battery is used, causing them to leak. Newer alkaline batteries don't have mercury, because it's harmful to the environment when disposed. Unfortunately, the mercury free batteries leak much sooner - many of them long before their 'use by' date, even if you've never used them. Now you've replaced the batteries, you should check the camera more frequently. The modern rechargeable Ni-mh batteries, with a low self-discharge rate, are a good alternative: less likely to leak; but they're only nominally 1.2 Volts per cell instead of 1.5 volts, so some equipment won't work with them.
EDIT... maybe there's more to it than just mercury because some low-effort googling[2] found that law prohibiting it in batteries was 1996 (~25 years ago). That doesn't match the timeline in the video because Alec says his old batteries (that didn't leak) were "use-by-date-2016". So maybe something else was different about the formulation in his Kirkland Signature batteries circa ~2008.
Duracell (the Mallory company) was bought by Dart in 1978, then by KKR in 1988, Gillette in 1996, Procter & Gamble bought Gillette in 2005, and Duracell was spun off and bought by Berkshire Hathaway in 2016. (source: Wikipedia)
The company has been under large-scale finance / conglomerate management for more than 4 decades by now. I don’t think there would have been any immediate change in battery quality circa 2016. Seems just as likely that corner cutting (assuming there is corner cutting; I have no insight) started before changes of ownership.
That possibly explains the mysterious leaking battery problems. I remember that was an issue over twenty five years ago, which taught us not to leave batteries in devices. But then we accepted that they don't leak anymore. Then in the last five years or so, I keep finding gadgets that are destroyed, or almost so, from massive battery leaks. And alkalines don't seem to last very long, even though they are more expensive than they were.
In a past life I worked in the entertainment biz. Duracell ProCells were the go-to battery for important things. Britney Spears' headset would have had a Procell in it. They would all get tested before use and maybe 5 in a thousand were bad and not used. They weren't the absolute best in the world but they were acceptable and cheap enough to use and toss. After a show we would all take the 'used' batteries home and use them until they were actually flat. The only time I ever saw one leak in a device was if it got submerged or very hot. Now, the procell in my pencil-sized flashlight seems to leak after a month. I switched to energizer and, at least in my sample size of one, I haven't seen a leak.
Having worked in video production for a time, my understanding of the intent/marketing of the procell line is that you always use a fresh one for each production. Therefore, they are lower spec than one that might sit in a device for a long time as they're going to be done with their intended life in a few hours, and they're cheaper than the retail cells with better longevity.
I certainly never ran them through the qualifications that the article did.
The places I worked certainly went thought them like water. Every time something like a lav pack or mic came off a performer it got a new procell. There were buckets of them at the end of the day. They never spent much time inside the devices but did come home with us for use in remotes and kids toys.
I understood the procell line to mean that the batteries each got tested for voltage before shipping. 20/30 years ago, for whatever reason, a percentage of consumer batteries would be already dead when they left the factory.
This demystifies something that had puzzled me. I got a nice wireless lav setup and I find it very annoying that they use alkaline cells. I thought rechargeable lithium batteries would be nicer because you can always top them up, but in a more professional setting it may be easier to just use fresh batteries every time. Of course using alkaline cells really annoys me because of the waste. Maybe I should get some good rechargeable AA cells, but I much prefer a device which can just be plugged in to charge without having to remove the cells.
At the pro level you need something that can be turned around in seconds. You dont want to hold up a rock concert or movie shoot because a battery has run flat. A constant flow of alkaline batteries is more reliable than organizing banks of gear-specific rechargeables. If mrs spears' pack died, a man in black would be running on stage with a new procell. Far easier to swap a battery than swap the entire pack integrated into her costume and sound systems.
The entertainment biz is special. They will bring thier own generators to run a rock concert because the power supply at every major stadium is too unreliable. A touring show would rather haul a generator truck (or three) than deal with the specifics of each stadium they visit and risk bad power. Better to spend the money and generate it yourself.
> Far easier to swap a battery than swap the entire pack integrated into her costume and sound systems
How do you get to the pack to change the battery if integrated into her costume? Backstage doesn't work on stage unless it's a quick handoff. Cinderella had to step off stage and manipulate her wardrobe to give access. But she stepped off upstage right. So the audience could see if they had been looking there. So I gave her the "follow me" wave and walked from the wings upstage to the wings downstage, where nothing could be seen from the house. I turned to work, and she wasn't there. She didn't see me give the "follow me" sign. She had her back to the audience and was bent over with her dress over her head in an attempt to give access to the transmitter and battery pack which was in a pouch in a harness she wore, basically it was secured in the small of her back. I checked the audience and they somehow hadn't yet noticed what Cinderella was doing (which was probably illegal given her age) and, in a stage whisper, I screamed her name to get her attention, then gave the sign again. She saw and came over, and was apologizing while I replaced the entire transmitter, batteries and all, without messing with the mic and cord. Funny girl, if she knew I doubt she cared about the peep show she gave as much as concern she had upset me somehow (which is absurd)
It's really only the cord that is difficult to replace, the mics and transmitter/battery packs swap faster than trying to muck around with loose batteries. Even so, it's an off stage operation. If it occurs in the middle of a number, I've walked out to hand a wireless mic to a singer.
Any interaction with the stage during a show means a sprint from the sound booth, under the house, and up to the back stage, and then back afterwards. It's nice when there's a small sound crew, but the audio engineer is expected to deal with it regardless.
Happened for me too. They were very reliable batteries, now even new batteries leak if unused for a few years. They have ruined several remotes that I use sparingly, they should change their name to Ephemeralcell.
