ENERGIZER Ultimate Lithium "NO LEAK" Guarantee - mine leaked! What's your take?

Those are not random leaky batteries. They come out of the same box, are from the same batch.
Dodgy batch, dodgey wholesale or dodgey seller?
OCD as I am, I keep inventory of all my lights with their batteries, and just have checked all L92’s.

I buy all my Energizer Ultimates from NKON (NL) and all are Made in Singapore batteries.
They have dates on them ranging from 03-2027 till 12-2036 and they are all okay.
Only one wrap came a bit off and I know why (DIY potting of my Boney with smelly house hold glue :person_facepalming:

They are genuine Energizer Ultimate Lithium…so dogey wholesale or seller is out of the picture.

It’s a real bad batch…bringing down with it its vaunted ‘Guaranteed Not to Leak’ tag line.

Well, I just paid $30 for 2 packs of 12 cells at Target just a few hours ago. I use them as back up primaries in my Surefire Titan and my Surefire Titan Plus. I usually run AAA Eneloop pros. I bought these cells for emergency use and I don’t want to ruin a $60 light and a $90 light.

Now I have (32) AAA Energizer Ultimate Lithium cells. I already had 8 cells. I hope don’t leak in the lights. They are made in* Singapore* and they are* EXP. 2037*

Also, I noticed something strange about them. Around the top portion of the cells they seem “weak” meaning if I put them in my 12 cell “store a cell”, they get dented pretty badly. Some of them also came with deep lines , like dents around portions of the top of the cell. I would say about half of them. It is as if you were to put your thumbnail on the cell and press medium hard. These are quite deep markings.

I don’t know what to think about these cells now.

Unfortunate to read this thread. A few years ago I bought a bunch of Energizer MAX AA and AAA alkaline batteries that had the Powerseal guarantee against leaks, and put them in all my remote controls. Today I found 2 of those remotes had leaks. Seems like every few years I find something with leaking batteries. I’m absolutely sick and tired of this. Can’t believe in this day and age with all our technological advances we still have to deal with this.

I saw on another web page that the Energizer lithium batteries don’t leak, but this thread proves that’s not the case either. I have some Eneloop batteries that people say don’t leak, but I found a couple pages with people saying they leak too. And you’re saying they won’t work well in remote controls either anyway.

Guess I’ll have to try to get into the habit of putting batteries in only when I need to and then removing them after each use. Annoying, but better than having to throw away a ruined device.

The thing is, lithium primaries leak because of a lack of a seal, not because the casing gets destroyed in the case of alkaline and zinc carbon cells.

The problem is, they shouldn’t leak for obvious reasons, and if they do, it’s much worse than alkaline cells, since the electrolyte is quite toxic and dangerous.

Eneloops also can’t leak at all, since they have a non aqueous electrolytes during normal usage.
The only way for Eneloops to leak would be overcharge or very bad QC simply put.

Hmmm. Energizer cells are claimed not to leak, and yet they leaked! We should ask Mr Energizer about this…

Yep, I have been using Eneloops since 2006 & never had one leak. Never had one go bad yet either… including the many bought in 2006.

To me… that is hard to beat.

So far…. I have never had any problems powering any of ‘my devices’ with Eneloops either.

They last forever in cameras too.

He would probably just say… “I do not recall.” … :person_facepalming: … :smiley:

Eneloops leak if you pull too much current from them (over 10A from AAs). There are reports on CPF regarding this.

1. Your volt-meter is off. They can’t have that much. No standard AA/AAA cell must exceed 1.6V. The only ones that are an exception are the Ni-Zn which charge up to 1.8. Your meter is probably low battery itself.

2. Any brand cal leak if conditions are satisfied. To state otherwise is just marketing. Yes, you an improve your process and have fewer problems but you cannot fairly state the impossible. No-one will use state-of-the-art materials for something that is considered one-time-use (as in non-rechargeable).

As a note: I just got 12 arcas AAAs from storage. 1 leaked the second day and the 3rd day was already a disaster but still maintained it’s voltage at 1.57V. The rest are fine.

My own (painful) experiences are that as far as alkaleaks, Duraleak and Enerleakers are the worst of the lot, barring no-name crap cells given away with a free tank of gas or whatever.

