AA and AAA Batteries

Hi John. Energizer Lithium from ebay. If you serch around you can find them for under $2 each. Cant beat them for life usage and shelf life as well. Cheers,Bob

I have a stack of rechargable NiHi 1250mah AAA and 3000mah AA batteries that I take away and just recharge as required via a 12v cigarette socket charger - works great.

Garry

Yes we started accumulating things that require both sizes years ago. I went down the rechargeable Nimh route for a while but after a few started to leak when a couple of years old gave them away and went back to plain old alkalines.
Currently just buy the big jumbo (24 or 30) Varta ones from Bunnings or the Jaycar bulk packs, pretty cheap and last well for the dollar value.

Choice or someone similar did a comparison a while back and the cheapies from Coles came out the best bang for your buck

I am finding the varta lasting longer than anything else, especially in the camera. Good value for money.
regards

Hi John - looks like it is a common problem, never seem to have enough around.

My latest problem is the purchase of a recent set of rechargeables 'Sanyo eneloops' AAA and I think they are meant to be lithium, but highly reommended at the time.

This follows rechargeable Sanyos (reasonable), Duracells (Coles and not up to scratch), Cam-Plus (okay for some time), Sony (reasonable) to name the ones I can recall.

Got the 'eneloops' fully charged and whacked them in a radio that runs on either 4 x AAA or C cells - and the radio clearly states 6v requirement.

Worked fined on the store bought standard C cells, but when switched over to the AAA eneloops, the battery resgister showed the charge as only 50%.

On examination if find they are marked 1.2v - as opposed the the store bought standard batters which show 1.5v. So that has led me to check the earlier Sanyo AA & AAA rechargeable (Ni-Mh 2300's) which I was happy with for my initial venture into rechargeables, but are over the hill now - and I now notice they also have 1.2v displayed

Caught out again darn it.

Just can't fathom why a lower voltage than the standard 1.5v would be out there in the market.

Will examine the fine print more closely infuture.

Cheers - Phil

Hi JB

I too use rechargeables. I have a charger than does 2 or 4 of either AA or AAA, with 12 v cord as well, but i find it better to use 240v on the inverter as the 12 v takes forever to charge. When at home it sits on the kitchen bench as it gets used alot. I got it from Hong Kong eBay 8 or 10 years ago. I find the throw away batteries don't work most cameras. I mostly use Varta 2500s - easy to get from Coles or Woolworths. If i can't get them i get Energiser rechargeables. These rechargeables don't hold their power al that well if left after being charged, so charge them up again before use.

Motherhen

J B

The consensus was done and dusted when Member OZHUMVEE gave you the 'gen' on Bunnings VARTA Mega Packs.

You use them, abuse them and chuck them out when dead.

Also for those with a few smarts and manual dexterity, the end of the Mega Packs can be modified with a box cutter/stanley knife so that you have a dispenser pack & and they all stay nice and tidy.

AND - wait for it!

No poxing charger that either goes missing, doesn't work or gets tangled up with other cables etc etc.

Bunnings and China is God's gift to this world.

DD

I use only NmHi rechargeables.

Energizer have a 240/12volt charger pack at most Big W stores or Coles supermarkets, that just keeps plugging along, but Aldi seem to be the cheapest batterys.

Can be charged whilst driving along,
East as !

Cheers
Bucky

John,
I think this is a question that has to be asked and answered, for you to decide on one option you may wish to follow.

My experience over the years with rechargeable batteries is they have had failed prematurely and cost quite a lot of money. Maybe the chargers were the problem (had three all with the same result). Also the chargers were set for the correct battery type. They may have improved the batteries and or chargers.

I one or two others also have had trouble with rechargeable batteries.
Others may have had a different experience with them.

May you be all charged with energy today,
RA.

I bought a supposed high power LED caplight from China on ebay a few weeks ago and was a little disappointed at the light output.
It came with batteries included and I decided to change the 3 AAA's in case they were a bit flat.

While changing to Energizers, I noticed the 3 AAA's in the caplight were roughly 10% thinner than the Energizers.
The new battieries made the caplight much brighter, but the point is that I saw a difference in the thickness of the AAA's.
Maybe that is why some of the batteries don't last as long, not as much storage capacity in them. Similar to a car battery I guess.

cheers

Dave

G'day John, for the last 10 years or so I have used only Dick Smith's bright orange - DSE NiMH 2200mAh AAA & AA. Last a very long time & come with a 12v/240v 1 hour charger. Great for high draw things, I originally tried them all in 1998 for my original Garmin GPS (before navigators - which I still use) & after trying then the DSE's won hands down. As for the alkaline I found the copper top Duracell seem to be the best. A bit more confusion for you! hope it helps....hoo roo

We always store small batterys in the fridge,both types,will hold charge much longer
ken

Fantastic responses everyone. More than enough input to chew on.

Hope it's been helpful to others as well.

Cheers.

I have not tried this myself but it sure seems like a money saver on battery's

Don't want to spend a wad of cash on AA batteries to power your gadgets? Trim down your spending by cracking open the case of a single 6 volt battery which sells for about $5. Inside you'll find a whopping 32 AA batteries! Considering that you can get 8 watch batteries from a 12-volt battery and 6 AAA batteries from a 9-volt battery, this isn't surprising, but since AA batteries are the most popular among the three, this should yield considerable savings.

Just a throught.
Cheers

Steve.B....

Gday John,
Just wondering what you are using that chews thru alkaline batteries?

Generally:
Rechargables (NiCad and NiMH) are good for high current draw applications (eg cameras, RC cars, UHF radios, drills etc). They can deliver more amps, and you may even get enough use to save a few $$. The downside is they self-discharge at a higher rate than alkalines, so you usually find they go flat over a couple of months. And when they discharge, the voltage suddenly drops to nothing. Some items don't like the lower voltage (actually about 1.25-1.4V). There is a lot of difference between brands. Eneloop batteries are very good but are best with the 240V Eneloop charger and can die an early death if used on a conventional NiNH charger. Energiser, Sanyo and Panasonic rechargables are good. The unlabelled rechargables can be hit and miss.
Lithium rechargable batteries are not cheap, but are very, very good. But I haven't used them much myself.

Alkalines are good for low current applications (eg LED lights, and things like UHF radios that are only used occasionally) because they have a very low self discharge rate, and they don't suddenly lose voltage when they go flat, so you have more warning.

When I brought my old camera I specifically went for one that took AA batteries, I figured I could use re-chargeables and I could take regular spares as well when camping.
The thing I found was like some others, the rechargeables didn't seem to last that long and inevitably the spare set (which had been fully charged but not used for a while) always happened to be flat or next to flat when I needed them.

So now it's stuff like mobile phones which can be charged via cigarette lighter, or stuff that takes regular AA and AAA's...generally use Energiser or whatever, don't tend to buy cheap cheap packs mainly because we got a whole bunch on special at the Good Guys once only to find after that they were past the use by date and not much good! I know that's different than just buying cheap brands, but make sure you check the date (didn't think to and stickers were stuck over it anyway I think)

I guess the old saying..if it seems to good to be true it probably is!

Generally batteries seem to last ok for us with the exception of most Dolphin torches I've had, the 9v batteries in them always seem to go flat without use for some reason! I've got better AAA type torches since that!