Same here, lots of leaks-- some family even has had a drawer full of unexpired Duracells leak. Myself, I've switched over completely to NiMh except when unsupported by the device to remove the change of leaks (Nest x Yale door lock in particular, which detected NiMh as low battery even when 90% of the cell capacity is remaining). AmazonBasics has been bad with leaks too.
Edit: I have a Powerex MH-C980 and that has significantly made using NiMh easier. Before with a bundled Panasonic charger I had to charge everything in pairs, 4 max. The Powerex I can charge 8 cells individually, turbo charge if I'm in a rush, and see how much energy actually was used if something seems to be eating through a lot of batteries.
Just to clarify your point there: Charging batteries as pairs is what kills the rechargeable batteries. There is no way for the charger to keep track of both batteries at the same time so it just charges until both should be done.
If one of them is bad, the charger will kill the other one too. If they are differently charged, it will kill one of the batteries and next time it will kill the other battery. (Kill as in make worse and worse until it finaly doesn't charge at all.)
I have mostly stopped using rechargeable AA and AAA batteries because of the bad quality of the last ones I bought. They took 3-5 charges before dying with a good charger that does all batteries separately.
I have never seen a charger that charges in pairs. Every charger I have ever used or seen has charged each cell individually. Charging in pairs is a terrible idea - the chargers should be returned as unsuitable for purpose.
This is what killed me when I started swapping Alkalines for NiMH in the 00s. Every single charger sold in stores only charged in pairs, and because even then USB was creating a 5V world most things that needed batteries used 3 of them.
Even the charger that Panasonic sold with the Eneloops requires matched pairs.
The other issue being that NiMH seems to top out at AA size. Finding C or D sized rechargeables is basically impossible.
Also, NiMH batteries can reverse charge and ruin themselves. This happens a lot when batteries are in series and the load will continue to run the batteries until 0 voltage. The weakest battery will deplete first but then the other batteries will continue to pump current through until that weak battery reverses polarity and wrecks itself.
Correct, ages ago, I was testing a batch of them and came across several reversed charged ones. At first I thought I must have got my multimeter leads reversed but I found that was not the case.
For a long while I kept them to prove the point to anyone who thought I'd must have lost my ability to distinguish plus from minus.
I just replaced some ~2 year old 9v and AA from various detectors around my house, all rayovac and half were leaking and I had to use some sand paper to clean the terminals. Yeah I know you're supposed to replace once a year but it is what is. Seems from this thread people have seen leakage from many different brands from cheap ones to "duracell"
Completely agree. Duracell batteries have been leaking consistently for me, I've stopped buying them and actively warn others. They have destroyed various remotes, torches and an expensive camera flash after only a few years.
I have a pack of AAA Duracells I just went to open the other day which were "use by 2025" that I purchased just a few weeks ago, and one of the batteries in the middle of the fresh unopened pack was already leaking with one end fully encrusted with corrosion.
The EU has a quality mark "CE" - Conformitè Europëenne. Sometime the font is a bit wonky and it is alleged that CE in that case stands for China Export instead. I imagine that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#%22China_Export%22 is policed quite carefully.
those are just self-certified, CE is only on the authority of the people who put the label on not on some EU agency. They can be held accountable for not following CE correctly but not having the correct logo is not a problem.
Mmm, I recalled I had Duracell (bought in 2018, expire date 2025) leaked in the battery compartment and I don't use the device. I just assumed the device was on standby mode and been draining the battery for a while which caused the leaking.
That mean I have to be wary of Kirkland AA and AAA Batteries because they are made by Duracell. This is new for me and I'm surprised about Duracell, and I am not surprised about hedge fund/private equity. This is their MO.
Kirkland batteries were very leaky to the point where I didn't even finish using the pack I bought. I was quite dismayed since Kirkland usually has quality products.
Same. I pulled down my dad's old camera from the closet a few years ago and it probably hadn't been used since the 90s so the batteries were dead. Threw in some new Duracell batteries and played with it a bit before putting it away. Opened it a year or two later and the batteries had swelled and leaked everywhere. Had to use a pair of pliers to extract the swollen batteries from the battery compartment. Such a huge pain.
After using Duracell for years for applications where I had to use alkaline, I recently had a set die with major leaks early, basically ruining a nice LED flashlight.
Yup, I hate Duracell batteries with a passion, they leak like a wet sponge and destroy electronics. I have converted most of my batteries to NiMH, but for the few that cannot be rechargeables, I will go out of the way to buy anything but Duracells.
As the article states, NiMH has gotten a lot better, and I now use that nearly everywhere instead of alkaline.
It's nice not having to shop for batteries as often. I plugged in a charger behind the TV and batteries in a drawer under the TV. With the price point for Eneloop and Duracell batteries, you break even once you use a rechargeable for the fourth time.
Part of the reason I have it in the first place is that the Roku 4's abysmal remote control goes through a set of batteries once every three months or so.
Seems like at least the AA size, model LADDA 2450mAh. You can check they're made in Japan. Not sure about the 1900 mAh, or the AAA size model, it might be a different brand.
All 3 are Eneloops, just not the same lines (the 2450's are pros). Also their Tjugo charger is one of those chargers that slowly pulse-charges each cell individually and checks the delta, it's a very overengineered and conservative charger design that won't roast the AAA's and AA's from them. Decent video of teardown of it, though the guy wasn't aware of this style of pulsed-charging and why it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG2clNRFz2k
Yep, have the same experience here. Even worse, I have devices which require batteries to be installed for memory retention, so I can't really remove all the alkalines to prevent leakage.
Anecdata, I recently had to replace batteries in several smoke alarms. 3 were Duracells and 2 were Rayovacs. All Duracells were from 2016/2017, i.e. assuming they were installed right away they lasted around 5 years. Rayovacs were from 2010 and 2011, despite both brands being rated for 5 years. It is possible that old Rayovacs were installed around same time as new Duracells and both lasted around same time, still makes for an interesting datapoint.
