"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Spehro Pefhany" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:01:51 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Winston" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
(...)

Have you ever heard of a primary battery lasting 26 years?

Not me, Ed.
That greatly surpasses the shelf life of a mercury cell at *only* 10
years.

Mine used to get fairly heavy use; now it's only infrequent. But I'm
always astonished when it turns on.

I'm interested to know what kind of battery you have in that meter!
Did you buy it from a Metaluna catalog?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth

Luckily you have at least one more DMM so you can measure that 75's
current in another decade or so, yes?

Those folks who design super low power yet feature - rich gear are
indistinguishable from geniuses, IMHO.

--Winston

I was one minute too quick in sending my last message; I didn't see this
one
before I sent you the one about my call to Fluke.

Anyway, I'm worried about it leaking, so I opened it up to replace it.
It's
the original equipment in there, and it's an "Eveready 9V General Purpose
Battery." It doesn't say alkaline, but I'm sure it is. No leaks. And I
haven't seen that cat and the "9" on a battery for a while. g

Don't be too sure. At low current draw, alkalines don't have hardly
any advantage over the old school ones. Is it red? I think that's a
good old-fashioned carbon-zinc Leclanché cell.

Aha! Yes, it's solid red.

So what should I do here, Sphero? Will I be OK with a good alkaline cell
to replace it?

It still works fine. Maybe I should just leave it in there?

Thanks.

--
Ed Huntress

I think I answered my own question. I just read the tech sheet from Eveready
on Leclanche cells:

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/carbonzinc_appman.pdf

...., which contains information about their life and discharge
characteristics, and it looks like an alkaline replacement should be
perfectly OK.

--
Ed Huntress