Anyone using the low discharge rechargeable hybrid cells? Capacities of the standard AA are now 2500mAh and the AAA are up to 950mAh. I started selling the tagged variation of these about a year ago and now I’ve totally given up selling NiMH tagged cells. So refreshing to build a battery pack for a handheld, take it out of the shack after not using it for 9 months, turn it on and it spring into life.
The capacities aren’t quite as good as NiMH, however they’re not too far off and compared to what was available 10 years ago, they’re the equivalent to a nuclear power station…
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Yes I have certainly experienced some disappointing big brand rechargeable batteries in my cordless phone. Appear to work fine for 6 months and then looks to all intent and purposes as ‘dead’ and will not recharge. I thought it was me just overcharging?
Yes I have certainly experienced some disappointing big brand
rechargeable batteries in my cordless phone. Appear to work fine for 6
months and then looks to all intent and purposes as ‘dead’ and will
not recharge. I thought it was me just overcharging?
Normally, 550mAh AAA cells, which seems to be more or less the industry standard in a DECT/cordless phones these days, last around 3 years although 4 years is not uncommon. The 550mAh Panasonic branded batteries in my Panasonic DECT phones are just about on their way out and they are 4 years old, so your experince of just six months for a set of cells may possibly be down to a fault with the charger in the cradle.
Hybrid batteries should NOT be fast charged, ie, fifteen or or thirty minute superfast chargers should not be used in conjunction with this type of cell …it will cook them.
OF course, another use for hybrids is in digital cameras. There’s nothing more frustrating than pulling your point and shoot out of the drawer six months after you last used it, only to find the NiMHs have self discharged.
My litte Samsung point ‘n’ shoot has two settings in the menu, alkaline or NiMH, even so, once the voltage drops just a fraction on the NiMH cells, it refuses to see them
In these applications, cell life is mainly dependent on the design of the charging circuit rather than the cells themselves. Assuming the cells are decent to start with that is.
When I worked for a DECT baseband hardware/software provider in 2000-2001, the charger was designed to be “none-optimal” so that cells failed sooner and customers bought new handsets rather than realising they only needed new batteries.
In these applications, cell life is mainly dependent on the design of
the charging circuit rather than the cells themselves. Assuming the
cells are decent to start with that is.
Decent cells don’t come cheap. Solar garden lights are a classic example.
People buy half a dozen solar garden lights for a fiver and wonder why the cells fail after just one summer. Over the years, I have sold thousands of “decent” AA and AAA replacement cells for garden lamps and in the case of one of my neighbours, they still running after 5 years. Rechargeable cells out of the pound type shops, are ***‘generally’ junk.
When I worked for a DECT baseband hardware/software provider in
2000-2001, the charger was designed to be “none-optimal” so
that cells failed sooner and customers bought new handsets rather than
realising they only needed new batteries.
Initially, many of the cordless phones used those 3.6 Volt, green heat shrinked battery packs and of course, the genuine replacements cost a small fortune. The phones could have been designed to accept a triple A in the first place, but this meant the manufacturers would not be able to make a fortune out of battery replacements. However, along came the Chinese with a direct replacement for many phones, at just a fraction of the price of the branded products and the phone manufacturers party was over. I still have quite a few of them here, but no-one seems to use them much these days, as the majority of phones seem to use AAA and a few use AA.
*** No doubt, someone will be along to tell me how a set of pound shop type batteries has been powering their Yaesu H/H for the last seven years
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Yes I use LSD NiMH in my FT-817 and other various gadgets.
I own about 60-70 Sanyo Eneloop AA cells which have been in the LSD Nimh market for 4 years.
The charger that I’m using is Maha C9000, 2 hour 1000mA charge rate is a good compromise between ease of use and cycle life.
15min charger shortens the cycle life only to about 100 cycles, which is not bad.
Check http://egsise.hi.fi/kuvat/Batteries/Freezer+test+2009/ if you are interested on which AA battery to choose for outdoors.
Rebrands are not mentioned in that page, so here it is:
Sony CEB made in china is ROV Hybrid(or 4.0 etc)
Sony CEB made in Japan is Sanyo Eneloop
Ansmann is same as Enitime
So basicly it is a test between Eneloop, Hybrid, ReCyko+ and Enitime.
Those were the only LSD NiMH factories at 2009, other brands were just rebrands.
