Yeah I have an Ikea about an hour drive away… Since they are a rip off to order online from anywhere and the shipping is high at $9.99 it’s actually cheaper for me to drive there and pick up a few packs of them batteries at $6.99/ea for 4 packs.
IIRC, the Eneloops and “similar to Eneloops” were tested by someone over at CPF. The non-Eneloops didn’t test as well, especially after many cycles, but are probably close-enough if you can’t get real Japanese Eneloops or they are too pricey.
IMO, if you can get real Eneloops, go for them. They may be more pricey, but it amounts to a small fraction-of-a-penny per cycle.
Same for lithium-ion cells. Get quality name-brand cells from a trusted source. It’s not worth trying to save a buck or two. I just bought another bunch of 18650’s from Illum. Only 4 days to be delivered to Canada, and confident I’m getting genuine cells.
I’ve bought from China before, but there’s a good chance they’re fakes. They also don’t come packaged well from China (you don’t want damaged 18650’s), and it takes about 2 months to get them. Not worth it to save a few dollars. I’ll pay the extra penny per charge to save the hassle.
I believe Japanese Eneloops are actually made by Fujitsu - they own the tech, Panasonic only own the Eneloop brand name. Fujitsu also sell their own branded LSD NiMH cells, which are somewhat cheaper than Eneloops, at least in the UK. I have old Eneloops, made in Japan, and newer Fujitsu cells. I refuse to even touch the made in China stuff.
Fujitsu cost more then Eneloops.
Depends on the sale. Sometimes Newegg has good sales on these Fujitsu cells. I paid $14 for 8 not too long ago.
They are indeed made by Fujitsu, that is AFAIK the only Japanese NiMH battery maker. They are also rebranded as Duracell. To complicate matters, Duracell markets both Japanese and Chinese NiMH cells under the same branding, so make sure you check for Made in Japan on the packet. Prices vary greatly, I’ve bought Eneloops, Fujitsu cells and Duracells at lowish prices on several occasions.
Chinese cells are not bad, but they wear out (degrade) much more quickly. So if you regularly discharge and recharge cells, Fujitsu cells are the way to go. Unless the Chinese ones are cheap, avoid.
So where and how do you usually find these batteries on sale?
Set up an alert on SlickDeals or some other such deal tracking website:
Here is one past deal, as an example:
https://slickdeals.net/f/12719329-fujitsu-8hr-3utgx-ft-u-8-pack-aa-batteries-ni-mh-hi-capacity-13-49-ac-newegg?attrsrc=Test%3AHideExpiredSearch%3AControl&src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1
Thanks did not realize could setup deal alerts there… so got some setup now.
Battery Junction (in CT) is another good retailer I frequent online. Their Eneloop prices seem reasonable compared to the other retailers mentioned.
I’m in England, and I have bought Fujitsu cells from 7 Day Shop, and Duracells from various places, buy the latter are tough to buy as you have to see the wrapper to know where they are made. They are never cheap, but I got them for about £5 for four but that was a few years ago.
That’s not the case in EU.
Fujitsu are usually way cheaper than Eneloops here. At nkon.nl (where many of us buy cells) as example I can get almost 12 black Fujitsu pro batteries for the price of 8 Eneloop pro black batteries most of the time. That’s considerable difference.
NKON is an excellent supplier:
In the UK, there’s also BatteryLogic - the cells cost more than NKON, but there’s free UK delivery, so sometimes cheaper overall, depending on the exact content of your order:
They sometimes do bags of 10 without retail packaging, which is cheaper, although that deal doesn’t seem to be available at the moment.