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Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Has anyone investigated the quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/
whatever of ordinary AA (or other) cells? I recently saw the following in a local sto (I determined COST as the price for the most-economical blister-pack divided by the number of cells in that pack.) $ COST EACH MANUFACTURER BRAND NAME OTHER CLAIM ------ ------------ ---------- ------------------------------ 0.4435 Duracell CopperTop 0.4435 Energizer Max 0.81 Energizer Titanium 0.2875 Rayovac Alkaline Same Performance, Better Price 0.235 Rayovac Heavy Duty 0.36 (StoreBrand) Ever Alive 2.105 Energizer Lithium 2.4575 Energizer Rechargable 2.2425 Rayovac Rechargable -- --Myron A. Calhoun. Five boxes preserve our freedoms: soap, ballot, witness, jury, and cartridge PhD EE (retired). "Barbershop" tenor. CDL(PTXS). W0PBV. (785) 539-4448 NRA Life Member and Certified Instructor (Home Firearm Safety, Rifle, Pistol) |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
The problem with making comparisons is that the power you can get out of
most types of primary (non-rechargeable) cells depends heavily on a lot of factors, such as: -- Current drain -- Duty cycle -- Temperature -- End voltage In addition, some devices such as many GPS receivers have switching regulators, which drain the battery at a near constant power rate. Others drain at a nearly constant current rate, and still others with more like a resistive load. Each type of cell behaves differently under each condition. Only a few rules of thumb can be put forth: 1. For heavy drain applications such as photoflash or an HT, alkalines last many times longer than "heavy duty" carbon-zinc types, so the latter is seldom an economical choice for those applications. Likewise for applications with moderate but constant drain such as a GPS receiver. Carbon-zinc is probably more economical (unless you use alkalines from Costco or other discount store) for light-drain, intermittent use such as a radio. Flashlights aren't light drain, but do fairly well with carbon-zinc if used only occasionally. But I don't use carbon-zinc for anything. 2. You're unlikely to see cell life increase anywhere near in proportion to cost by using "titanium" or other "premium" alkaline cells -- their special characteristics are mostly created in the marketing department. If in doubt, consult the manufacturer's data sheet, readily available on the web. 3. Modern NiMH cells have about the same capacity as alkaline cells -- more at very high currents --, and the capacity is quite constant over a wide range of discharge conditions. A down side is the high self-discharge rate -- they're not a good choice for something like a flashlight that's used only occasionally. 4. I've never found a good use for the rechargeable alkalines. Their capacity drops with each recharge and with increased current. At higher currents, the capacity decrease is even faster. NiMH or primary alkaline has been a better choice every time I've done a careful comparison. 5. The 1.5 volt primary lithium cells have more capacity than either alkaline or NiMH, especially better than alkaline at high currents. They're very light weight, have a long shelf life, and are excellent at low temperatures. But they cost like the dickens. I keep a couple of them in my emergency kit when backpacking or cross-country skiing as a backup for GPS or flashlight, but don't use them regularly. I've tested a good number of various alkaline AA cells at constant current loads of around 200 mA, and found only minor and inconsistent capacity differences among brands and types. Consequently, I usually use the ones I buy at Costco for about 25 cents each. If you have a particular application in mind, check the data sheet for the performance under the conditions you anticipate. Then you pays your money and makes your choice. Roy Lewallen, W7EL wrote: Has anyone investigated the quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/ whatever of ordinary AA (or other) cells? I recently saw the following in a local sto (I determined COST as the price for the most-economical blister-pack divided by the number of cells in that pack.) $ COST EACH MANUFACTURER BRAND NAME OTHER CLAIM ------ ------------ ---------- ------------------------------ 0.4435 Duracell CopperTop 0.4435 Energizer Max 0.81 Energizer Titanium 0.2875 Rayovac Alkaline Same Performance, Better Price 0.235 Rayovac Heavy Duty 0.36 (StoreBrand) Ever Alive 2.105 Energizer Lithium 2.4575 Energizer Rechargable 2.2425 Rayovac Rechargable |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
"Roy Lewallen" bravely wrote to "All" (03 Nov 05 16:08:56)
