On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

On 4 Aug 2001 01:26:44 GMT, in misc.survivalism
mailto (Speaker to Animals) wrote:

I lurk in a wider group of NGs then I ever post in.
sci.geo.satellite-nav is a GPS (there are other satellite nav systems but
GPS
is the most common) NG. LG hangs out there.
A guy wrote an interesting article on batteries.
A lot of us use batteries for many usefull activities.
It agrees (mostly) with my own studies and experience.

Matching the Battery to the Task

By DAVID POGUE

IF the F.B.I. ever singled me out for surveillance, its final
report wouldn't hold much interest. "Wife, two kids, dog.
Watches `Survivor.' Aversion to mayo." Only one line at the end
of the document might seem a little peculiar. "Buys AA batteries
by the gross."

These days, most gizmos digital cameras, palmtops, music players
seem to have been designed in a conspiracy with Duracell: they
guzzle batteries like Gatorade at the marathon finish line. And
it's not just me. According to an Industrial Market Research
survey, the average American has about 25 battery-operated
gadgets in the house, up from only 7 in 1987.

The battery makers, of course, are delighted. All around us, we
see ads for new kinds of batteries that "offer unsurpassed power
for today's demanding devices," "last longer on high-tech
devices" and have "longer service life." In the name of science,
I decided to perform a few simple tests: I'd pop sets of each
heavily hyped battery into, say, a Palm organizer and see how
long they took to run down. What could be more scientific?

As it turns out, almost anything. When I shared my plans with
representatives of the Big Three Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac
they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this
point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are
terribly misleading. For starters, a battery designed to excel
in such a test would do poorly in the real world, where people
play, pause and put aside their electronics for days or weeks.
Who on earth actually runs a gadget continuously until it's out
of power? (Game Boy owners, you can put your hands down.)
Furthermore, the battery makers say, there is much greater
inconsistency in the power consumption of supposedly identical
devices than between two different batteries.

"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."

When people conduct proper battery tests the repetitive,
expensive, computer-controlled sort prescribed by the American
National Standards Institute they find little variation across
brands. One such test, published by Consumer Reports in March,
offered a straightforward conclusion: When you need standard
alkalines, ignore the marketing; just buy the cheapest ones.

Whatever size you're looking for, from tiny AAA's to fat C's and
D's, the hard part is figuring out whether to buy the standard
alkalines or some other type. Until 1980, you had only one type
to choose: the silver "heavy duty" batteries, like the Eveready
types with the black-cat logo. But that era is long over.

What replaced those old "standard" batteries is a wide and
confusing range of higher-powered battery types: alkaline,
premium alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, nickel metal hydride
and lithium. (All told, 92 percent of the batteries sold
nationwide are alkalines, which offer from two to six times as
much life at roughly the same price as the old "heavy-duty"
type.)

It would feel glorious to declare one type the winner and then
rent a movie to celebrate. Alas, batteries aren't that simple.

In general, you can break down today's battery-operated devices
into three categories. First, there are low-drain gadgets that
sip power with all the gusto of an elderly aunt at afternoon
tea: radios, clocks and flashlights that you keep on hand only
for emergencies.

The vast majority of today's electronic gizmos fall into the
moderate-drain category: tape recorders, Game Boys, music and CD
players, electronic toys, pagers, boomboxes, smoke detectors,
remote controls and flashlights that you'll use a lot when
camping, for example. The third category, high-drain devices,
has only a few occupants like digital cameras, palmtops, remote-
control toys, portable televisions and photo flash units but is
likely to see more arrivals in the next few years.

Once you've grasped that much background, buying batteries is
fairly simple: for low- and medium-powered equipment, standard
alkalines offer the best power per penny.

Battery selection for high-drain gear, however, is where the
game gets interesting. In a typical digital camera, standard
alkalines might last all of 30 minutes, as many a crestfallen
consumer discovers.

That's why some companies are touting something called premium
alkalines reformulated batteries designed to last longer than
standard alkalines in high-drain gadgetry. (The improvements
include, as Duracell puts it, "proprietary separator material,
enhanced cathode design and a high-power anode composition,"
just as you probably suspected.)

Duracell, for example, says that its premium battery, called
Ultra, lasts up to twice as long as standard copper-tops in
high- drain electronics. (Energizer's E2 line is also a premium
alkaline, but Consumer Reports says it's not much more powerful
than standard alkalines.)

