How to know if your buying good quality rechargable batteries?

[gary350]

It seems to me the AA rechargeable batteries I bought 15 years ago were much better than what is available now. The first batteries I bought lasted about 5 years and were heavy as cement. The batteries I find now and light weight as balsa wood and some wont hold a change more than 2 days.

I went to Walgreen where I bought my first AA batteries 15 years ago and checked the weight of all the batteries then bought the heaviest AA batteries they had. They lasted 6 months now they wont hold a charge longer than 1 day. When these batteries were new I could take 400 photos with my camera before the camera RED light came on telling me to charge the batteries. I use a timer relay to time the battery charge time using the recommended battery charger. Now 6 months later I charge the battery camera takes 2 pictures and needs to be recharged.

Battery says 1.2V NAH HR6 2300 mha good for 400 photos. Battery charger is 2.8v 160 ma.

The batteries I originally bought for the camera 15 yrs ago were 1500 mha good for 200 photos.

I need some good batteries.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

darn:

The last NiCd packs, I got 8 years from. Used in a telephone. Generally, I get my packs from digikey or mouser and transfer the ends. I upgraded some of the phones to NiMH.

Get yourself a decent charger that does more than charge: https://www.amazon.com/BT-C3400-Universal-Analyzer-rechargeable-batteries/dp/B00NR77SL2 Amazon isn't the cheapest. I have the BT-C3100. You can get a C/D adapter for it too.

https://budgetlightforum.com/node/28951

https://budgetlightforum.com/node/34663

https://www.gearbest.com/chargers/pp_174044.html



https://www.banggood.com/Powerfocus...ttery-Charger-With-Charger-Line-p-921306.html


It's a "well known" fact that consumer batteries are junk compared to industrial ones. They actually might be marked "Industrial use only" At least that's what the professional publications say.

C/D adapter: https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Adapter-BT-C2000-BT-C2400-Chargers/dp/B00CR6TAJ2

 

[spec]

gary,

You need a smart -dv/dt charger like this (AA and AAA batteries): https://www.amazon.com/La-Crosse-Technology-Battery-Charger/dp/B000RSOV50/ref=pd_sim_23_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=41gJ5-yLA2L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160,160_&refRID=0MPR9C9SDX8DZE36Z1SN

Batteries are the biggest rip off going so you need to buy only main-line brands. Panasonic (Sanyo) Eneloop type are the best: https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-3MCCA4BA-Pre-Charged-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B00JHKSN76

Don't be fooled by claims of high battery capacities from obscure makes, especially on ebay.

New batteries will need a couple of charge discharge cycles to reach full capacity.

Never leave batteries in a discharged state. The best charge state for storage is around 66%.
Batteries are best stored in the cool: 10 deg C would be ideal.

If you get the charger advised you will probably be able to revive your existing batteries. It may refuse to charge some batteries that it thinks are too far discharged or have undesirable characteristics. In cases like that pump some current into the battery, from a dumb charger for example, until the smart charger will accept the battery. If the charger will not accept the battery after that, the battery is scrap.

(our posts crossed Keep)

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

We're too much alike. So, your following me now? Crossed? I was a good 9 minutes before you.

Your right about Eneloop. I've heard too many good things about those batteries.

 

[spec]

We're too much alike. So, your following me now? Crossed? I was a good 9 minutes before you.

Your right about Eneloop. I've heard too many good things about those batteries.

Odd, when I posted your post was not there

 

[audioguru]

I always buy Energizer batteries on sale and/or with a coupon. The AA Ni-MH cells are made in Japan and hold a charge for one year like Eneloops so maybe they are actually made by Panasonic/Sanyo. They are 2300mAh and are guaranteed for 5 years.
I had a couple of failures and their customer service sent me coupons for replacements. My fairly cheap Energizer charger charges them in about 6 hours then shuts off with its automatic timer.

 

[spec]

I always buy Energizer batteries on sale and/or with a coupon. The AA Ni-MH cells are made in Japan and hold a charge for one year like Eneloops so maybe they are actually made by Panasonic/Sanyo. They are 2300mAh and are guaranteed for 5 years.
I had a couple of failures and their customer service sent me coupons for replacements. My fairly cheap Energizer charger charges them in about 6 hours then shuts off with its automatic timer.

