Non-motoring > When do you chuck rechargeable's Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Rudedog Replies: 20
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New Wed 1 May 13 23:18 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Rudedog
At what point do others decide to renew their rechargeable batteries? I've got quite a few AA's and although they show a good reading on my small battery meter they are quite old and battered, unfortunately for me a few of the items I use them in only use 3 AA's and my charger will only charge an even number of batteries at a time, this means that there's a good chance that I'm unintentionally not rotating them and so some are being used more often than others.

I'm tempted to buy a new set of 8 and number them and start again and dump my old ones, just seems a shame, most claim to have a 1000 charges but I'm sure I'm no where near this number.
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New Thu 2 May 13 06:53 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - WillDeBeest
How many do you have? I have dozens of AAs and quite a few AAAs, and I've not had to discard one yet. (The NiCd batteries are a different matter, but they've all gone now.) I occasionally think of numbering them but I've never bothered.

£8 will get you a charger that will do any number from one to four, and the batteries themselves are only about a pound each, so holding a surplus is really no problem.
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New Thu 2 May 13 08:23 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Cliff Pope
I use a voltmeter, and periodically cull my stock as follows:

1) Test the voltages of those sitting in the spares box. Those that are low, eg less than 1 volt, are probably not very good at holding their charge. Put them in a pending pile.

2) Work through the stock charging them up, then measure the voltages. Those that have both kept their voltages in storage and give a high reading after recharge are good.
Those that fail to respond, or improve their voltage significantly I chuck.


After swapping over batteries from use, I always recharge them before putting them back in the spares box. Then in due course proceed to (1).
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New Thu 2 May 13 09:44 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Zero
>> I use a voltmeter, and periodically cull my stock as follows:
>>
>> 1) Test the voltages of those sitting in the spares box. Those that are low,
>> eg less than 1 volt, are probably not very good at holding their charge. Put
>> them in a pending pile.
>>
>> 2) Work through the stock charging them up, then measure the voltages. Those that have
>> both kept their voltages in storage and give a high reading after recharge are good.
>> Those that fail to respond, or improve their voltage significantly I chuck.
>>
>>
>> After swapping over batteries from use, I always recharge them before putting them back in
>> the spares box. Then in due course proceed to (1).

Good lord, how anal are you lot. Numbering batteries? rotation? checking voltages? pending piles? Get a life.

I buy eneloop. Charge them in pairs. Its that simple.
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New Thu 2 May 13 09:46 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Alanovich
I buy disposables. That's even easier.
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New Thu 2 May 13 09:59 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - CGNorwich
Must say I do. Did try re-chargeables once but too much faffing about. 32 Duracell AA for £11.39 at the moment on Amazon.
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New Thu 2 May 13 10:18 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Cliff Pope
>> >> Charge them in pairs. Its that simple.
>>

Unless you take the item out of use while the batteries are recharging, you need spare batteries. There are dozens of gadgets around the place, some needing 1,2,3 or 4 batteries.
So you need quite a lot of spares, and when you put say 3 run-down batteries into the spares box you are mixing them with perhaps 2 out of something else. So next time you need say 4, you have a mixture of batteries at different states of charge.

If 1 out 4 has a lower voltage the appliance may seem flat. So you either throw out 4 or possibly 3 good batteries, or you need to measure them or have a system.


OK, I've convinced myself rechargeables are a waste of time. Let's just use throw-aways and sod the planet :)
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New Thu 2 May 13 10:24 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Bromptonaut
Sony radios won't run on rechargeables and many kids toys cautioned against them. Neither are they that good in bike lights.

Used them in the digicam for a while but all gets too much faff in the end. Worked well in the PMR446 sets we had for campsite etc use when kids were young though.
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New Thu 2 May 13 10:49 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - VxFan
My main stock of rechargables are in the solar lights in the garden. When they start to go out quite quickly, I either replace the batteries or get another set of lights - depending on how many require batts, how many are starting to look doggy, and which is cheaper, new batts or lights.

ok, there's the shaver, phone, toothbrush & laptop, but that's about it.

Oh hang on, there's one in the car (just replaced at 6¾ yrs old), the motorbike, and the cordless strimmer battery (also lead acid).
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 2 May 13 at 10:51
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:07 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Dog
I use rechargeable's in my Roberts DAB radio in the bathroom, it takes 6 c type batteries but I use AA's in adaptors.

All's well, but wth DAB radios they just stop working when the batteries get too low, which can be rather annoying when Ken McClusky (or whatever his name is) is doing his best to explain to Victoria Derbyshire why a general strike would be a good idea.

