Batteries

[Daox]

Nimh's are great for most applications I've found. However, they have a very high self discharge rate. They loose about .5-1% of capacity a day! Things like smoke alarms, clocks and other things that have a very low power draw I've traditionally used alkaline batteries for. However, I recently tried 'precharged' or low self discharge nimh cells in a few things and have been very happy so far. They're a specially designed nimh cell with a low self discharge rate. Its still higher than alkaline, but IMO quite acceptable. They only self discharge 15-30% per year (30% = .12% per day to compare).

[euromodder]

I can tell you what not to get :
GP 2700 (2600 mAh) NiMH rechargeable batteries.

Freshly recharged, they're OK for fast discharging things - like a camera flash - but they discharge rather quickly when they're not being used.

Using them in slow-draining equipment seems to kill their ability to be recharged fast (4 in under 20') which unfortunately was the main reason for me to buy them.
Half of my 8 sets of 4 can't be recharged fast any longer, though they still work in the slow charger (8 hours / set).

I've heard good things about the Eneloops, so I'll be trying out a set of those.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by ecomodded

I use the lithium ion rechargeable batteries for my camera and my flashlight, they hold their charge for extended periods of time,and have a bigger charge then the non rechargeable alkaline ones.

What brand are you using ?

With up to 900 flashed photo's a day, I need power
Has anyone used the Sanyo XX range (2500 mAh) ?

[California98Civic]

I have used ONLY NiMH rechargables in radios, flashlights, cameras, ... everything around the house... and they last me sometimes a year or more of recharging. They are especially good for radios. Very good in cameras. I'm confident it saves me money. It certainly spares the landfill. And it spares me thinking about buying batteries all the damn time. Get one of those chargers with slots for each individual cell--one that can handle as many consumer battery types as possible. Very convenient. And the batteries have been getting markedly more powerful year-by-year recently. I bet I'll be looking at 2800s next time I buy. I used to get exited over 2000s.

[Old Tele man]

...if nothing else, they are, at least, very colorful!

[linger]

LOL,

that 5th aniversary glitter package is quite a sight.
I usually go for the more sedate packaging,

htt p://accessories.dell.c
om/sna/products/Accessories/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&cs=cadhs1&sku=A095868 0&baynote_bnrank=3&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSea rch

In essence though, yes that's it. Notice a graphic, a circle with an arrow around it sort of like the recycling logo: the text reads 'recharges up to 1500 times,' suggesting that that one cell, used to the limit, will keep 1500 primary batteries out of the landfills.
What I like about eneloops is that I would use them solely based on their performance advantage alone.

re: Sanyo eneloop XXX (2500mah) - These are hard to come buy. They are a heavy lifting version of the regular 2000mah eneloops.
Sanyo also made a 'lite use' version called eneloop tone's, which were half capacity at 1000mah, there were targeted towards long use low drain applications like alarm clocks, stereo remote controls. The prices I saw for the 'lite' version was comparable to the regular eneloops, so I just bought more regular ones.

I understand people not wanting to put eneloops in mission critical components where they want to put in a battery and forget about it, though I think anything you want to forget about may suffer from that neglect later on (e.g. alarm clock back-up). Another approach is just to pop all your eneloops in the charger at least once a year to appease the gods of low-self-discharge and all the low-drain / no-drain devices should be functional for another year.

***Duraloops *** If you are feeling comfortable with what I've rambled on about so far, there is another excellent packaged lsd nihm cell out there, so called the duraloops: these are re-badged eneloops, made in the same factory and providing identical performance. There is a caveat however, Duracell sells two nearly identical lsd nihm's, same green duracell wrapper on different batteries inside.

Good = 'made in Japan,' white top duracell precharged nihm
Bad = 'made in china,' black top between the positive terminal and the top of the duracell copper coloured top wrapping.

(nothing at all about these two places of origin, however for the context of this post the distinction is VITAL: all my black chinese made duracell nimh's stopped holding a charge and were retired within a year. All of my eneloops (and duraloops) are performing like new and some of them are three years old.)

Best,
Linger

[Old Tele man]

...ironically, I go through too many AA and AAA batteries for my weather station remote sensors!

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by linger

re: Sanyo eneloop XXX (2500mah) - These are hard to come buy. They are a heavy lifting version of the regular 2000mah eneloops.

They don't come cheap, but are readily available here.