Just as a bit of feedback, for safety equipment like smoke and CO detectors, standard guidance is to replace the battery at least once a year. (Unless you have an integrated 10 year battery that will last the life of the detector)
If you live in an area that follows Daylight Savings time, doing it then is best so that you remember. Otherwise doing it during the Operation Edith drill for Fire Prevention Week is the next best.
Rayovac was bought out by Energizer not too long ago. They used to have a 10 year no leak guarantee, now they leak in a few months as I've learned the hard way.
I've had exactly the same experience with Duracell - batteries leaking years before their expiration date (sometimes shortly after purchase). I never buy Duracell anymore.
90% of my Duracells from the past decade have leaked and ruined equipment, and all well before expiration date. Ive been now telling my family and friends to avoid at all cost
I think the main issue with AA Alkaline is the proliferation of cheap low-self-discharge NiMH cells (aka: Eneloop, but also Energizer and other brands have good LSD NiMH available).
A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now. Perhaps a random TV-remote still prefers Alkaline but most seem to work fine with NiMH.
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Buying a pack of 20 NiMH cells and rotating your collection between charging / discharging states is cheap enough and effective. Its like you have "infinite" AAs since you can just keep recharging them.
EDIT: A few years ago, Alkaline was still needed for TV remotes. But most Low-self-discharge NiMH now lasts for over a year without self-discharging away. Sure, not as good as Alkaline's 10-year life span but surely 1+ year lifespans is good enough for your TV remote? Its not that big of a hassle to reach recharge your NiMH once a year is it?
That works well until you have kids running around... You going to put rechargeable cells in that Elena of Avalor wand your 4 year old chases the dog with? And her talking unicorn? How about all the light sabers?
In my experience, most of those types of toys don't go through batteries fast enough to justify a NiMH - they'd be in there for years. Invariably one of the kids will wind up mixing NiMH/LiIon/Alkaline in a toy, then the rechargeable winds up in the recycling bin a year later.
Fast forward 3 years, and your "infinite" AAs are all gone, lost, or in near-permanent use somewhere you can never identify, and you've wasted all that money.
In a few years when the kids move out and, and the number of battery powered gizmos is down to a manageable number, I'll try it again - until then, Amazon Basics AAA/AA are my friend.
I do this with my child. Shrug, I just buy more amazon rechargables and while it feels expensive its still a fraction of what buying non-rechargables cost over time.
The only exception is his collection of lightsabres. Its like 3 AAA per and he and he has 6 or 7 of them, maybe more. So for those I bought a pack of alkalines and forgot about them. I needed batteries and just bought them from CVS because I was in a hurry.
Amazon lists the EBL 20 pack of AAA batteries for $22. This is about $8 more than the alkaline pack I bought. Now I regret not just spending a little extra for rechargables because those alkalines will drain and leak sooner than later. Or the lightsabre will break then the batteries can go back into rotation.
> I just buy more amazon rechargables and while it feels expensive its still a fraction of what buying non-rechargables cost over time.
Putting rechargeable batteries in a toy that will likely not need a replacement for a year or more definitely feels like a waste of money - as does knowing that 20+ rechargeable batteries have been thrown out with regular batteries and broken toys.
Unless I know I can get 8-10 uses out of them, it doesn’t seem ecologically or economically prudent to use rechargeables.
edit . Also - child != children. We have well over 100 AA and probably as many AAA batteries in various toys at any given time…
Replying to boost this. We love Eneloop and have probably 40-50 of them in the house at this point, between remote controls, gamepads, children's toys, fairy lights, bike lighting, tools, etc etc. They all get funneled through a La Crosse charger with a simple two-bin depleted/charged system.
We've been buying them for years and I think I've only ever disposed of one that was unwilling to take a charge.
> - need to establish a system of keeping track what's charged
This seems to be the root of all of your problems.
Just charge all of the cells that aren’t in use.
When you take drained cells out of something, they go in the charger.
Charger is always plugged in and right next to where you store the cells.
If there’s ever any question, just stick the cells in the charger. Don’t bother playing all of the games to avoid “memory effect”. It’s much better with modern cells and not worth the hassle to try to work around.
The good chargers hold 8-16 batteries, so there's always a set on there being charged. The chargers seem electrically smart and maintain the batteries well.
This process works wonderfully. We've got ~100 Enloop's of various generations around the house in TV Remotes, XBox Remotes, Garage Door openers, and toys. This process works well.
Not to mention a LOT of items now come with non-removable (mostly rechargeable) Li-Ion or NIMH batteries. Even small toys which used to require external batteries now come with it.
So I still have a small stack of alkaline batteries from 2017 I haven't replaced or depleted. Hopefully that stack remains untouched for another few years as well.
I'm (lackadaisically) building a version of it now, in order to get matched pairs and fours of the 40-plus eneloops that we have. And identify the bad ones, of course.
> A huge number of appliances seem to be designed for the 1.35V NiMH chemistry now.
Yes, this is my experience too. One of the problems with NiMH is that appliances have helpful low-battery indicators which might light up as soon as you put NiMH cells in them, even though the appliance might continue working for a long time yet. A prime example is the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which was released in 2001. The thing is powered by switching regulators which work fine with the lower voltages of NiMH cells!
Newer appliances have solved these problems. For example, the Yamaha PSS-A50 (a fantastic, inexpensive portable keyboard) has an option to configure the low-battery indicator for alkaline or NiMH chemistry.
> Newer appliances have solved these problems. For example, the Yamaha PSS-A50 (a fantastic, inexpensive portable keyboard) has an option to configure the low-battery indicator for alkaline or NiMH chemistry.
