I use NiMh aaa’s a lot, my remote eats 1 set of 4 weekly.
Why should a person buy Sanyo’s Eneloop ?
Old data said NiMh’s besides require 40+ charge cycles for full mah?
I read many posts about Eneloops, besides the LSD feature what’s the deal?
Currently I use Duracell 900mah in my lights. Duracell AAAand these Vivitar NiMh I’m not happy with the Vivitar NiMh, the Duracells are fine.
I have those duracells as well, no complaints, the eneloops in a remote won’t be a big improvement if any at all. If you had no batteries and were buying some for the first time i’d say go eneloop.
If you were using AA in a light with high current draw, then eneloops are a better deal, lower internal resistance, more charge cycles, lower self discharge.
I think having a smart charger is as important as having a good battery. The duracells are a good battery, the eneloops are better if being stressed.
Addendum: Its possible that the reason they are being eaten is that the remote is expecting alkaline and thinks they are dead because an alkaline would be near dead when a nimh may have 60-80% juice left. This is highly design dependent, a AAA gizmo i had would refuse to run on NiMH because it thought 1.4V was dead.
that does actually suggest it is designed for the higher voltage of alkalines.
theoretically as long as you keep putting power into it until its full the battery should be full (with shortened life because you kept giving it juice beyond full until the timer in the charger turned off)
In practice a smart charger seems to actually top up the battery better, my old canon digital camera won’t use batteries charged with a dumb charger, it says they are empty, but duracell AA lsd (same as your aaa, just in aa format) will work if smart charged till it drops to 80% charge.
The camera seems to be broken in a way that its reading voltages incorrectly, instead of saying 1.15 volts is too low to run the camera its saying ~1.3V is dead and shuts down (ostensibly to protect the battery from over discharge)
Though I have scores of Eneloop AAs all my AAAs are Tenergy. The blue “budget” Tenergy AAAs are ok and they’ve held up well over the couple of years I’ve had them but the capacity is always just at or just below there rating. The Centura LSD version is much better. I have 24 of them and they always test at 820-850 ma, they’re rated at 800.
I agree with Bort that some devices just don’t like NiMH batteries. I have one thermostat that will tell me the batteries need replacement after only a week (Eneloop AAs) though it will continue to function fine for two months.
I also have an outdoor thermometer that takes AAAs, NiMH last a day or two before the unit stops functioning. Fresh Alkys last less than a week, Lithium primarys will work fine for 3 months or so.
I don’t think it’s a particularly high drain device but more of a voltage threshold, once the batteries fall below that point it just stops working.
What I should do is put a set of NiMH in and once it dies recharge and not the remaining capacity.
I have an outdoor thermometer that says the batteries are low within a couple of days, but the batteries will actually last for almost a year (not quite a year).
Eneloops are great, but expensive. If you can find other precharged, LSD batteries for substantially less, they should be fine. I will never buy non-LSD NiMH batteries again. I want the battery to be ready when I am, even if a few months have passed.
I agree your remote is probably expecting higher voltage of alkaline batteries because NiMH’s should last a lot longer than that (unless they are just worn out). I have some devices that won’t run at all on NiMH. It could be a freshly charged NiMH has just enough power, but can’t stay at 1.4V for very long. They will cruise at 1.2V though.
More important than buying Eneloops is buying an adequate charger that charges cells individually, at a reasonable charge rate (at least 1 hour, preferably 2), and cuts off when the battery is full.
My olympus t10 camera has a setting for Alkaline/NiMh.
If it is in Alkaline mode, and working with NiMh, it wil stop functioning after a few shots.
Same battery works about a hundred shots in NiMh mode.
It is a design issue, and the camera has a setting for this.
mine does not, and it worked fine the first few years, i could take almost 400 pictures on a set of NiMH. Now it sometimes says fully charged batteries are dead so i always keep two sets on me. Once i needed a third set just to take the first picture, i was at home so it wasn’t a problem
I have an old Nikon that does that with NiMH. It used to be fine with them but has for a long time only liked the “ultra” variety of Duracell/Energizer alkalines. I have a Canon S95 now but I would like to use the Nikon for some things. I hope it likes Eneloops. :~
eneloops have a relatively high discharge voltage. even at higher currents. cheap cells usually don’t.
I have an old pentax 330gs that works with only 2 aa and the only battery that was able to power that thing was the good old eneloop.
the cells are very forgiving. i have tossed a few of the old ones from 2007 and it felt like losing a friend
Today the on-screen notice, low-batteries
The VOM is in the shop so I put them in mtg iTp a3.
It won’t go on Hi, well it lights up but same output as on.Med.
*Note my Q includes flashylight usage.
Will Eneloops/Tenergy etc lsd’s give more lumens or longer runtime than NiMh’s ?
Long answer
Under a low load there will be little to no difference between an eneloop and a duracell or other decent battery. Remotes fall under this, thats why the batteries last months to years.
Voltage sag occurs when high currents are used, the higher the current, the lower the voltage it comes out of the battery at. This is determined by internal resistance.
So, under high load low internal resistance batteries like the eneloop will have less voltage sag, so for lights or other high current draw applications an eneloop works better.
Alkalines have horrendous high current performance, in my camera for example i would get 50 pics out of alkaline, and 400 from NiMH (2500maH for both).
Low self discharge means if you fully charge a battery, it will drain itself slower when not used. Most NiMH will be dead in 2 weeks to 6 months (roughly), LSD ones can last years before they are completely empty. Hence for remotes or clocks or other longer term applications a lsd battery is far preferable. For a light that you keep in a drawer and use when there is a rare blackout lsd is also needed. If your going to charge it and use it in the light right away or in a few days then you can get away without lsd. However having non lsd batteries is a real pain because in practice it means you have to charge it up everytime you want to use it.
I'm not sure about that ..I know people who actually like the black top china duracells ..I don't bother with them since i have a pretty good source of white top japanese .I have no idea who makes the vivitar ..if the charger is an independant charger the 4 batteries and a charger is hard not to buy for that cheap.