--- on the heady topic of " Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever" RL From: Roy Lewallen RL Antenna Software Xref: core-easynews rec.radio.amateur.homebrew:88706 RL The problem with making comparisons is that the power you can get out RL of most types of primary (non-rechargeable) cells depends heavily on a RL lot of factors, such as: RL -- Current drain RL -- Duty cycle RL -- Temperature RL -- End voltage There is another factor I've discovered for a cell's usage in audio applications such as a battery powered portable mixer or especially an electret microphone. Alkaline cells seem to be plagued with pops and ticks while carbon cells are dead quiet in comparison. Since most electret mics have very simple electronics with no voltage regulation, the battery must be extremely quiet. Unfortunately I don't have the numbers on hand to document my experience but this is just to comment that sometimes there are other factors (noise) which may make a cell type more desirable for very specific applications. For example electric guitar players are sticklers for the type of square 9 volt batteries that go into their vintage pedals. A*s*i*m*o*v .... May you find the light and walk the mountain tops. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 05:11:01 GMT, "Asimov"
wrote: " bravely wrote to "All" (03 Nov 05 13:46:08) --- on the heady topic of "Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever" mc From: mc Xref: core-easynews rec.radio.amateur.homebrew:88699 mc Has anyone investigated the mc quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/ whatever of ordinary AA (or mc other) cells? I recently saw the following in a local sto mc (I determined COST as the price for the most-economical mc blister-pack divided by the number of cells in that pack.) mc $ COST mc EACH MANUFACTURER BRAND NAME OTHER CLAIM mc ------ ------------ ---------- ------------------------------ mc 0.4435 Duracell CopperTop mc 0.4435 Energizer Max mc 0.81 Energizer Titanium mc 0.2875 Rayovac Alkaline Same Performance, Better Price mc 0.235 Rayovac Heavy Duty mc 0.36 (StoreBrand) Ever Alive mc 2.105 Energizer Lithium mc 2.4575 Energizer Rechargable mc 2.2425 Rayovac Rechargable mc -- mc --Myron A. Calhoun. Have a look at AAA's for a chuckle. If we compare them by mass, one gets 4 times less in AAA's (2 cells) than in AA's (4 cells) for the *same* price. The battery makers must be giggling all the way to the bank over this one. Howver, my remote control doesn't care if it is a fine vintage Union Carbide or a China special. That will have an effect eventually, especially in lost jobs. A*s*i*m*o*v ... I came, I saw, I got sidetracked, I forgot why I was here. From a manufacturer's point of view AA and AAA probably cost about the same. Small long tubes are harder to draw and fill without rejects. What really annoys me is the way designers are pushing toward AAA in LED flashlights and small portable radios to keep the weight/size down. I would much rather have AA. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
I generally stock up on Energizer batteries by buying them in the bulk
pack from Home Depot. For AA Energizer Max Alkaline cells, a package of 36 is $9.75 or $0.27 each. AAA, C, D and 9-volt batteries are similarly discounted. Home Depot seems like an odd place to purchase batteries, still they have the best prices by a wide margin. I've personally had bad experiences with Duracell Copper Tops (very erratic cell life when used in series), so I switched to Energizer and have never seen that problem again. let me clarify what I mean by a bad experience. My hand-held Lorain receiver uses (IIRC) 9 AA cells connected in series. Using Duracells, I've twice had one of the 9 batteries prematurely fail, with the remaining 8 only partially discharged. Consequently you replace all 9 cells. The first time this happened I was just sitting on my boat playing with the Lorain. The second time it happened was in the middle of a line squall while 4-miles or so offshore of Cape Ann in Massachusetts. When I asked the Lorain to take me home, it faltered and quit due to the premature failure of one of the Duracell batteries at a time when I was nearly knee deep in water in the boat's cockpit (it's a 23' Hutchins Compac cruising sailboat). As a result, I was damn lucky to reach the shelter of the Annisquam River while believing I was entering the inlet to Plum Island Sound at Ipswich under nearly zero visibility conditions. It surfices to say that I will never again purchase a Duracell battery. They are not reliable. Energizer seems to be. Just my experience, which I thought that I should share with others. Harry C. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
In article ,
