Ikea ladda ready to use

I recently bought some IKEA LADDA "ready to use" NiMHs. The local price was 4.99 and 6.99 euros per pack of 4(AAA and AA respectively) which I find reasonable in comparison. Still quite expensive and a huge mark up. But that's how the market is. There must be like 3 or 4 people in a small country such as Finland who know what a "LSD NiMH" is, and such a product's selling point is just "being ready for use". The typical battery shelf in a humongous hypermarket will have a couple of overpriced packs of CR123's and primary lithium AA's hidden somewhere between about 2 tons of expensive Duracell alkaleaks.

It's always sad when it actually makes sense to buy something from IKEA. The batteries had very consistent voltage in initial check, within a few millivolts from each other. I don't have an analyzing charger, but will take the word(including HKJ test data) for these being good batteries.

True. If that's the criteria in, say, Canada and U.S, someone like Amazon just might be selling the same Chinese batteries as Japanese. IKEA has to declare "made in China" as such fraud would be very illegal in many countries that have stricter rules for consumer protection. They buy in very massive bulk after all, and sell pretty much the same stuff globally. That's kinda their trademark.

Yes, that is the rule in North America and some European countries, but Chinese companies have now caught on too so they are now setting up shops in Europe making products with Chinese materials and workers and put the Made in Italy and Made in Switzerland so they can charge more for their finished goods. If you drink apple juice or take Vitamin B, it is 99% sure it is made in China, but the bottle will say made in your country ! …LoL

isn’t this a swedish copy of a fiat?

They own Volvo too and made it better ! …LoL

Ha, clever. The product name actually has a very negative tone to it unless one first associates it with the Swedish verb.

Are they making these anymore? Seems like the stock in my local Ikea is still from 2013.

I suspect they make them in huge batches, when needed. And if they still have plenty of old stock, no need to make more in a hurry.

I got these recently:

The left pack is made 2013-08-12 and the right pack is made 2014-12-02.

I bought three packs and two of them were made in 2014.

I recently bought 3 packs in 1 store, which had production dates 2015-04-01, 2015-04-09 and 2015-05-12 (specifically picked packs with different dates).
The voltage as out of the pack was 1.283V-1.285V, with the newest ones actually having the lowest voltage.
The initial discharge test using a BC-700 at 350 mA resulted in around 1397 mAh to 1447 mAh (calculated from the time it took to switch to charging), again with the newest pack was at the lower end.
After that I did a capacity test, also with 350 mA current, which resulted in mostly values of 2.18 Ah to 2.21 Ah, just one outlier with 2.11 Ah.

4 days later I did a discharge test of the pack that had the battery with the lower capacity in it. That resulted in capacities of 1965 mAh to 2034 mAh. So the BC-700 capacity test, which discharges right after a charge terminates, seems to show a bit high value. I don’t think I’ve done a similar test with Eneloops, so not sure whether that’s normal, or that these cells have a bit high initial self discharge. About 8% in 4 days seems a bit much, as johnnydoe measured a bit under 14% in 1 month. These are the new type with 3 vent holes of course, so it could be that these have a higher self discharge.

Ikea has new LADDA batteries.

They are now of a higher capacity and made in japan. White button top, 4 vent holes. 500 charge cycles.

They are more expensive. The old ones where €3,99 (both AA and AAA) The new ones are €5,99 for AAA and €6,49 for AA

The store I went to still had old AAA’s but no more old AA’s
The website isn’t showing the new ones yet.

I also bought a usb battery charger. VINNINGE They claim it will shut off when batteries are full and has temp protection. 2 slots, 5V 0,5A input, output: 1.4V 0.22A(2xAA) 1.4v 0.11A(2xAAA). Paid €2,49 for it.

From what I can find they will come with more products, including a 12bay AA/AAA charger with LCD in april. At least in the netherlands.

Interesting news, the design is very simple…
Maybe you could post some pictures of the cell itself so that we can compare them with eneloops…

They probably ARE “Eneloops”… rebranded. I think I read that the Japanese “Eneloop” factory sells also to other brands. Yet Panasonic has moved to making some of the Eneloop brand cells in China using their own lesser chemistry. How dumb can they be? :-/

The Amazon Basic Seem also have the same Specs and are made in japan…so you are right with the relabeled cells.

I have just bought a pack of 8xAA and 8xAAA white eneloops for 30€, so I have plenty of cells right now. Before I ordered I checked the different available cells.
The Amazon nimh were more expensive so I went with the original cells.
The ladda nimh here(Germany) cost 3.99€ for AAA and 4.99€ for AA. So it is/was in my eyes a very good ratio of price/value.

It can be fun to try different brands, but I stick with Eneloops. Yes, they’re more expensive than other brands, but they perform and last forever. I’m still using some I bought in 2006, and they perform almost as good as new ones (90% capacity at 2 amp discharge). Not bad for 1st-generation 10 year old cells. When you factor in the per-cycle cost or per-year cost, Eneloops are still dirt-cheap. The only thing cheaper is disposable alkalines in low-drain devices where they will last for years, but you have to gamble they won’t leak.

The newer Eneloops from Panasonic are not as good anymore. Not the same as when it was Sanyo.

I’ve already had one bad cell from newer batch, and that is Japan cell. Add to account that I never abuse my NiMH.

Also, Ladda is quarter the price of Eneloop here. That’s a lot of incentive to switch.

Curious to see how these will compare up to the Eneloop of the same capacity in tests.

Very interesting, Ikea has had their Ladda on sale with a get it before its gone sign, i checked on google iff a replacement weas planned but found nothing. Obviously they were going to release these but made no announcement anywhere. I bought a pack for their low price and usability in situations where i don’t want to lose any good eneloop.

I have no doubt these will be great performers again. I also have a bunch of eneloops, but these ladda’s are at a great price level and easy for me to get. For true “life or death” situations I’d trust my eneloops more, but for the rest I have no problem abusing the ladda’s.
The previous version did a great job and even outperformed eneloops with a slight margin at lower currents (I believe eneloop won at 1A and above, or maybe 2, not sure)

I don’t think I will give these the same test as I did with the previous version, so I hope HKJ will test this new version.

I will post some close up photo’s later.
Busy day, still have to get them out of their packaging.

It would be interesting to see how they perform at currents of 5 or 6 amps. My Zebralight SC5 uses that level of current on max, and I’ve found that Eneloops handle it well. If Ladas can do that as well, I might give them a try and see how they stand up to abuse (high drain, fast charge).

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