On the other hand, Ultra isn't as effective in medium- or
low-drain electronics, offering an improvement of less than 50
percent, Duracell says, over standard alkalines. Any improvement
is welcome, of course, but remember that Ultras cost about $1
apiece in a multipack, twice the price of store-brand regular
alkalines. In other words, the convenience of Ultras is worth
paying for in your Palm, television or digital camera but may be
a waste of money in ordinary devices.

But even premium alkalines can't power a digital camera for more
than about 60 minutes of shooting, viewing and deleting pictures
still not enough to last the whole day at Six Flags, let alone
your two-week vacation.

The final step up, therefore, is lithium batteries (not to be
confused with lithium-ion laptop batteries) very expensive cells
($10 for four) that last five times as long as standard
alkalines in high-drain electronics. Only Energizer makes AA
lithiums. Duracell makes a lithium power pack called CV3 that
looks like two AA batteries fused together, but it fits only
certain digital camera models from Casio, Kodak and Olympus, for
example, that have been designed to accept them.

If you use a high-drain device almost every day (this means you,
palmtop and digital-photography addicts), the ultimate solution
to the battery problem is nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries.
Not only do they last even longer than premium alkalines, but
for the ultimate in economy, you can recharge them 500 to 1,000
times by snapping them into a charger plugged into the wall.

Rayovac's superb $30 charger (for AA, AAA and 9-volt sizes)
rejuvenates drained NiMH's in one hour or less, a great
improvement over previous chargers. (You'd think that engineers
would have devised a shorthand for this battery's name, so they
don't have to spend their days shouting, "Yo, Frank, should I
put these nickel metal hydrides over on the nickel metal hydride
shelf?" But they haven't.)

The trouble with NiMH's is that they lose their charge over time
about 15 percent per month. That makes them poor choices for
long-term locations like remote controls, smoke detectors,
digital cameras used only occasionally and, for that matter, the
kitchen battery drawer. Some people keep one set in the charger
and a second set in the camera, so they're always ready; but
that's a lot of complication. At this point, rechargeables
(including rechargeable alkalines, short-lived batteries that
you can recharge only a few times) represent only 1 percent of
battery sales. On the other hand, it's the fastest-growing
battery category.

If you'd like to minimize complexity and maximize economy, then,
the bottom line is this: Buy standard alkalines for everyday
gadgets. Cheap store brands generally do just as well as
big-name brands. In digital cameras, palmtops and other
high-powered gizmos, buy rechargeable nickel metal hydrides (for
gear you use daily) or Duracell Ultras (for gear you store
between uses).

Oh, and don't bother trying to conduct your own battery of
tests.


Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

On 4 Aug 2001 01:26:44 GMT, in misc.survivalism
mailto (Speaker to Animals) wrote:

I lurk in a wider group of NGs then I ever post in.
sci.geo.satellite-nav is a GPS (there are other satellite nav systems but
GPS
is the most common) NG. LG hangs out there.
A guy wrote an interesting article on batteries.
A lot of us use batteries for many usefull activities.
It agrees (mostly) with my own studies and experience.

Matching the Battery to the Task

By DAVID POGUE

IF the F.B.I. ever singled me out for surveillance, its final
report wouldn't hold much interest. "Wife, two kids, dog.
Watches `Survivor.' Aversion to mayo." Only one line at the end
of the document might seem a little peculiar. "Buys AA batteries
by the gross."

These days, most gizmos digital cameras, palmtops, music players
seem to have been designed in a conspiracy with Duracell: they
guzzle batteries like Gatorade at the marathon finish line. And
it's not just me. According to an Industrial Market Research
survey, the average American has about 25 battery-operated
gadgets in the house, up from only 7 in 1987.

The battery makers, of course, are delighted. All around us, we
see ads for new kinds of batteries that "offer unsurpassed power
for today's demanding devices," "last longer on high-tech
devices" and have "longer service life." In the name of science,
I decided to perform a few simple tests: I'd pop sets of each
heavily hyped battery into, say, a Palm organizer and see how
long they took to run down. What could be more scientific?

As it turns out, almost anything. When I shared my plans with
representatives of the Big Three Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac
they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this
point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are
terribly misleading. For starters, a battery designed to excel
in such a test would do poorly in the real world, where people
play, pause and put aside their electronics for days or weeks.
Who on earth actually runs a gadget continuously until it's out
of power? (Game Boy owners, you can put your hands down.)
Furthermore, the battery makers say, there is much greater
inconsistency in the power consumption of supposedly identical
devices than between two different batteries.

