On Oct 3, 1:27*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 10/1/2008 5:53 PM spake thus:

Have some fun, put some nonrechargables in a battery charger and see
what happens... Great family fun..!

I assume you're referring to that oft-repeated claim that you must Never
Ever Put Non-Rechargeable Batteries In A Charger, printed on all
batteries and chargers. Or else they'll explode and destroy your house
and kill all its occupants.

Not true. I'm here to tell you that I've been recharging
non-rechargeables (alkalines, mostly) in my chargers for decades now.
The worst that happens is that a cell will leak; this isn't the end of
the world, and my charger still works even though that's happened to it
several times.

I'm not recommending this, as it only gives a weak charge at best, but
it will often restore a marginal cell to working capacity for at least a
little while.

The AAAs in my remote are Duracell alkalines that I've recharged several
times, and they're still working great. I'm guessing this is because the
remote draws so little current that it doesn't take much juice to
satisfy it.

--
* Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

- Paulo Freire

yeah, before rechargables became as popular as they are, we nerdy
people used to "recharge" carbon zinc and alkalines fairly often,
either with special gadgets or just homebrew items. unlike
rechargables, when regular batteries "die", they're not usually
exhausted chemically; but hydrogen builds up inside and the bubbles
collect around whichever electrode, and that kind of impedes the
current flow. so you reverse the polarity and drive the hydrogen off
the electrode and you're back in business. a lot of that chemical guck
that's inside the battery is in order to reduce the hydrogen
formation.

As you say, the only downside is that if it overheats from running too
much current too long, the expansion will make it spring a leak. i
can't imagine what you'd have to try to charge it with to cause it to
blow up.