Different NiMH chemistries have slightly different voltage curves.
Its an insidious problem. Different brands of NiMH just discharges in a "flat" manner, and all of them are at slightly different voltages. The electronics assume a voltage curve of Eneloop (typically, since Eneloop is the most popular NiMH brand), and other brands with their slightly different voltage-curves will throw it off.
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I find it more important to locally source NiMH batteries (ie: what I can buy from Walmart / Home Depo down the street, rather than paying for Amazon shipping) rather than standardizing upon the Eneloops that everyone else is buying, lol.
When I need a new AA cell, I buy it in my typical shopping runs, rather than waiting for shipping. I don't care enough about the voltage-curve problem to mass buy Eneloops yet. I largely just accept that the "low-battery" indicators are perpetually wrong.
Totally agree! My Game Boy Advanced power light is green for about an hour then red for hours and hours on my eneloops. Also my Tascam field recorder has the option for alkaline or NiMH batteries.
I still have some kitchen scales that won’t work with NiMH though :(
I’ve had my energiser batteries for almost 10 years and I’ve been rotating them through devices and the charger. Only recently have I begun to lose some cells.
Honestly, Eneloop's advantage is overstated these days.
Amazon Basics is likely an older Eneloop design for example (Panasonic makes eneloop, and seems to be making Amazon-Basic NiMHs). Energizer's "AA Recharge" series is also LSD these days, and probably easier to source than Eneloop.
Eneloop deserves credit for shifting the market-perception on NiMHs a decade ago. But the other companies have caught on and have created well functioning, low-self-discharge chemistries of their own by now.
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I'd recommend "whatever is cheapest to ship to you". Energizer mostly for me, since I buy from Walmart / Home Depot (etc. etc.). A lot of people buy from Amazon, so "Amazon Basics" tacked onto your next order is probably a good idea.
Eneloop commands a higher price and has some advantages. But I find that Energizer / Amazon Basics are both good enough for me.
A quick googling reveals nothing, but I wonder if a simple hardware mod could address this— basically, identify the voltage divider that's doing the measurement across the battery and change out one of the resistors so that it "sees" 1.35V as 1.5V.
Most GBA battery mod posts are about people upgrading units to have built-in lithium packs, USB-C charge ports, etc etc.
Oh yeah, I'm aware that for any other chemistry you need an actual coulomb-counter to get a proper gas gauge. My suggestion was more about the specific matter of suppressing an unwanted and inaccurate low battery light.
Though maybe instead of trying to mod the circuit board, it would be easier to just disconnect the LED itself.
One interesting solution I saw was batteries which stick a lithium battery + charge controller / voltage adapter inside the AA package so they can be used on any device.
I had some old (built in the 80s?) handheld radios that included a dummy battery for when you were using alkalines, and you'd populate all the positions with real batteries if you were using rechargables. I think it was something unusual like 8 batteries in series.
Thankfully my not so new handheld Garmin GPS unit has a specific NiMH battery mode. I'm sure it just changes the algorthm slightly to work with the NiMH's discharge rate.
I've switched to rechargables for home electronics years ago. It makes me feel better doing my share of lessening environment impact caused by disposable cells.
One notable exception for which I am still buying alkaine batteries is the August Smart Lock. When using NiMH batteries it starts complaining about depleted battery in a week, while it still Ok and works for much longer. It was reported to them and they advised to us alkaine. This is very annoying because all they need to do is to fix the software which does the voltage check and generates annoying notifications to the users. Just a few lines of code (or maybe single constant) could have an immence environment impact.
I finally switched to Duracell’s rechargeable NiMH batteries last year and won’t be going back to alkaline. They work well even for things like flashlights that need low self-discharge, and I no longer feel like I’m creating waste every time I burn through a battery.
I also came across some rechargeable lithium batteries packaged in 1.5V AAA, AA, C, D form factors, but they appeared to be newer and I was unsure about long-term reliability.
I probably have around 100 NiMH AA batteries at home, around 30 AAA ones, most of them are Eneloops, around 20 are Energizers and around a dozen are some misc. brands. Most of them time they are good but still a couple of Eneloops died just around 5 years. Moderate leaks but did not cause any trouble. Seemed to be caused by the fact I left them in toys and let them run flat for fairly long time(not sure how long, but should be less than a year). In the same period, I threw away double the amount of other brands ones. Most of the rechargeable ones are still going strong. I do observe a few of them are pretty weak and most likely going to die in a couple of months. In general, the cost to use rechargeable ones are only 1/4 to 1/3 of alkaline ones.
The only things is that some of the appliances does not like NiHM batteries. I'm no saying NiMHs do not work at all but rather they stop working with around 75% charge left, which is quite annoying. I use alkalines with them if I observe such behaviors.
I design some electronics in my spare time. As a user, I strongly prefer to have a choice of using a rechargeable battery. It somehow does not feel right to throw out a toxic battery when I could have another type potentially hundreds of times over many years.
It helps that there is a proliferation of quite powerful, low voltage, low power chips.
Some of the devices I design have USB interface which gives another option of charging the battery while it is connected.
I am currently working on a fully programmable mechanical USB/Bluetooth keyboard. It will work off of two AA NiMh rechargeable batteries and I plan these to be recharged any time the keyboard is connected to the computer.
I'd assume that 3-cells could lead to a simple trickle-charge circuit?
3*1.35 == 4.05V, which is pretty close to the 5V power that you take from the USB, seems like there's enough room to get a regulator to turn 5V into a simple charging circuit. There'd also be enough output to probably run 3.3V circuits with a simple regulator.
4*1.35 == 5.4V, which is beyond the capacity for 5V to charge (unless you got a boost-converter).
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2-cells == 2.7V, which means you probably need a boost-converter to convert the battery-pack into something useful?