"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."

When people conduct proper battery tests the repetitive,
expensive, computer-controlled sort prescribed by the American
National Standards Institute they find little variation across
brands. One such test, published by Consumer Reports in March,
offered a straightforward conclusion: When you need standard
alkalines, ignore the marketing; just buy the cheapest ones.

Whatever size you're looking for, from tiny AAA's to fat C's and
D's, the hard part is figuring out whether to buy the standard
alkalines or some other type. Until 1980, you had only one type
to choose: the silver "heavy duty" batteries, like the Eveready
types with the black-cat logo. But that era is long over.

What replaced those old "standard" batteries is a wide and
confusing range of higher-powered battery types: alkaline,
premium alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, nickel metal hydride
and lithium. (All told, 92 percent of the batteries sold
nationwide are alkalines, which offer from two to six times as
much life at roughly the same price as the old "heavy-duty"
type.)

It would feel glorious to declare one type the winner and then
rent a movie to celebrate. Alas, batteries aren't that simple.

In general, you can break down today's battery-operated devices
into three categories. First, there are low-drain gadgets that
sip power with all the gusto of an elderly aunt at afternoon
tea: radios, clocks and flashlights that you keep on hand only
for emergencies.

The vast majority of today's electronic gizmos fall into the
moderate-drain category: tape recorders, Game Boys, music and CD

tape recorders?

players, electronic toys, pagers, boomboxes, smoke detectors,

pagers?

was this article writte in the late 1980s?

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:10:05 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


Some nits:

Smoke detectors draw very little current. A 9-volt battery lasts at
least a year.

Alkaline AA's have slightly more capacity than NiMH AA's in
low-current apps. NiMH works better in high current apps.

There is one NiMH that has much less self-discharge than others:
Sanyo Eneloop. They come charged, and retain 85% of capacity after 12
months (of disuse).
http://www.eneloopusa.com/eneloop.html

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:57:11 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

On 4 Aug 2001 01:26:44 GMT, in misc.survivalism
mailto (Speaker to Animals) wrote:

I lurk in a wider group of NGs then I ever post in.
sci.geo.satellite-nav is a GPS (there are other satellite nav systems but
GPS
is the most common) NG. LG hangs out there.
A guy wrote an interesting article on batteries.
A lot of us use batteries for many usefull activities.
It agrees (mostly) with my own studies and experience.

Matching the Battery to the Task

By DAVID POGUE

IF the F.B.I. ever singled me out for surveillance, its final
report wouldn't hold much interest. "Wife, two kids, dog.
Watches `Survivor.' Aversion to mayo." Only one line at the end
of the document might seem a little peculiar. "Buys AA batteries
by the gross."

These days, most gizmos digital cameras, palmtops, music players
seem to have been designed in a conspiracy with Duracell: they
guzzle batteries like Gatorade at the marathon finish line. And
it's not just me. According to an Industrial Market Research
survey, the average American has about 25 battery-operated
gadgets in the house, up from only 7 in 1987.

The battery makers, of course, are delighted. All around us, we
see ads for new kinds of batteries that "offer unsurpassed power
for today's demanding devices," "last longer on high-tech
devices" and have "longer service life." In the name of science,
I decided to perform a few simple tests: I'd pop sets of each
heavily hyped battery into, say, a Palm organizer and see how
long they took to run down. What could be more scientific?

As it turns out, almost anything. When I shared my plans with
representatives of the Big Three Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac
they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this
point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are
terribly misleading. For starters, a battery designed to excel
in such a test would do poorly in the real world, where people
play, pause and put aside their electronics for days or weeks.
Who on earth actually runs a gadget continuously until it's out
of power? (Game Boy owners, you can put your hands down.)
Furthermore, the battery makers say, there is much greater
inconsistency in the power consumption of supposedly identical
devices than between two different batteries.

"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."

When people conduct proper battery tests the repetitive,
expensive, computer-controlled sort prescribed by the American
National Standards Institute they find little variation across
brands. One such test, published by Consumer Reports in March,
offered a straightforward conclusion: When you need standard
alkalines, ignore the marketing; just buy the cheapest ones.

Whatever size you're looking for, from tiny AAA's to fat C's and
D's, the hard part is figuring out whether to buy the standard
alkalines or some other type. Until 1980, you had only one type
to choose: the silver "heavy duty" batteries, like the Eveready
types with the black-cat logo. But that era is long over.

