Let's talk about batteries: rechargeables worth it?

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

SWMBO came home from WallyWorld today having bought nearly TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS worth of batteries...AGAIN!
Seems we do this about every other month, buying the bulk pack of AA's, an 8-pack or so of AAA's, and an 8 pack or so of D's.

My children cannot POSSIBLY go through this many batteries every 60 days, can they???  Between CD players, remote controls, flashlights and Gameboys, I just don't think there's any way we can be going through batteries at this rate.  

Has anybody actually done the number crunching to determine whether the Ni-Cads or rechargeables or whatever are truly worth it, and if so, what are the savings you've realized?  Does performance suck, or ?

Finally, are some brands of rechargeables better than others?

Thanks in advance for your patience with the idiot.

Regards,
Fig

[garrettwc]

My children cannot POSSIBLY go through this many batteries every 60 days, can they???  Between CD players, remote controls, flashlights and Gameboys, I just don't think there's any way we can be going through batteries at this rate.

Yes, you can. Those things can burn through the AA's like crazy. I also don't think the current generation of alkaline batteries has as good a shelf life as they used to.

They are cheaper in the long run if you get the good ones. Look for 1500mAH or higher, they will put out more juice longer.

Finally, are some brands of rechargeables better than others?

Yes. I use them for digital cameras which typically have a high drain. Most alkalines are dead after one use. A while back one of the digital camera sites did a torture test of rechargeables and selected the ones they thought performed best.

These came out on top:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103209&cp=&kw=rechargeable+batteries&parentPage=search

IC-3 15 minute rechargeable 2000mAH. They are not a Radio Shack specific brand, they are available elsewhere. But generally the higher the mAH, the more juice.

[Paddy]

YES!  You can get a set of rechargeables and the charger for under $30.  Well worth it.

[P95Carry]

Long term savings with rechargeables are pretty much guaranteed.

NiMh is way to go IMO for best value - NiiCd cells tend to ''memory'' and generally size for size have lower capacity.  The often std AA NiCd was 600 mA - now a NiMh AA can be obtained giving as much as 2000 mA capacity - and these do not memory much - so you can top them off more successfully.

Liithium ion Lithium polymer are the ultimate for sheer size vs capacity and cells are 3V - but - they need care in use and charging, they are expensive and - if fully discharged are done - toss em.

NiMh is way to go IMO - but be sure to use correct charger.

[Ben]

Affirmative. Some stuff, like digital cameras, actually does better on NiMH batteries than on alkalines.

I like the Powerex stuff that these guys sell:

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/rechargeable-batteries.php

[mtnbkr]

The biggest problem I have with NiMH is that they don't hold a charge.  If I charge a set and let them sit for a couple months, they have as little as half a charge by the time I get around to using them.  Kinda makes having more than you can use at once pointless.

Chris

[crt360]

I use rechargeables unless I'm in a hurry and don't have any handy.  They have saved me many times what I'ved paid for them.  I've been using Ray-O-Vac I-C3 AAs for about two years now.  They work better in my digital camera than anything else I've tried.  I've put freshly charged batteries in it, taken 50 shots, put it away for a few weeks, taken another 50 shots, not used it again for a couple of months and still got another 75-100 shots out of the charge.  I was amazed.  Rechargeables do lose a little charge everyday, so it's best to juice them up right before you plan on using them, but if you've got the I-C3 batteries and 15 minute charger it's no big deal.  Sam's had a bunch of Energizer packs with 2300mA AA (8 or 12, can't remember now) and 850mA AAA (4) plus a compact 8-hour charger for around $25.  Wal-mart has the same AA batteries with the 15-minute charger for more, but still not a bad deal.  I've been using 4 of the AA in an old Sony SW radio and they seem to last about twice as long as regular alkaline per charge.  One charge will last much longer than alkaline in things like digital cameras.

[DustinD]

I just bought a much of 2500mah AAs and 1000mah AAAs from http://www.thomas-distributing.com/index.htm

Nimh are much better than the old Nicads.

[zahc]

They can save you hundreds of dollars. One of the things I'm truly amazed at is how people keep buying alkaline cells. It makes no sense.

Wal-Mart 2500mAh Ni-mh=Sanyo=Best deal I've found. Model airplane flyers are making packs out of them because they are cheaper than similar cells marketed for RC.

If you get 9 volt rechargeables, make sure they are a 9.6v variant and not the common 8.4v. Even the 9.6v do not last near as long as alkaline batteries but since they are rechargeable it's so worth it. With the amount of paintball I was playing in the summer rechargeables saved me $$$$. I would just switch them out in the middle of the day and charge them in the car. Everyone else would be sticking their finger in their hopper trying to see if the batteries are still good, not wanting to throw away $5 worth of batteries to make sure. Guess who never had a battery failure all summer. Me.


Also make sure you go to candlepowerforums and check out their battery discharge graphs.

[P95Carry]

An old rule of thumb with NiCd's was - they lose 1% of charge per day ... so at day 1 they are down to 99% - day 2, 98.01, day 3, 97.03 etc - a long exponential decay.  

NiMh seem to drop a bit but then hold way better - my wife uses some 1800 AA NiMh in her (my spare!) dig cam and they will perform well after even quite long periods.

[Ben]

Actually, I haven't gotten into the Lithium Ion rechargeable batts yet. Any of you L-ion users use them in Surefires? How do they hold up relative to non-rechargeables?

[garrettwc]

I like the Powerex stuff that these guys sell:

Yeah, that's the other one from the digital camera website, Powerex. And it looks like they are up to 2500mAH now which gives them a slight edge over the Radio Shack ones. As someone said, get the correct 15 minute charger to go with them and you are set.

[Brian Williams]

I used 3 sets of 4 NiMh AA batteries for my digital camera, they took 17000+ images and 11000+ of those used the flash when it dies after 3.5 years.