Not that I'm the designer or anything, but I like discussing these issues :-) I haven't done any electronics since my college days.
What voltage does the device operate at? The main cutoffs these days seem to be 1.8V, 3.3V, and 5V right? 3-cells and targeting 3.3V + charging from a USB (at 5V) seems like the most obvious cutoff to me personally.
Newer STM32 lines go as far down as 1.7V. Or they would if I was able to find other chips (notably Bluetooth) that would suit me and could pull the same trick. As it stands, the circuit can work down to ~1.85V which is still quite comfortable with two cells.
I admit there is no particular reason to use 2 cells where I could use 3 (they would still fit comfortably inside keyboard enclosure). The only reason is vanity -- I hope it will look sexier to other EEs:)
I dislike built in cells. I like ability to just change batteries rather than have to plug in to charge. Nothing worse than a peripheral like headphones that you have to stop using just because charge ran out. Why do I need to finish my couch session just because my keyboard can't take a simple AA battery or two? Seems like completely unnecessary nuisance.
Also, if you are talking about cell voltage, you need to remember they loose voltage very quickly upon discharging and most of the discharging happens at much lower than max voltage. For NiMh you really want to make sure that your circuit works with at least 1.2V per cell (as an absolute minimum, in perfect conditions of room temperature and very low discharge). Any higher than that and you aren't actually discharging the cells properly and are not using their capacity.
If your circuit works in short bursts of high current or can be used outdoors, be prepared that the voltage can drop very quickly especially when the cell is older (has been through a lot of cycles).
How do you find good cheap low-self-discarge NiMH cells? I couldn't find any research on them (like the post article but for NiMH) because of SEO spam, and Amazon reviews are (of course) worthless.
Heck, I'm afraid to even buy NiMH batteries because of counterfeits. I bought a few batches of Amazon Basics batteries a year ago and 3/8 are dead already, but even if I purchased something labeled "Eneloop" on there, how do I know it's Eneloop?
Most of my remotes are still using the batteries they shipped with. It's hard to make the case for replacing batteries when the originals last 15+ years (and counting).
A youtuber I watch recently made the case that NiMH batteries should be used for _all_ uses because alkaline batteries will eventually burst and spew acid over your electronics. Sounds like it could take a very long time to do that, but it makes sense just for the preservation of the device to use NiMH.
Anecdotically, yet a few of my remotes after a decade of use on original batteries suddenly got less and less responsive. Change the batteries! Right?
Well, turned out the original batteries were still alive, but on a closer (painful to nails) inspection, it turned out that the silicon buttons/pad started leaching the oily goo onto the contacts on the PCB thus reducing the responsiveness.
Swabbing and washing restored these, but something tells me this problem will be back sooner than in another decade.
On the subject of AA alkaline batteries - one thing I learned a long time ago somehow I'll share that people seem amazed by is that you can approximate their charge by bouncing them on a hard surface. Drop an AA battery negative/flat side down an inch or two onto a hard surface like a counter or table. A new battery will just land and thud. A dead battery will bounce repeatedly(you'll hear it more than see it).
I didn't know that, thanks for sharing! It seems to be a lot more civilised version of what I was doing for years - test by licking it... Can do it almost in one gesture: hold the battery between thumb and middle finger, lick index finger and touch it on one end of the battery, then lick the other. With some practice can get pretty good accuracy in 0.5-1.5V range. Bit barbaric though :)
The physical chemistry changes as a battery is spent. The internal chemicals are being converted from one molecule into another.
Its not surprising to me that the two different chemicals have different physical properties. (Elasticity, density, who knows? They're a fully different chemical once the electrons move around)
IIRC, new batteries contain a semi-liquid electrolyte, which damps the bounce. When discharged, it becomes much more rigid, so the battery bounces. Compare dropping a gallon jug with ~a cup of water in it vs a cup frozen into ice to see what i mean.
IIRC alkaline batteries produce some kind of gas while being discharged. When the battery is dead it is probably inflated like an unopened soda can, assuming it hasn't leaked.
I'm not sure about alkaline cells, but NiMH and lithium cells have burst discs or some other type of pressure relief valve rather than just a hole. My assumption is that when alkaline cells leak they have over pressurized and blown the pressure relief valve.
Around ~2005 one of our products was featured in a Duracell commercial.
In 2011 manufacturing for all but the 9V was moved to Tunisia and the design of the battery was changed. In pre-2011 batteries the cylinder was the negative terminal. In the newer design the cylinder is the positive. Look at the bottom of the newer ones and you will see a very small O-Ring separating the positive from the negative. It is very easy to breach this O-Ring when inserting a battery, resulting in it getting hot. Well over 100'F has been measured. The new design WILL leak.
Because of our commercial connection we discussed this with Duracell. The end result was "We don't care". Today they are riding on the reputation of the past.
We then evaluated all the batteries on the market at that time. Technically the Energizers and the RayOVacs came out the same, with the RayOVacs being cheaper we switched to those. Shortly there after Energizer bought RayOVac. Look at the Fine Print on the package today and it says they are made by Energizer.
Has anyone noticed the scam that Home Depot and Walmart, and probably others, are running? C and D cells are the same price. The marketing campaign tells us this is a Good Thing, without explaining how. If the energy density is not the same, then the price should not be the same.
Not included in this analysis is leakage rate... by which I mean ooze leakage.
I have found that some batteries have a much greater likelihood of leaking ooze than others (yeah Rayovak, I'm looking at you!)
Except in the case of crappy toys, the damage that this causes radically outstrips the cost of the battery.
As a result, I buy batteries not based on electrical performance, but track record in not ruining the things I put them into. I am very happy to accept 50% less energy if I can avoid destroying my $200 gadget.