What replaced those old "standard" batteries is a wide and
confusing range of higher-powered battery types: alkaline,
premium alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, nickel metal hydride
and lithium. (All told, 92 percent of the batteries sold
nationwide are alkalines, which offer from two to six times as
much life at roughly the same price as the old "heavy-duty"
type.)

It would feel glorious to declare one type the winner and then
rent a movie to celebrate. Alas, batteries aren't that simple.

In general, you can break down today's battery-operated devices
into three categories. First, there are low-drain gadgets that
sip power with all the gusto of an elderly aunt at afternoon
tea: radios, clocks and flashlights that you keep on hand only
for emergencies.

The vast majority of today's electronic gizmos fall into the
moderate-drain category: tape recorders, Game Boys, music and CD

tape recorders?

Why? I keep a tape recorder above my sun visor, and one in my brief
case.

players, electronic toys, pagers, boomboxes, smoke detectors,

pagers?

was this article writte in the late 1980s?

Gameboys were in the 1980s?




Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:57:11 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

On 4 Aug 2001 01:26:44 GMT, in misc.survivalism
mailto (Speaker to Animals) wrote:

I lurk in a wider group of NGs then I ever post in.
sci.geo.satellite-nav is a GPS (there are other satellite nav systems
but
GPS
is the most common) NG. LG hangs out there.
A guy wrote an interesting article on batteries.
A lot of us use batteries for many usefull activities.
It agrees (mostly) with my own studies and experience.

Matching the Battery to the Task

By DAVID POGUE

IF the F.B.I. ever singled me out for surveillance, its final
report wouldn't hold much interest. "Wife, two kids, dog.
Watches `Survivor.' Aversion to mayo." Only one line at the end
of the document might seem a little peculiar. "Buys AA batteries
by the gross."

These days, most gizmos digital cameras, palmtops, music players
seem to have been designed in a conspiracy with Duracell: they
guzzle batteries like Gatorade at the marathon finish line. And
it's not just me. According to an Industrial Market Research
survey, the average American has about 25 battery-operated
gadgets in the house, up from only 7 in 1987.

The battery makers, of course, are delighted. All around us, we
see ads for new kinds of batteries that "offer unsurpassed power
for today's demanding devices," "last longer on high-tech
devices" and have "longer service life." In the name of science,
I decided to perform a few simple tests: I'd pop sets of each
heavily hyped battery into, say, a Palm organizer and see how
long they took to run down. What could be more scientific?

As it turns out, almost anything. When I shared my plans with
representatives of the Big Three Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac
they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this
point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are
terribly misleading. For starters, a battery designed to excel
in such a test would do poorly in the real world, where people
play, pause and put aside their electronics for days or weeks.
Who on earth actually runs a gadget continuously until it's out
of power? (Game Boy owners, you can put your hands down.)
Furthermore, the battery makers say, there is much greater
inconsistency in the power consumption of supposedly identical
devices than between two different batteries.

"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."

When people conduct proper battery tests the repetitive,
expensive, computer-controlled sort prescribed by the American
National Standards Institute they find little variation across
brands. One such test, published by Consumer Reports in March,
offered a straightforward conclusion: When you need standard
alkalines, ignore the marketing; just buy the cheapest ones.

Whatever size you're looking for, from tiny AAA's to fat C's and
D's, the hard part is figuring out whether to buy the standard
alkalines or some other type. Until 1980, you had only one type
to choose: the silver "heavy duty" batteries, like the Eveready
types with the black-cat logo. But that era is long over.

What replaced those old "standard" batteries is a wide and
confusing range of higher-powered battery types: alkaline,
premium alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, nickel metal hydride
and lithium. (All told, 92 percent of the batteries sold
nationwide are alkalines, which offer from two to six times as
much life at roughly the same price as the old "heavy-duty"
type.)

It would feel glorious to declare one type the winner and then
rent a movie to celebrate. Alas, batteries aren't that simple.

In general, you can break down today's battery-operated devices
into three categories. First, there are low-drain gadgets that
sip power with all the gusto of an elderly aunt at afternoon
tea: radios, clocks and flashlights that you keep on hand only
for emergencies.

The vast majority of today's electronic gizmos fall into the
moderate-drain category: tape recorders, Game Boys, music and CD

tape recorders?