Disposables will only last me about 12 hours, so for me, rechargable's are a must.
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:13 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - sooty123
Flippin' 'eck who knew household batteries and changing them was such a complex task eh?
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:16 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Crankcase
The Green wiki reckons that

"One rechargeable battery could save 1,000 batteries from going into landfills"

green.wikia.com/wiki/Rechargable_battery

Bit of a Mandy Rice-Davies statement of course.
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New Thu 2 May 13 13:17 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Dog
Len McCluskey!

:-D
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:25 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - WillDeBeest
Sony radios won't run on rechargeables.

The one in my bathroom does, as did the one that was there before, until the humidity got it. In my experience, the only application where NiMH AAs won't work in place of alkalines is in very low-drain devices like clocks. The latest 'good-to-go' NiMH cells have much lower self-discharge rates and might work even in those.
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:40 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Bromptonaut
>> Sony radios won't run on rechargeables.

Models involved are quite sophisticated, a SW7600G receiver and a US market Wavehawk Scanner. In both cases NiMH batts, even fully recharged, immediately trigger the low battery warning and a shutdown to preserve memory. I suspect problem is that NimH or NiCad output 1.25 rather than 1.5 V

To be fair I've never tried rechargables in the more basic portable in the shower room.

MAplin used to sell rechargeable Alcalines good for about 50 charge/discharge cycles but they dissapeared years ago.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 2 May 13 at 11:41
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New Thu 2 May 13 11:07 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Mike Hannon
>> I use a voltmeter, and periodically cull my stock as follows:
>>
>> 1) Test the voltages of those sitting in the spares box. Those that are low,
>> eg less than 1 volt, are probably not very good at holding their charge. Put
>> them in a pending pile.
>>
>> 2) Work through the stock charging them up, then measure the voltages. Those that have
>> both kept their voltages in storage and give a high reading after recharge are good.
>> Those that fail to respond, or improve their voltage significantly I chuck.
>>
>>
>> After swapping over batteries from use, I always recharge them before putting them back in
>> the spares box. Then in due course proceed to (1).

(Good lord, how anal are you lot. Numbering batteries? rotation? checking voltages? pending piles? Get a life.)


That's exactly what I do - I don't care hugely about the planet but rechargeables must be better for it than buying and chucking away alkalines I guess?
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New Thu 2 May 13 14:47 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - TeeCee
We have a bucketful of NimH jobs, mostly for the remotes on the kids' various games consoles.

I just plug 'em into the charger:
Red light = charging.
Green light = done.
Flashing red light = bin.
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New Thu 2 May 13 15:01 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - sooty123
>> We have a bucketful of NimH jobs, mostly for the remotes on the kids' various
>> games consoles.
>>
>> I just plug 'em into the charger:
>> Red light = charging.
>> Green light = done.
>> Flashing red light = bin.
>>

TC, pfft that's far too simple. You need a specific testing, maintenance and sorting regime ;)
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New Thu 2 May 13 15:12 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - WillDeBeest
My regular chargers have LCD displays that show how full is the battery in each slot. Every so often, however, I get a refusal and the whole slot's worth of LCDs flashes, the equivalent of TC's flashing red light.

Now here's the curious bit. I also have an older charger than ceased to charge some years ago, but one of its four slots has taken on mystical healing powers. If I put a 'refused' NiMH battery in it and leave it for a couple of minutes, until the LED turns green, it won't be charged but it will go in the proper charger and take on a full load. I have no idea what's happening here, or even how I discovered this, but it's jolly useful and has saved a lot of batteries from the bin. Any offers?
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New Thu 2 May 13 17:30 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Old Navy
>> I have no idea what's
>> happening here, or even how I discovered this, but it's jolly useful and has saved
>> a lot of batteries from the bin. Any offers?
>>

The instructions for one of my chargers say that it gives a high power current ramp up pulse on start up to rejuvenate below par batteries. Maybe your duff charger is giving a brief overcharge.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 2 May 13 at 17:31
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New Fri 3 May 13 00:29 
 When do you chuck rechargeable's - Stuartli
Older chargers need to be switched off and then on again with high capacity batteries as they were not intended to be used with constantly improved rechargeable batteries.

Such batteries are supposed to be usable up to 1,000 times, but it doesn't always work out. Try cleaning the terminals at both end of the batteries with a piece of fine emery paper. If this doesn't work, wait for the next batteries offer from Lidl or Aldi...:-)
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