Roy Lewallen wrote: | Only a few rules of thumb can be put forth: | | 1. For heavy drain applications such as photoflash or an HT, alkalines | last many times longer than "heavy duty" carbon-zinc types, so the | latter is seldom an economical choice for those applications. Likewise | for applications with moderate but constant drain such as a GPS | receiver. Carbon-zinc is probably more economical (unless you use | alkalines from Costco or other discount store) .... well, if you're looking for the most bang-for-your-buck, you SHOULD be getting the non name brand alkalines :) Personally, I've not found carbon-zinc batteries to be more economical, unless you're not actually using them. | But I don't use carbon-zinc for anything. Me neither. | 3. Modern NiMH cells have about the same capacity as alkaline cells In my experience, the alkaline cells have higher capacities, about twice as high. | more at very high currents -- and the capacity is quite constant | over a wide range of discharge conditions. And this is very true. The alkalines suffer greatly if you discharge at a high rate, where the NiMH cells do just fine. | A down side is the high self-discharge rate -- they're not a good | choice for something like a flashlight that's used only | occasionally. Yup. NiCd cells are better, but still nowhere near as good as alkaline or lithium cells with regard to self discharge rates. -- Doug McLaren, `Ever heard of .cshrc? That's a city in Bosnia. Right?' -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Even with moderately high self-discharge rates, I'm finding NiMH AAs to
be a good solution for most applications where I use AAs. I just cycle them through the recharger occasionally. I have enough extras, and recharging is so fast, that it's not a problem to me if I forget and let a set discharge to where I have to put in a new set. Noteable exceptions: very low drain devices like smoke detectors and remote control transmitters that will run for a year or more on alkalines. Digital cameras, particularly, show off the advantages of the NiMHs: alkalines just don't cut it in mine (unuseable after five or ten pictures, compared with dozens for one charge on NiMHs), though I've heard that the alkalines specially designed for digital cameras are at least useable. There's a lot of misinformation about batteries of various kinds out there. I've found http://www.batteryuniversity.com/ to be an easy to understand source of generally very good information about a lot of different types of batteries. It mostly covers rechargables, but there's some info about alkalines in there. A friend who uses alkalines in his insulin pump told me he was surprised to find that, in that particular application, he's seeing a significant difference between standard Duracell and Energizer alkaline AAs. "Your mileage may vary." Cheers, Tom |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
K7ITM wrote:
A friend who uses alkalines in his insulin pump told me he was surprised to find that, in that particular application, he's seeing a significant difference between standard Duracell and Energizer alkaline AAs. "Your mileage may vary." I've always had horrible luck with Duracells. Every five years or so I go out and buy another set to remind myself of this, but the results are never different. Harry G. mentions getting good prices on Energizers at Home Depot. Seems like the HD stores around here never ever have the good deals I read about from other people on the 'net; batteries there are about the same price as Walgreen's around here. People talk about borrowing free tools to replace cartridges in Moen faucets and then getting free replacements at HD; ours will sell us a plastic tool for $18 and then we get to decide which size cartridge is appropriate, at full retail price, of course. But the (local?) Menard's chain usually has Ray-O-Vac AA's at 30 for $9.99, and I get great life out of them, nearly as good as the Energizers for about half the price. Roy Lewallen mentions Costco; they haven't had their particular brand (40 for $10) for literally years here, all they sell is Duracells now and they want 25% more than Menard's and the Ray-O-Vacs. Doug McLaren mentioned his experience that alkalines have higher capacities than rechargeables, but I'm finding that my new Eveready 2500 mAH NiMH batteries compete quite well with a fresh set of Energizers. KenRockwell.com lists alkalines at 2700 to 3135 mAH, sounds reasonable. -- If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Of possible interest