> As a result, I buy batteries not based on electrical performance, but track record in not ruining the things I put them into.
So do I. I'm now using low self-discharge NiMH batteries (mostly Eneloops) in pretty much every device that uses batteries, and I've never had one leak. I also use smart chargers to check battery health when I recharge them. A bit more initial outlay, but much cheaper in the long run, as the batteries can be recharged 1000s of times, and they hold their charge for many months.
Duracell used to be really good about replacing devices if their batteries leaked. They screwed me a couple years ago and refused to replace something (a $50 apple keyboard, I think they gave me $10 for it?). I went from buying exclusively Duracell for alkaline to now just buying Energizer Lithium for everything where it isn't specifically contraindicated (very rare).
As a test I recently bought a pair of Li-ion AA batteries, that are recharged through a micro USB connector in the battery. They are rated 2880 mWh and are advertised to provide a flat 1.5v during the whole discharge cycle (they have internal circuitry to convert from the native 3.7v).
I wonder how those compare to my current rotating stock of Ni-MH ones that regularly stop working. Jury is still out, they were considerably more expensive though (something like €4.50 a piece).
I have some similar Li-ion AA batteries for my Blink cameras. They work very well since the Blinks hate ni-mh batteries. Interestingly, these behave oddly in my camera speedlite. They can't seem to charge the flash, and the LCD flickers while on. My best guess is the charging the flash capacitor pulls more juice than the lithium batteries can handle. Thankfully, ni-mh work great.
For your Ni-mh that stop working, if they won't charge you can sort of jump start them using a good battery and they'll charge again. Use some aluminum foil strips and touch the contacts between the batteries together for a few seconds. Positive to positive, negative to negative if I remember correctly.
The AAA versions of these are a godsend for my Bose noise cancelling headphones. I tried using NiMH batteries, but the headphones would cut out every time I shook my head or chewed something, because they didn't have a high enough voltage.
We should get rid of consumer single-use batteries in my opinion.
There is an increasing number of smart home devices that tell people to avoid rechargeable batteries. This was understandable when smart home products were a small category, often run by small companies that couldn't possibly put in the effort to understand the discharge curve of every rechargeable battery out there. But given the size of the industry today, they should come together and create a standard for a rechargeable battery. Perhaps they can even partner with battery manufacturers and create a new form factor, so people can't just use alkaline batteries instead.
Professional uses like military, R&D, filming etc are often cited but in reality they are a very small percentage of batteries used, and don't need to change before consumer applications do.
Spoiler: they're all obsolete cost-reduced leaky pieces of shit. Use Eneloops or other NiMH rechargeables when possible, lithium primary cells otherwise.
For a while you could avoid leakage by steering clear of Duracell in favor of Energizer, but that's no longer true. Do not use alkaline AAs or AAAs in any equipment you want to keep.
Chiming in, I just recently was wondering how two seemingly equal by chemistry and size batteries just from different mfgrs could be so much incomparable by practical life-times.
On so many occasions Panasonic or Sony (Japan made) batteries which come included with devices (like remote controls etc) would last years (!) (in some odd case I had Sony AA battery functional after more than a decade), yet any recent replacements from Duracel or Energizer the ones bought from a pharmacy would get exhausted within a year of similar use.
There must be some difference there, just how to tell what is that?
"By Chemistry" seems to be the keyword here. AFAIK Alkaline also have several chemistry differences, and batteries especially OEM would be matched to the use (low energy-long storage for remote). General purpose/OTS battery seem to optimize for power for ease-of-use. Avoid the scenario of "Oh this toy doesn't work with this battery brand so I'll avoid it". Have you tried specific long-use batteries? Non-alkaline or Alkaline branded as such?
> ...Have you tried specific long-use batteries? Non-alkaline or Alkaline branded as such?
What is "long-use" in this case?
Most of the batteries are advertized on the packaging as "long-lasting guaranteed!". Sure, there're lithium batteries, and LSD rechargeables, but alkaline kind are normally just touted as "Alkaline!" or highlighted to that effect.
Just fetched some of those old OEM batteries, Panasonic one is labeled Ultra Hyper (Costa Rica made) UM-3UHS/R6, Sony is Super Red (Japan made), R6P(SR) - this one is labeled 03/98, I kid you not, still measures 1.4V.
I sure haven't seen these on shelves here, well, not currently, at least.
The Sony one is advertised as `low-current` use battery, so I'm not surprised that it lasted long. Well 1.4 is no joke though.
Interestingly I can't find any listing for any low-current battery on Amazon. I swear I've seen them in my local stores a few years ago, advertised specifically for remotes. Maybe they're not profitable so people stop selling them. Bummer.
I think the way we went to 1.2v for rechargables when we design to higher nominal voltage is really confusing. Why we didn't either shift the design basis to use 1.2-1.1 as a signal so we had better outcome when 1.2 drops off, or design the 1.2 cells to deliver 1.4 dropping to 1.2 and 1.1 is beyond me.
Because in practice, we're not designing for the consequences of 1.2 It shelves on 1.2 forever, tails, and then BOOM its gone. we should have designed for that curve, not for 1.5 -1.4 -1.3 -1.2 ....... BOOM
something that didn't exist in 2016 and does now, are AA batteries that are composed of an internal lithium ion cell, a DC-DC converter for 1.5VDC output to the end terminals, and internal 5V-USB to li-ion charge controller circuitry.
With a USB port literally built into the body of the battery. They're more expensive, but can pay for themselves...
Downside being that the eneloop pro needs its own charger, these should be able to charge from any phone charger, or come with their own 4-to-1 usb cable.
