I just received 8 of these and ran a 500 ma discharge on them to check the capacity before giving them a charge. They were all between 521 and 529 mah in capacity (using my maha mh-c9000 charger). Average was 525.5 mah. Considering that they are rate at 750 mah capacity they held 70% of the total capacity. They were manufactured in “2014 10” so I assume October 2014.
These batteries are likely eneloops according to at least one review on Amazon. I got them through amazon.ca and they were the best deal on a good quality aaa rechargeable that I could find.
In the description they claim that they hold a 70% charge after 3 years.
I’m currently charging them and will run another 500 ma discharge test on them to check the fully charged capacity. It will be interesting to see if they perform similarly to the eneloops recently tested by HKJ in this thread:
I would be amazed if they are eneloops - Amazon reviewers aren’t exactly the most reliable. Amazon.uk sell a pack of eight of these for £10.99, which isn’t that different from the 4th gen. eneloop price.
I have some results after charging them and leaving them after they were full for about 2 hours on my maha charger. It is supposed to bring them up to full charge in that two hours.
range for the 8 cells was 714 to 729 and the average capacity was 722 mah.
I have a suspicion that my maha isn’t charging these to the max so am in the process of charging them with my eneloop 2 bay usb charger. Will run another set of discharges after that.
Dimensions of the cells:
- length - 44.21 cm
diameter - 10.12 cm (right angles to wrapper seam) and 10.34 across the seam
Regarding them possibly being eneloops there is a decent review on amazon.com by Nlee (the engineer) in which he gives his reasons for believing them to be 2nd generation eneloops. Considering that the white topped duracell precharged cells are believed to be “rewrapped” eneloops it seems likely that these may be the same. However it is always possible that there are changes between these and eneloops under the wrappers and it would be difficult to be sure. Another couple of things I find in common are that both brands advertise that they are charged with solar and both are made in Japan.
I don’t have any aaa eneloops for comparison - just some older aaa “duraloops”.
I’ll continue to run more discharges and perhaps try a couple in my hobby charger to see what the results are. I’m a bit disappointed with the above results however it could be that using a different charger and a couple of more cycles will bring the results up closer to the 800 mah mark.
I would think, to know if they are eneloops, they would have to go through discharge tests, to see how many amps they will discharge at and for how long, compared to how the voltage drops. The only reason eneloops are "so good", is that they will handle higher discharge rates for longer than most other NiMH cells. Otherwise, there are plenty of good cells for low drain applications and with higher milliamp hour ratings.
If they are eneloops, then presumably the Amazon Basics High Capacity are the XX version. These are available tomorrow as an Amazon.uk “Deal of the Day”, starting at 9.00am GMT. Normal price for the AAA £7.99 - won’t know the deal price until the morning.
One thing I did notice about the Amazon reviews is that many are “Vine Customer Review of Free Product”.
These aren’t available at all on Amazon.ca - although I did see them on Amazon.com. We don’t tend to have as much choice in Canada - at least with regards batteries.
I’m leaving the 8 aaa cells till morning and will do another discharge. They have been charged with my dual bay usb charger rather than the maha c9000 so will see if that improves the capacity.
I’ll likely do a 1 amp discharge at a later date just to see how they hold up. If anyone has any other requests for testing I’ll see what I can do.
I left these overnight after charging them on my 2 bay sanyo usb charger. The first 4 have now been discharged at 500 ma.
Results are:
718, 720, 733 and 735 mah. Average for these 4 is 726.5 mah. It is possible that cycling these (or using the different charger) has raised the capacity a bit but will have to wait for the results for the second set to be sure.
I did notice that the maha c9000 did take the voltage down below 1.0 volts (around .96 or so) before finishing the discharge however it is my understanding that it normally discharges them to 1.0 volts.
The second set of 4 are now being discharged and I will post the results later today.
Range for the 8 cells: 716 to 737 mah.
Average for the 8 cells: 724.75 mah.
I’m now recharging these and will do the following:
- 4 cells at 1000 ma discharge
4 cells at 300 ma discharge (to see if they have come up in capacity since the first cycle).
Will also charge 4 of my older duraloop aaa cells and do a 500 ma discharge to see see what the capacity is. They haven’t been used hard or very much but are at least 3 years old.
Yes I’m a bit disappointed as I was hoping they would have an appreciably higher capacity than the energizer recharge power plus I bought a week or two ago. See tests on them here:
On the other hand they seem very similar to the eneloops as tested by HKJ (see below). His results for the “Eneloop AAA HR-4UTGB 750mAh (White)” show 724 mah at a 200 ma discharge and 714 mah at a 500 ma discharge. The eneloops are rated at a capacity between 750 and 800 mah.
I’ve just finished a 1000 ma discharge test on 4 of the 8 batteries (amazonbasics white aaa’s):
716, 719, 720, and 732 mah - average is 721.75 mah.
HKJ’s results for the eneloops show 706 mah at a 1000 ma discharge. So it appears that these are quite comparable.
This isn’t really related however might be of interest:
I did a 500 ma discharge of some older but moderately used Duraloop aaa’s and got the following results:
704, 713, 717 and 722 mah - average is 714 mah.
(edit note: I charged these first then left them several hours before doing the discharge)
Conclusions:
The amazonbasics aaa’s (white) that I recently purchased are very similar in capacity and ability to discharge as the eneloops tested by HKJ in the thread noted above. I won’t know about their LSD ability until they have been sitting for some time and I doubt I’ll do that as I need to put the batteries to use soon. Without a lot more testing I can’t be sure that they are or are not made in the same factory to the same specs as the eneloops but at this point I’m not very concerned about that. In their own right they are quite decent batteries and should be well up to any application I use them for.
One thing to keep in mind is that Amazon may change suppliers or specs without making big changes to the appearance of the batteries and descriptions. For example Duracell did this some time ago in that some of their LSD cells were changed from being made in Japan to being made in China (white vs black top). Buyer beware!
One further test I will perform (it still bothers me that these cells are showing lower than advertised capacity) is use my hobby charger to discharge a couple of them down to .9 volts at a 200 ma discharge. I have to test them one at a time and it will take a few hours each so the results won’t be available till late today.
I will also post a summary table of the results noted in the previous posts.
Great information! I think I will go for it. A lot of my cells are pretty old, maybe relegate them to kids toys.
Just need to find stuff to make the $25 free shipping (trying to resist another Thrunite. With the exchange their are a few great deals!).
Gunga - glad to be of service. Shipping was about $3.50 or so since I didn’t have enough to get free shipping. For anything in Canada that’s very reasonable.
Are you using an Accucel 6 or a clone of it? Mine understates discharge capacity by 8% - 10% (as compared to my Opus). Others have reported the same issue with their hobby chargers.
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