I would not buy Energiser batteries for a critical applications. You never know what you are getting under the label. I have had a heap of Energiser batteries: some were OK, but most were junk long term. Energiser battery chargers are particularly bad.

Afraid non -dv chargers will wreck batteries.

 

[JimB]

Afraid non -dv chargers will wreck batteries.

A couple of years ago I bought some "F" size NiMH cells for a particular application.
A stroke of madness, cost me a fortune! (Leave me alone it is, or was, my money).

Any way, I wanted to ensure that the battery pack would last a long time and not be damaged by overcharging.
I read up on the best way to charge NiMH and found that when the voltage started to fall, it was fully charged.

To test this I ran a constant current charge and monitored the voltage over the period and graphed it out in Excel.
What I got was this:

As you can see there is a distinct hump at about 12 hours, I let it carry on for a few hours before switching off the charger.

Up to the hump the battery pack remains cool. The charge energy is going into the battery.
After the hump it starts to get hot. The charge energy is dissipated as heat.
The battery pack also started to smell bad.

So I made a voltage monitor using a PIC 16F887, which measured the voltage and stored the reading in memory.
A second or so later it measured the voltage, compared the new voltage with the last stored value, if the new voltage was higher then the new value was stored.
And so it goes on until the new voltage is something like 20mV (from memory) less that the highest voltage, and then the charger switches to a trickle charge.
I also added an LCD display which shows the voltage and whether the battery is "Charging" or "Charged".

The battery gets little use, so it has not been through many charge/discharge cycles. But at the end of each charge, the battery pack is just slightly warm, never hot.

JimB

 

[spec]

Hi Jim,

What you show on the graph is the classic charge profile for LiIon cells. For maximum battery life you quit charging at the first sign of a voltage drop. I think that gives you around 90% of charge capacity. If you want 100% capacity you do a topping charge, and as you imply that is the ticklish bit because if you over do it you will badly stress the battery. One question- why did you do all the work yourself when you could have used a standard charging chip with all the parameters built in? Or was there some other influencing factor.

I have done quite a bit of battery work mainly for hand held mobile applications for aviation/military and it is a real minefield. We used Varta special batteries and even with those you would get the occasional dud. The variation in capacity between two batteries of the same type and from the same batch was surprising.

This is all for a single cell, but when you put cells in packs, like in laptops and power tools and you can't get at the individual cells to charge then, the situation is almost impossible. The worst case is the PP3 battery with about seven cells in series- they are never happy batteries. Often with laptops, which use 18655 case size, one cell will die and take the whole pack down. I have striped and repaired quite a few packs with that situation.

Incidentally dead laptop battery packs are an excellent source of battery cells.

 

[JimB]

One question- why did you do all the work yourself when you could have used a standard charging chip with all the parameters built in? Or was there some other influencing factor.

Because I could.

Basically just for the intellectual exercise and the bragging rights.
I had considered a charging chip and thought "I can do that myself, it will only cost me twice as much".
Same with the battery itself, any sane person would have just bought an SLA battery and had done with it.

JimB

 

[spec]

Because I could.

Basically just for the intellectual exercise and the bragging rights.
I had considered a charging chip and thought "I can do that myself, it will only cost me twice as much".
Same with the battery itself, any sane person would have just bought an SLA battery and had done with it.

JimB

Man after my own heart

 

[jpanhalt]

I can't find anywhere where Gary350 has said he is using NiMH batteries. The first thing I would recommend to Gary is to read the label on the battery. That is a much more reliable way to determine the chemistry and manufacturer than weighing them.

I suspect the durable and heavy batteries were NiCd, which are well known for their durability and high number of charge cycles. You can still get NiCd in the USA. If he wants to change chemistry, I second the eneloop by Sanyo or other NiMH batteries made in Japan, which may simply be Sanyo rebranded. He should also consider Lithium-ion batteries, for which there are some options.

John

 

[spec]

I can't find anywhere where Gary350 has said he is using NiMH batteries. The first thing I would recommend to Gary is to read the label on the battery. That is a much more reliable way to determine the chemistry and manufacturer than weighing them.