It's an old article, but still mostly correct. Several developments have changed the landscape over the past decade. The Chinese have pretty much taken over the battery manufacturing industry. As a result, the quality of many low-production battery series has gone down dramatically. Some cells that once had a 10-year shelf life will now be completely useless within two years.
A more positive development has been the improvement in power electronics. Quality consumer electronics will now often include power conditioning circuits so the "cut off" voltage from a battery is no longer relevant. The batteries can now continue to power the device until they are completely discharged.
(See: https://www.ti.com/tool/TPS61280EVM-585)
> This can be implemented basically with a fixed value of resistance, but because of the way resistance interacts with voltage, it’s actually very gentle on the battery. As the battery voltage falls, the current falls accordingly, so the delivered power falls even further. For modern appliances, this type of loading is not common.
Dumb question - is it at all possible to design a modern device which operates this way? (As battery voltage falls, device performance also falls? It's been a really really long time since my EE classes - are transistors just unable to operate this way?)
Apple did this with iPhones, where the CPU throttles itself when the battery can’t keep up with the peak demand anymore. They got sued for it (mostly because they didn’t tell anyone and people bought new phones when the old ones started mysteriously slowing down).
Have you ever used an old flashlight in the 80s or 90s?
As AA charge fell, the light got dimmer and dimmer. Today, we have devices that do the exact _OPPOSITE_, pulling the last bits of electricity out of the cells through boost-converters or whatnot (boost converters existed back then, but weren't as efficient or cheap as today).
Consumers demanded consistent and reliable performance no matter if at full-battery charge or nearly empty. People preferred their devices to suddenly "shut off".
This behavior is still common in flashlights. Flashlights using three alkaline (or NiMH) batteries in series, or a single Li-ion cell can drive a white LED via a linear regulator (or occasionally just a transistor), and it will dim as the battery falls below the forward voltage of the LED at its maximum output. At higher price points, a single Li-ion cell and a regulated buck converter is common to see and much more efficient, but maximum brightness is still usually limited by battery voltage.
A flashlight using a single AA or AAA battery must use a boost converter because all white LEDs require about 3 volts. Even these often don't produce stable output as the battery drains, which is sometimes intentional because that behavior would produce terrible battery life with alkalines due to their high internal resistance. It's fine with NiMH.
Even Li-ion lights with boost converters don't always manage full output on a low battery because it's common to find overdriven components on a 20mm driver board (it needs to fit in a pocket) that's trying to push as much power as possible (lumens sell lights). Inability of the electronics to maintain full output isn't necessarily a significant limitation in the real world anyway; a 25x100mm aluminum tube pushing 40W gets hot fast, and there's almost always some sort of thermal-throttling mechanism. That said, full output on a low battery usually earns praise from reviewers.
> It's been a really really long time since my EE classes - are transistors just unable to operate this way?)
Yeah, most CPUs nowadays have dynamic frequency adjustment to maximize battery life. Lower frequencies also mean transistors can operate at lower voltages, so by reducing the operating frequency, you can reduce the voltage and therefore power draw on your battery.
There's very little reason to continue using Alkalines in the majority of cases. Rechargeable batteries both last longer, and, perhaps even more importantly, do not leak.
Batteries are so cheap these days that I consider them essentially single use, like a paper plate. I buy the 60 pack of Rayovac AAs at Home Depot and always have fresh batteries -- and I don't have to worry about a leaking issue.
+1 for introducing me to the B&K 8600. It never occurred to me to search for a DC load device. I've been building FET-based loads and using a power supply to calibrate them. /smacks forehead/ This is what you miss when you don't get to work with professionals on your hobbies (i.e., building low power IoT sensors for funsies).
Apologies for the slightly off topic question but can anyone point me to the best test/comparison of Alkaline batteries vs. the new Lithium rechargeable ones? Older rechargeable AA and AAA batteries were terribly short lived and so mostly useless but I assume Lithium ones are much better?
Lithium isn't rechargable. (Lithium AA cells are very long-life but very expensive. One-time use. Lithium-ion are rechargable, but are 3.7 volts and completely violate the AA spec)
NiMH is the chemistry for rechargable AA / AAA cells, since its 1.35V and "close enough" to the old 1.5V standard alkaline.
> Older rechargeable AA and AAA batteries were terribly short lived and so mostly useless but I assume Lithium ones are much better?
"Older", circa 00s NiMH chemistries had more energy storage (!!!). The issue was that circa 00s cells had a "self-discharge" problem, meaning they ran out of energy in just a few months (like 1 to 3 months).
Panasonic solved the problem with "Low Self Discharge" cells, aka "Eneloop", which started to come out in the late 00s. This chemistry had much less capacity, but took over a year before the energy went bad.
Its still NiMH chemistry, but just tweaked to focus on the self-discharge problem rather than energy-storage numbers / benchmarks.
With Eneloop taking the market by storm (especially popular with XBox users, which used AA rechargables), other companies also came out with LSD chemistries. These days, almost everything you'll find is of the LSD-type.
You can get lithium ion rechargable AA batteries these days. They have a built in regulator to drop the voltage to 1.5V. Some of them even have micro usb ports on the side for charging.
I've not seen AA or AAA sized lithium rechargeable batteries but modern low-self-discharge NiMH AA and AAA cell batteries are quite good today. The Panasonic Eneloop brand are generally widely available and good value for money. The AA size Eneloops are generally around 2100mAh and the AAA size around 900mAh.
The only downside to modern NiMH batteries today seems to be finding a good and easy to use charger which will properly discharge and/or cycle the batteries without requiring a human to fiddle with it or understand charge rates and when to discharge the cell prior to charging.
> The only downside to modern NiMH batteries today seems to be finding a good and easy to use charger which will properly discharge and/or cycle the batteries without requiring a human to fiddle with it or understand charge rates and when to discharge the cell prior to charging.