The Great Battery Shootout! by Dave Etchells URL: http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.HTM -- CL -- I doubt, therefore I might be ! "K7ITM" wrote in message ups.com... Even with moderately high self-discharge rates, I'm finding NiMH AAs to be a good solution for most applications where I use AAs. I just cycle them through the recharger occasionally. I have enough extras, and recharging is so fast, that it's not a problem to me if I forget and let a set discharge to where I have to put in a new set. Noteable exceptions: very low drain devices like smoke detectors and remote control transmitters that will run for a year or more on alkalines. Digital cameras, particularly, show off the advantages of the NiMHs: alkalines just don't cut it in mine (unuseable after five or ten pictures, compared with dozens for one charge on NiMHs), though I've heard that the alkalines specially designed for digital cameras are at least useable. There's a lot of misinformation about batteries of various kinds out there. I've found http://www.batteryuniversity.com/ to be an easy to understand source of generally very good information about a lot of different types of batteries. It mostly covers rechargables, but there's some info about alkalines in there. A friend who uses alkalines in his insulin pump told me he was surprised to find that, in that particular application, he's seeing a significant difference between standard Duracell and Energizer alkaline AAs. "Your mileage may vary." Cheers, Tom |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
clifto wrote:
. . . Doug McLaren mentioned his experience that alkalines have higher capacities than rechargeables, but I'm finding that my new Eveready 2500 mAH NiMH batteries compete quite well with a fresh set of Energizers. KenRockwell.com lists alkalines at 2700 to 3135 mAH, sounds reasonable. The capacity of alkaline cells is much more dependent on discharge rate than that of NiMH cells. Note the capacities of alkalines shown at the bottom of the list at http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.HTM. With the 5 ohm load used for those tests, the alkalines have less than 800 mAh capacity. The capacities you quote would be obtainable only at much lower current drains. But I didn't look carefully at the page to see if he used a different cutoff voltage for the alkalines. A NiMH cell is just about fully discharged when its voltage reaches 1.0 volt, so that's a common cutoff voltage for testing and using NiMH cells. But an alkaline cell still has considerable energy remaining at that voltage -- a device has to function properly down to 0.9 volt, or at high drain more like 0.8 volt per cell to extract all the energy from it. This is yet one more confounding factor in trying to compare cells of different chemistries. Performance depends heavily on the particular application and conditions of use, so a single answer to which is best, or even which has the greater capacity, simply isn't possible. You don't need to take my word for any of this -- data sheets for common cells are readily available on the web, and it takes only a few minutes and a bit of poking on a calculator to discover this from the curves. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Harry;
9 cells is really an odd (no pun intended) number of cells. Are you sure that all were from the same date code. For example an 8 pack is a common purchase, so if you take 8 from one pack and the 9th from another, you might have an older cell in the bunch. Secondly, I have seen several products that mechanically chafe the battery wrapper. If this happens a cell will short out and overheat. My family and I were in NYC the week of the big blackout , we left just before it happened!. As it happens. I bought some copper top batteries from a street vendor 12 for a buck. I got to the hotel and my son noticed they were chinese imitations called "powercells". They weighed in at about a third of a duracell and lasted about 20%!! I bet there were some unhappy campers in Manhattan when those batteries gave out! Joe wrote: snip let me clarify what I mean by a bad experience. My hand-held Lorain receiver uses (IIRC) 9 AA cells connected in series. Using Duracells, I've twice had one of the 9 batteries prematurely fail, with the remaining 8 only partially discharged. Consequently you replace all 9 cells. snip Harry C. -- Joe Leikhim K4SAT "The RFI-EMI-GUY" "Follow The Money" |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
clifto wrote:
. . . Roy Lewallen mentions Costco; they haven't had their particular brand (40 for $10) for literally years here, all they sell is Duracells now and they want 25% more than Menard's and the Ray-O-Vacs. . . . That's too bad. I just got back from Costco, where I found their store brand Kirkland AA alkalines at $9.59 for 48. They also had Duracells, 16 for $8.19. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Roy Lewallen wrote:
clifto wrote: Roy Lewallen mentions Costco; they haven't had their particular brand (40 for $10) for literally years here, all they sell is Duracells now and they want 25% more than Menard's and the Ray-O-Vacs. That's too bad. I just got back from Costco, where I found their store brand Kirkland AA alkalines at $9.59 for 48. They also had Duracells, 16 for $8.19. Yep. Used to go for the Kirkland units at just about that price; they disappeared from our local Costco a few years back. I'm thinking their Duracells are right around that price too, but (1) I don't buy Duracells and (2) that's over 50 cents per battery when I can get 30 Ray-O-Vacs for $9.99 any day of the week at Menard's. Sometimes even better at Menard's; the last batch of AAs I bought were 12 for $2.59 with a $2 rebate on up to two packs, or just under a nickel per Ray-O-Vac. Back when I got the Kirklands regularly, they were about half the cost of the name brands I was finding and had a little better than half the lifetime, not a bad deal at all. -- If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Roy Lewallen wrote:
clifto wrote: . . . Doug McLaren mentioned his experience that alkalines have higher capacities than rechargeables, but I'm finding that my new Eveready 2500 mAH NiMH batteries compete quite well with a fresh set of Energizers. KenRockwell.com lists alkalines at 2700 to 3135 mAH, sounds reasonable. The capacity of alkaline cells is much more dependent on discharge rate than that of NiMH cells. Note the capacities of alkalines shown at the bottom of the list at http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.HTM. With the 5 ohm load used for those tests, the alkalines have less than 800 mAh capacity. The capacities you quote would be obtainable only at much lower current drains. And the funny thing is, at a high load such as my GPS III+, those alkalines with their capacity diminished by the high current draw still last longer than the NiMH that supposedly like high current draw. (I said the NiMH compare favorably, not that they outlast alkalines.) I agree with you, I've been playing aloud with numbers that don't always belong in the same arena. And too many other factors impinge; I save money using the NiMH in the GPS, but I'd kill them in flashlights that I routinely leave on and forget. And then there are those sulfated wet-cell batteries in the garage... *sigh* -- If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin. |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
And the funny thing is, at a high load such as my GPS III+, those
alkalines with their capacity diminished by the high current draw still last longer than the NiMH that supposedly like high current draw. (I said the NiMH compare favorably, not that they outlast alkalines.) I agree with you, I've been playing aloud with numbers that don't always belong in the same arena. And too many other factors impinge; I save money using the NiMH in the GPS, but I'd kill them in flashlights that I routinely leave on and forget. And then there are those sulfated wet-cell batteries in the garage... *sigh* ================== I had the same experience with my ancient Garmin GPS 40 ;alkaline batts held longer than NiMHs. Possible reason is that alkalines cells are 1.5 V and NiMHs 1.2 V It is well possible that although the NiMHs are only considered discharged when the voltage has dropped to below 1 Volt (per cell) this voltage (or its multiple) is too low for the GPS to operate, whereas alkalines hold a higher voltage for a longer period. I noticed that when the GPS switched itself off when using NiMH batteries ,the cells apparently were not fully discharged. Using an automatic NiCad /NiMH charger operating with an initial discharge period as part of the overall cycle, it took quite a while ,before the NiMH cells were discharged before charging commenced. Frank GMØCSZ / KN6WH |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Highland Ham wrote:
================== I had the same experience with my ancient Garmin GPS 40 ;alkaline batts held longer than NiMHs. Possible reason is that alkalines cells are 1.5 V and NiMHs 1.2 V It is well possible that although the NiMHs are only considered discharged when the voltage has dropped to below 1 Volt (per cell) this voltage (or its multiple) is too low for the GPS to operate, whereas alkalines hold a higher voltage for a longer period. That's a common myth. Neither type has a constant voltage during discharge, but the NiMH is much more constant than alkaline. Try this experiment: Put a resistor across an alkaline cell to simulate roughly the load a GPS receiver would present. With a DVM, check the voltage every half hour or so, and continue until it reaches 0.8 - 0.9 volts, which is where it'll be when nearly all its energy is gone. You'll find that the "1.5" volt alkaline cell voltage will reach 1.25 volts (about the voltage of a NiMH cell for most of its