Rayovacs hardly ever leaked on me at all, like, ever, and I unearthed a coupla 40pax from years ago, and they’re still universally good. Think I used up most of ’em.

Also, the old Rat Shack cells (green on all-black, not orange on all-white) were similar, near-zero leaks as far as I recall. The white/orange ones are okay, still way less likely to leak than Ds/Es, but I’ve had more leaks with them lately just sitting in the packages, so I have to watch them.

Ironic, as just last week or so I had to hammer out a swollen+leaking AAA from my Ultratac, and one of a pair of AAs in… think it was my Luxpro light… also took a dump. I think the AAA was a Duraleak and the AA was a white/orange Rat Shack.

I kinda gave up on UltLiths after having a (1×AA) light turn on in my pocket and burn down the cell uselessly. Was like 5bux down the toilet for nothing. Figure if one’s gonna burn down for nothing, might as well be a cheap cell than a pricey one.

li primaries do exceed 1.6v open circuit.

I’d guess someone found a way to cut a few pennies off the construction cost for the Singapore Energizer lithium primaries.
Maybe buying thinner metal for a slightly thinner case, or eliminate a step in production that improved the seal.

I just opened a blister pack of four Energizer Ultimate Lithium AAAs.
12-2035, and three out of four were dead. One tested just fine.

It seems inevitable that cheeseparing will slowly degrade any originally well built product.

Cha Bu Do.

Quality fade.

Been using them for years, and to be honest, never had a single problem with them. All my AA flashlights have them, my bicycle tail light (has two), and have used them in my Son’s wireless Xbox controllers that can suck an eneloop dry in a day.

Made in Singapore

bad batch?
counterfeits?

So is there any news on this topic? Has Energizer found a better manufacturer outside of Singapore?
Anyone had any luck, good or bad, buying Energizer lithium primaries?

I was about to go to the local Target to stock up as I’ve depleted my earthquake supply cache, then I wondered, what will I get at what price?

Still mfg in Singapore. Not sure what difference that makes. I use them exclusively in all my limited use AAA/AA devices, especially stuff that lives in my vehicle year round. Never had an issue, and my EUL loaded lights or devices always fire right up no matter how long they’ve sat. The peace of mind is worth the extra expense. YMMV.

I know the OP in this thread is pretty ancient & a few chimed in back in 21’, but i couldn’t help but notice nobody mentioned what looked kinda obvious to me.

If you check out the picture of the remote showing the open bays, look closely at the covers guide channel on the right side. It looks as if it either incurred some sort of liquid ingress that caused corrosion, or the cells leaked so bad that even the guide channel way outside the cell’s bay is glistening in something wet or greasy. Not to mention the large openings in the cell bays allowing whatever it was that ingressed to seep deeper beyond the bays & into the remote. This could also help highlight why the remote stopped working all together.

The other two batteries in this 4 pack were said to have been placed in a tackle box… It wouldn’t be crazy to suggest a tackle box sees a lot of water, albiet fresh or salt, either way it promotes corrosion on metal. Add a tad of electricity somehow & that corrosion process happens much faster than it would naturally.

The same goes for the guy who used them in his outdoor sprinkler timer, I’d wager that’s a pretty moisture rich environment. All you need there is a cheap unsealed cover or a misplaced seal & you got corrosion city. Just open your kids new AA powered squirt gun next summer, you’ll see.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’ve had Alki’s leak on me plenty of times (I actually just cleaned out a forgotten 2AA old Innova an hour ago). However, I’ve never had the Ultimate Lithiums leak & I’ve never had discharge from traditional alki’s climb up & out of the cells bay… And the only times my devices have become inoperable afterwards, was after the contacts crystalized, corroded & then completely snapped off, which wasn’t the case in this remote. Battery leakage or something else, I’m sure the large openings in the cell bays had contributed to it’s demise.

Again, I bring this up not to poke or prod, but only cuz I’m surprised nobody else mentioned or asked about the glistening residue way outside the cell bay & it has me rather curious…

Now, with all that said, Im pretty sure that I have… but who knows, maybe I just haven’t had the “full” alkaleak experience yet.

They will give you two new batteries.