Only if you're really babying your NiMH cells is it worthwhile to do this.
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Frankly, my recommendation is to just throw away NiMH cells once they "go bad" (maybe a discharge/recharge cycle will save them, but they're really not that expensive).
For most consumers out there, the $10 trickle charge that takes 8+ hours is superior, because they'll never cycle the NiMH cells to death. How many dozens of charge/recharge cycles do you need before there's an issue, even with the most primitive of charging strategies?
When it takes months for a typical AA powered appliance to run out of NiMH charge, you realize that these "dozens" of charge/discharge cycles gives a life-span measured in _YEARS_ for these NiMH cells.
After 5 years, your NiMH cells might be on its last legs, needing a full discharge/recharge to get back to full power. Then and only then should you consider a $30 charger to perform this resurrection, except its probably more cost-efficient to just spend $2 and throw away the "old" cell.
You'll need to throw away $20 worth of cells (ie: 10 cells) before your $30 fancy charger with discharge/recharge cycles + coulomb counting is superior to the $10 crap trickle charger. Maybe an RC-car enthusiast will get there (or an electronic-hobbyist), but that's a _LOT_ of charge/recharge cycles before you reach this point. Even with the inferior $10 trickle charge design.
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EDIT: That being said, spending $30, $40, or $50 on a higher-end charger because you find it "cool" is probably worthwhile. Coolness is a factor and we're not really talking about a lot of money here. But the $10 charger + buy new cells as needed approach is probably the most cost-effective strategy.
The thing I like about the $30 charger is that it will do a discharge test and tell you how many mAh of capacity the battery has -- much better than having to figure out which battery is bad by rotating them through your bike light until you isolate the bad one.
I believe one other argument for recargeables is that you produce less junk when using them. From that view, just throwing away "bad" but potentially resurrectable cells may not be ok.
There are AA and AAA sized lithium ion rechargables, but they won't work in anything that uses alkalines, since they provide a very different voltage (3.7V). They are usually called 10440 (AAA-sized) and 14500 (AA-sized).
There are AA and AAA lithium _primary_ batteries that provide 1.5V and are in stores, but they cannot be recharged. They are far superior than alkalines in most ways, especially in the cold, but they cost drastically more, around $1-2 each. I've switched many of my low-drain applications to these batteries, where they are likely to outlast the device without leaking and destroying it.
Note the small link near the top titled "Comparator" if you want to generate comparison graphs between different batteries.
1.5V Li-ion rechargeable AAs are 3.7V cells with DC-DC buck converters attached to reduce the voltage. The main reason to use them is poorly-designed[0] devices that don't play well with NiMH. There may be some standby power drain from the electronics, and these are less compatible with voltage-based battery status monitoring than NiMH (NiMH gives a false low reading; bucked Li-ion gives a constant false full reading).
Modern low-self-discharge NiMH has very good performance and shelf-life; the white Panasonic Eneloop is the gold standard in this category; the black ones have higher capacity, but wear out in fewer charge cycles.
[0] Even if designing for alkaline without NiMH support isn't a design flaw per se, a device that doesn't work at 1.2V leaves about half the energy stored in an alkaline unused.
I've been a bit puzzled by the 1.5 V lithium AA batteries I see on Amazon. They say they are a constant 1.5 V all the way from 100% charged to 0% charged.
With the battery presenting a constant voltage, wouldn't that make battery level displays useless? They rely on the voltage declining as the battery discharges. With a constant 1.5 V battery your device is going to say the battery is full right up until it suddenly stops.
The AA lithium-ion rechargeable are internally 3.7V, just like any other lithium-ion battery. They have a buck converter build-in that regulates that down to a constant 1.5V. Which can be handy in the handful of applications that don't deal with the 1.2V that NiMH provide. This does in turn make battery indicators indeed completely useless for many of them, as there is no detectable drop in voltage from the outside of the battery.
However, there are newer ones take care of that and regulate the voltage down to 1.1V or so shortly before they run completely out of juice, so that the battery indicator can give a warning. Don't know how widespread that feature is yet, but it exists.
That's Energizer's Lithium of course, but you can expect that competitors probably perform "similarly".
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You can see that Energizer Lithium is 1.7V, slightly more than the 1.5V found in typical Alkaline cells. Today's electronics are pretty flexible however, and this may not be an issue. (In practice, AA-devices are usually designed for 1.35V NiMH, 1.5V Alkaline, and 1.7V... but there are some devices that have made 1.5V assumptions and _ONLY_ work with Alkaline)
Does anyone know of a good rechargeable battery comparison test? I've noticed that some 18650's are just crap after a couple charges, and some dinky AA batteries last forever after many charges.
I am very happy with my Eneloops. I used Ansmanns before (and still use the Ansmann recharge device), but they died after like 20 cycles (note: those Ansmanns were models from before the low-self-discharge era).
The Eneloops are 3 years old and still work fine while being used every day (recharge about once per week).
Re: constant current appliances, most any "digital" appliance that uses a linear regulator (as opposed to a DC-DC converter) will exhibit such a load profile.
I love how he made it clear where it was assembled in. Every time he said "Made in USA with Global Components!", I was like yea more like made in China and rebranded in USA.
Indeed, and one major change that's taken place in the last few years is that Energizers are now as leak-prone as Duracells. Likely true of other brands as well. The only way to win the alkaline battery game is not to play.
> The best choice is to avoid disposable batteries where possible and use low-self-discharge Ni-MH cells such as the Sanyo/Panasonic Eneloop. Even though the upfront cost is higher, it only takes a few recharges (in some cases, less than ten) to be financially (and possibly even environmentally) ahead.
Interested to hear of others experiences, or I've just been amazingly unlucky.