discharge period) at a point where half or more of the cell's energy still remains. That is, the cell voltage will be below 1.25 volts for half or more of its life. If you repeat the test with a NiMH cell, you'll find that the cell voltage is 1.2 - 1.25 volts for nearly the whole discharge cycle. So for about half the time, the NiMH cell will have a higher voltage than the alkaline. Or, you could do it the easy way and look at the curves supplied by the manufacturers. They're readily available on the web. If a device quits working at a cell voltage of 1.0 volts, you'll get nearly all the energy from a NiMH cell, but you'll be throwing away an alkaline cell that still contains a significant amount of energy. I noticed that when the GPS switched itself off when using NiMH batteries ,the cells apparently were not fully discharged. Using an automatic NiCad /NiMH charger operating with an initial discharge period as part of the overall cycle, it took quite a while ,before the NiMH cells were discharged before charging commenced. Sounds like something was wrong with the GPS. If there was signficant energy left in the NiMH cells, it quit at a voltage greater than 1.0 volt/cell. And if it did that when using alkaline cells, you'd be throwing away an even bigger fraction of its total energy than with a NiMH cell. There are several reasons why NiMH cells might not do as well as they should. One is that chargers will often shut down well before the cells are fully charged. This is particularly common with new NiMH cells, until they've been cycled a half dozen times or so. Another potential problem is voltage depression, mistakenly called "memory". This can be cured by a full discharge to 1.0 volt/cell then recharge. Cells also have less capacity after long storage or a history of light use and recharge. Several cycles are necessary to restore full capacity. And of course, modern NiMH cells at 2500 mAh or more have a lot more capacity than earlier ones which were as little as 1300 mAh or so -- if you did a comparison some time ago, things have changed since. A number of fast chargers don't charge cells to their full capacity. Finally, a substantial portion of some cells' capacity originates in the marketing department -- tests I've run show the capacity of some to be pretty badly inflated (Lenmar is a common brand that comes to mind). They do take some care and feeding -- if it's too much of a hassle, alkaline cells are a solution. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
Battery quality/life/efficiency/MostBangForTheBuck/whatever
Roy ,Tnx for your comments ; I'll do some tests with NiMH cells using a 'Maha C777Plus' discharger/(pulse)charger and check capacity . I'll repeat the discharge/charge process a few times to see whether capacity changes. I realise that automatic chargers charging at a high current might not charge any cell to its maximum capacity, that's why I shall also charge the cell at a lower rate using a LM317 constant current circuit. with the Maha device the cell's capacity is indicated following the completion of a discharge period from fully charged to a threshold of just below 1 Volt I knew that brand new cells only get their full capacity after having been cycled a number of times. BTW : NiCads and NiMHs I use regularly are kept in good condition by constant trickle charging at a few mA , again ,with a LM317 constant current circuit ,because specially NiMH cells have a relatively high self-discharge rate. Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH There are several reasons why NiMH cells might not do as well as they should. One is that chargers will often shut down well before the cells are fully charged. This is particularly common with new NiMH cells, until they've been cycled a half dozen times or so. Another potential problem is voltage depression, mistakenly called "memory". This can be cured by a full discharge to 1.0 volt/cell then recharge. Cells also have less capacity after long storage or a history of light use and recharge. Several cycles are necessary to restore full capacity. And of course, modern NiMH cells at 2500 mAh or more have a lot more capacity than earlier ones which were as little as 1300 mAh or so -- if you did a comparison some time ago, things have changed since. A number of fast chargers don't charge cells to their full capacity. Finally, a substantial portion of some cells' capacity originates in the marketing department -- tests I've run show the capacity of some to be pretty badly inflated (Lenmar is a common brand that comes to mind). They do take some care and feeding -- if it's too much of a hassle, alkaline cells are a solution. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
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