Rechargeable batteries

[Tobra]

Fair chance that all the NiMH batteries are made in the same factory in China.

[Cajundaddy]

I have been using Eneloop AA and AAA for 5 years. Excellent for camera strobes, electric motors, solar lighting, flashlights, telescope mounts and just about anything. They never leak, last 2x as long as alkaline, and are good for 2000 charge cycles. A no-brainer at this point for me.

https://www.geckoandfly.com/10056/rechargable-aa-and-aaa-nimh-batteries-comparison/

[dad911]

Originally Posted by Jims5543

I have one of those key code front door dead bolts. Normal throw away Duracell type batteries were going dead every 4 months or so. ...........

Check for smooth operation. A little binding will raise current draw considerably.

[wdfifteen]

My son uses white Eneloops in his video equipment. He has 16 on plain chargers and 4 on a La Cross maintainer all the time. He has tried black Eneloops, but swears by the cheaper white ones.

[red-beard]

I hardly use anything with standard batteries, except remotes.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

My son uses white Eneloops in his video equipment. He has 16 on plain chargers and 4 on a La Cross maintainer all the time. He has tried black Eneloops, but swears by the cheaper white ones.

Another vote for Eneloops. I use them in anything that needs a standard cell.

[wdfifteen]

Having a really good charger/maintainer is as important as the battery. Also having a cheap charger is good too. I ran some Eneloops completely and totally dead and a high end smart charger wouldn't even recognize them as batteries. I stuck then in a cheap charger that just shoved current into them and got a little charge in them. Then the smart charger took over and brought them back to a decent charge, then ran a "refresh" cycle on them and they were like new.

[grant lyon]

+1 on eneloops. The only issue is for some items that expect a constant 1.5V, e.g. simple motor driven devices, you may not get much run time per charge since the NiMH droop relatively quickly to IIRC 1.3V even though the cells hold steady at 1.3 V for a long time. Example, blood pressure monitor electric motor won't operate at <1.4 V. Other devices with good regulation circuits, e.g. better LED flashlights, compensate and are happy with NiMH.

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by grant lyon

+1 on eneloops. The only issue is for some items that expect a constant 1.5V, e.g. simple motor driven devices, you may not get much run time per charge since the NiMH droop relatively quickly to IIRC 1.3V even though the cells hold steady at 1.3 V for a long time. Example, blood pressure monitor electric motor won't operate at <1.4 V. Other devices with good regulation circuits, e.g. better LED flashlights, compensate and are happy with NiMH.

It's actually more complicated than this. No AA battery puts out a constant 1.5VDC for very long and the higher the current draw (strobes, flashlights, electric motors) the more a NiMH will outperform an Alkaline battery in terms of both higher voltage output and mA hrs. The one place Alkaline still perform well is in TV remotes or Multi Meters where the current draw is very low. Still it puts the test equipment at risk if an Alkaline battery leaks and damages the meter.

http://eneloop101.com/batteries/eneloop-test-results/