Why? I keep a tape recorder above my sun visor, and one in my brief
case.

players, electronic toys, pagers, boomboxes, smoke detectors,

pagers?

was this article writte in the late 1980s?

Gameboys were in the 1980s?

The article is a David Pogue New York Times column from 2001.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:51:10 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:10:05 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


Some nits:

Smoke detectors draw very little current. A 9-volt battery lasts at
least a year.

Alkaline AA's have slightly more capacity than NiMH AA's in
low-current apps. NiMH works better in high current apps.

There is one NiMH that has much less self-discharge than others:
Sanyo Eneloop. They come charged, and retain 85% of capacity after 12
months (of disuse).
http://www.eneloopusa.com/eneloop.html

I understand that the Rayovac Hybrid has the same
characteristics. Probably a whole lot easier to find.

http://www.rayovac.com/recharge/index.shtml

I've been using 4 AA Rayovac Hybrid batteries for a bit over
a year now in my iRiver MP3 player and Sony headphone radio.
So far I have been happy with their performance. Hardly high
current draw devices though...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:51:10 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:10:05 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


Some nits:

Smoke detectors draw very little current. A 9-volt battery lasts at
least a year.

Alkaline AA's have slightly more capacity than NiMH AA's in
low-current apps. NiMH works better in high current apps.

There is one NiMH that has much less self-discharge than others:
Sanyo Eneloop. They come charged, and retain 85% of capacity after 12
months (of disuse).
http://www.eneloopusa.com/eneloop.html


I figure the article was written pre eneloop, but its accurate enough
in general to be interesting enough to post here.

Gunner

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:57:11 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

On 4 Aug 2001 01:26:44 GMT, in misc.survivalism
mailto (Speaker to Animals) wrote:

I lurk in a wider group of NGs then I ever post in.
sci.geo.satellite-nav is a GPS (there are other satellite nav systems but
GPS
is the most common) NG. LG hangs out there.
A guy wrote an interesting article on batteries.
A lot of us use batteries for many usefull activities.
It agrees (mostly) with my own studies and experience.

Matching the Battery to the Task

By DAVID POGUE

IF the F.B.I. ever singled me out for surveillance, its final
report wouldn't hold much interest. "Wife, two kids, dog.
Watches `Survivor.' Aversion to mayo." Only one line at the end
of the document might seem a little peculiar. "Buys AA batteries
by the gross."

These days, most gizmos digital cameras, palmtops, music players
seem to have been designed in a conspiracy with Duracell: they
guzzle batteries like Gatorade at the marathon finish line. And
it's not just me. According to an Industrial Market Research
survey, the average American has about 25 battery-operated
gadgets in the house, up from only 7 in 1987.

The battery makers, of course, are delighted. All around us, we
see ads for new kinds of batteries that "offer unsurpassed power
for today's demanding devices," "last longer on high-tech
devices" and have "longer service life." In the name of science,
I decided to perform a few simple tests: I'd pop sets of each
heavily hyped battery into, say, a Palm organizer and see how
long they took to run down. What could be more scientific?

As it turns out, almost anything. When I shared my plans with
representatives of the Big Three Duracell, Eveready and Rayovac
they told me, with the weary sighs of people who explain this
point to journalists every day, that battery run-down tests are
terribly misleading. For starters, a battery designed to excel
in such a test would do poorly in the real world, where people
play, pause and put aside their electronics for days or weeks.
Who on earth actually runs a gadget continuously until it's out
of power? (Game Boy owners, you can put your hands down.)
Furthermore, the battery makers say, there is much greater
inconsistency in the power consumption of supposedly identical
devices than between two different batteries.

"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."

When people conduct proper battery tests the repetitive,
expensive, computer-controlled sort prescribed by the American
National Standards Institute they find little variation across
brands. One such test, published by Consumer Reports in March,
offered a straightforward conclusion: When you need standard
alkalines, ignore the marketing; just buy the cheapest ones.

Whatever size you're looking for, from tiny AAA's to fat C's and
D's, the hard part is figuring out whether to buy the standard
alkalines or some other type. Until 1980, you had only one type
to choose: the silver "heavy duty" batteries, like the Eveready
types with the black-cat logo. But that era is long over.

What replaced those old "standard" batteries is a wide and
confusing range of higher-powered battery types: alkaline,
premium alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, nickel metal hydride
and lithium. (All told, 92 percent of the batteries sold
nationwide are alkalines, which offer from two to six times as
much life at roughly the same price as the old "heavy-duty"
type.)