I suspect the durable and heavy batteries were NiCd, which are well known for their durability and high number of charge cycles. You can still get NiCd in the USA. If he wants to change chemistry, I second the eneloop by Sanyo or other NiMH batteries made in Japan, which may simply be Sanyo rebranded. He should also consider Lithium-ion batteries, for which there are some options.

John

The charger is the same for both chemistries. Gary is asking what batteries to use. I am recommending NMH batteries. ie Eneloop.

 

[jpanhalt]

As for charging the Li-ion batteries, I have been using the Microchip MCP73x23 based charger. Got an eval kit last year (MCP73x23EV-LFP) for $25 that had two boards in it.

John

 

[jpanhalt]

The charger is the same for both chemistries. Gary is asking what batteries to use. I am recommending NMH batteries. ie Eneloop.

What do you mean "both" chemistries. I mentioned NiCd, NiMH, and any one of several Li-ion.

I also read his original and so far only post to mean he wanted a battery like the old one that lasted forever. That could well mean NiCd in the USA

John

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I may have confused things because I use batteries separate and in packs embedded in devices.

Singles: AAA for a Bluetooth headset and a 1xAAA for a voice recorder.
2xAA for a wireless mouse.

Self discharge makes rechargeable not good for some applications.

Flashlights stay Alkaline. I use a fair amount of LR44's and CR2032's

Packs are the bigger problems.

The chargers spec and I suggested do much more than charge.

There are so many chemistries to choose from and the Lithium stuff is messy to maintain.

The cordless drill is one application. I try to keep them warm change them out of their normal charger.

GPS and phone batteries are packs but without the ability to balance, so expect crappy life. Will I use a rechargeable 9 V in a smoke detector - nope.

 

[4pyros]

The weight of the battery can tell you a lot;

And here is why;

 

[gary350]

The batteries I have now are 1.2V NAH HR6 2300 mha it says that above. These are Energizer batteries from Walgreens. They were the heaviest battery they sell. I had good luck with Panasonic before these and Rayovac before that but none last very long.

The industrial batteries we used at work were rated for 8 to 10 years and they did but these are permanently in place and stay on charge all the time.

Japan and China have learned BAD habits from America those light weight batteries are full of white powder filler for a very tiny battery inside the AA case. Some 9v batteries have several tiny hearing aid batteries in series. There is so much dishonesty and deception these days, 2300ma sounds big and better than 2.3a to the average person.

I don't charge my batteries until they are dead. I wait until camera RED light comes ON and camera will not work. I learned 11 hours on the charger batteries get warm the last 1 hour so I charge them 10 hours and they do not get warm. The Energizer has worked good for 18 months now they won't hold a charge for 2 days and a full charge is only good for a few camera photos.

What is the different and which are best, NiCD or NiMH or NMH?

Video online shows how to revive batteries that will not charge. Connect 4 good fully charged AA batteries in series, use these 4 batteries to give 1 AA battery a 1 second charge, wait 5 seconds charge it again 1 second, do this 6 times. Wait 2 hours the battery will take a full charge. I have not tried this yet, batteries are junk like they are so its worth trying just to see if it works.

 

[audioguru]

I cannot buy Ni-Cad AA cells in Canada anymore. They are banned because Cadmium is very toxic. Even a cheap Chinese solar garden light uses a Ni-MH cell now and most are made properly and are reliable. Ni-MH cells have a much higher capacity and do not form the spikes inside that shorted old Ni-Cad cells. The new Ni-MH cells have very low self-discharge and hold a charge for one year.

It is a pity that there are fake Lithium cells made in China. A Lithium cell's charging voltage does not peak, you must limit the charging voltage to no more than 4.20V to avoid a spectacular explosion/fire. The voltage does not drop when it is fully charged, instead the charging current drops and the charger should be turned off when the charging current drops to 1/25th to 1/40th of the rated mAh.

 

[4pyros]

Video online shows how to revive batteries that will not charge. Connect 4 good fully charged AA batteries in series, use these 4 batteries to give 1 AA battery a 1 second charge, wait 5 seconds charge it again 1 second, do this 6 times. Wait 2 hours the battery will take a full charge. I have not tried this yet, batteries are junk like they are so its worth trying just to see if it works.

I don't know if any of that reviving battery stuff found in youtube videos really works. I general any damage to the cells is permanent.
Even if you could get them to charge once or twice they will not last long. I feel it's not worth the effort.