Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Sanyo Eneloop – rechargeable NiMh batteries

I use rechargeable batteries in pretty much everything, kitchen clocks, weather station, all sorts of TV and Xbox remotes, photo cameras, anyway a lot of them. I believe it all started for me back in college with my first, red portable cassette player and two blue Varta rechargeables, about 15 years ago – for younger audience, that is before we all had internet at home :-)

I always keep two boxes, one with charged batteries ready for change, and another one for discharged batteries. Problem is that if I charge them as soon as they discharge, by the time I get to use them, they are probably a quarter to half discharged - and I always try to refresh them and keep an eye on energy taken in, using a smart Technoline iCharger charger.

What I find annoying is having to change the batteries in the boiler remote control and re-program the thing every few months, or changing the batteries in my camera, and having to take a few spares with me (4 x AA Cannon camera).

Although I heard about low self-discharge batteries a while ago (didn’t even know they were called Sanyo Eneloop), I couldn’t find them to buy and to be honest I didn’t quite believe the marketing hype. Then a few months ago I spotted them on batterycity.ie and amazon.co.uk and decide to give them a try. And now I believe they are quite right – my missus, a photo amateur, confirmed as well that the Eneloops are keeping for longer, even if the ones I have (HR-3UTGA) are only rated at 1900 mAh and they consistently charge least that (Duracell 2450 mAh and Sanyo 2700 mAh are also decent batteries).

http://www.eneloop.info/home/performance-details/self-discharge.html

Anyways, that was it, thought I might share this with you, if you are already using rechargeable batteries give them a try, and if you are not, get yourself a good intelligent charger and a couple of these to start - they are priced pretty much like regular rechargeables and you’ll be throwing a lot less batteries in the bin.

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