It would feel glorious to declare one type the winner and then
rent a movie to celebrate. Alas, batteries aren't that simple.

In general, you can break down today's battery-operated devices
into three categories. First, there are low-drain gadgets that
sip power with all the gusto of an elderly aunt at afternoon
tea: radios, clocks and flashlights that you keep on hand only
for emergencies.

The vast majority of today's electronic gizmos fall into the
moderate-drain category: tape recorders, Game Boys, music and CD

tape recorders?

Why? I keep a tape recorder above my sun visor, and one in my brief
case.

players, electronic toys, pagers, boomboxes, smoke detectors,

pagers?

was this article writte in the late 1980s?

Gameboys were in the 1980s?

yes.

Anyways, While more things may use batteries these days, there far fewer
types to have to deal with, which is a plus.

Nobody has to buy J cells for remote controls anymore.

Film cameras mostly went away, so there's not that many people running
around to get lithium or dual lithium cells.

there also seems to be less use of obscure coin cells, again, which makes
replacemt in things not decades old pretty easy.

Most chinese electronics garbage around the home can be kept happy with
AA AAA cells these days.

It's far easier than 10 or 20 years ago, plus NiMh batteries are pretty
decent and can replace alkalines inmost stuff that you don't leave unused
for a long time.

Leon Fisk wrote:
On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:51:10 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:10:05 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:


Some nits:

Smoke detectors draw very little current. A 9-volt battery lasts at
least a year.

Alkaline AA's have slightly more capacity than NiMH AA's in
low-current apps. NiMH works better in high current apps.

There is one NiMH that has much less self-discharge than others:
Sanyo Eneloop. They come charged, and retain 85% of capacity after 12
months (of disuse).
http://www.eneloopusa.com/eneloop.html

I understand that the Rayovac Hybrid has the same
characteristics. Probably a whole lot easier to find.

http://www.rayovac.com/recharge/index.shtml

I've been using 4 AA Rayovac Hybrid batteries for a bit over
a year now in my iRiver MP3 player and Sony headphone radio.
So far I have been happy with their performance. Hardly high
current draw devices though...

Anybody recall the rayovac "renewal" rechargeable alkalines that maybe
came out around 1995?

They were cheap and decent in performance, then they vanished.

My guess is people people only charge thing whe they stop working and
therefore saw no benefit to the technology of those batteries.

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:51:10 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

There is one NiMH that has much less self-discharge than others:
Sanyo Eneloop. They come charged, and retain 85% of capacity after 12
months (of disuse).
http://www.eneloopusa.com/eneloop.html

I haven't had any AA NiMH go bad on me but AAA's die quite often. I
wonder if the fm adaptor for my mp3 player is draining them too deep.

Not having problems with flashlights, a digital camera, a GPS, and a
Yaesu hand held.

Wes

SNIP
Anybody recall the rayovac "renewal" rechargeable alkalines that maybe
came out around 1995?

They were cheap and decent in performance, then they vanished.


SNIP

Yup. I just bought a charger a few weeks ago for 50 cents at a yard
sale. I'm eventually gonna try it out on standard alkalines.

--
Steve Walker
(remove wallet to reply)

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...


SNIP
Anybody recall the rayovac "renewal" rechargeable alkalines that maybe
came out around 1995?

They were cheap and decent in performance, then they vanished.


SNIP

Yup. I just bought a charger a few weeks ago for 50 cents at a yard sale.
I'm eventually gonna try it out on standard alkalines.

You may know this, but having success at that generally means not letting
the cells drop below 75% of their full charge. If they drop to 50%, you
might get two more charges out of them. Below that, they reportedly won't
recharge much, if at all.

Which isn't bad, for that matter. But experimenters have reported they can
get dozens of recharges out of a standard alkaline if they just keep topping
them off. I tried it around five years ago and I found that it worked pretty
well that way.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:10:05 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:



"We'd be delighted to help you design valid tests," one battery
company representative said. "And we'll look forward to reading
the results around Christmas."


RANT
We don't need tests to show us which is best. We just need the truth.
Mandatory voltage against time and current parametric charts plus self
discharge against temperature charts. The manufacturers must do these tests as
part of development and production testing. Why the hell are they afraid to
advertise the results?


Would anyone buy a partial fill of the gas tank if the pump didn't tell you
how much you were getting?
/RANT

Mark Rand
RTFM