32 AA size batteries from one 6-volt Lantern Battery

[lctorana]

Ahhhh...

Happens when you get to my age.

 

[Handlobraesing]

Heavy duty = 4 x F
Alkaline Energizer = 4 x F
Most other 6v lantern = 4 x D

Go to the store. Feel the weight on Energizer vs other. Energizer weighs noticeably more thanks to Fs being used instead of Ds

 

[BobKy]

well, just for poops and giggles i'm going to buy a a lantern batt today and see what happens when i gut it. I can think of plenty of LED lights i got that would run a long time on cheap AA's

I just opened a Ray-o-Vac 6 volt battery and it contained only 4 non-standard 1.5 volt cells.

 

[wptski]

I heard about this the other day at work and it is the Wal-Mart brand "only"! If the whole thing is a joke, I don't know.

 

[Illum]

I heard about this the other day at work and it is the Wal-Mart brand "only"! If the whole thing is a joke, I don't know.

its starting to sound like Wallys selling cheap AAs in a container that looks like a 6V lantern battery.

 

[electromage]

I don't think it's a joke. It's certainly not worth it though. The AAs in that battery are going to be some crappy carbon zinc, like the kind that come with some cheap electronics. They're almost useless, but if you really want a lot of cheap batteries instead of a few good ones, you can find bulk packs of them extremely cheap anyway.

I really don't see the practicality of this, the author makes it look like this is some kind of magic money-saving technique, but it's not. I use Titanium NiMH cells, and they're fairly expensive, but still a heck of a lot cheaper in the long run than taking apart alkaline lantern batteries.

Now for a more interesting "hack"...somebody should take apart a lantern battery, replace the cells with either high power, or 2700mAh cells, and put it back together to create a "Super Mega Ultra Heavy Duty" lantern battery!

..."ray-o-vac lantern" hotwire anybody?

 

[Quickbeam]

The 9V pictures above are probably distorted. The top picture appears to be squashed top-to-bottom resulting in the unusual look of the battery.

Rayovac 9V (at least when I dissected one several years ago) consists of flat cells encased in plastic. We had a thread going a long time ago where a bunch of us dissected 9V's looking for the brands that had AAAA for running the Stylus.

Can't find the thread now, but if you do a search for AAAA you can find several threads about this topic.

 

[lctorana]

My understanding about 216/PP3 style 9v batteries is:

All zinc-carbon ones, from all manufacturers, whether standard-duty or heavy-duty, use F22 flat tablet cells.

All alkaline ones use AAAA cells.

(I have no idea what's inside a zinc-chloride/extra-heavy-duty one - probably F22, but I'm not calling it)

I know of no exceptions to the above rule. It's as chalk & cheese as you can get.

~~~~~

For vintage radio reasons, I have recently dismantled some NiMH ones, and found seven of what I will call AAAAA cells!

 

[evan9162]

My understanding about 216/PP3 style 9v batteries is:

All alkaline ones use AAAA cells.

Not true. I have personally disassembled duracells, ray-o-vacs, and off-branch alkalines all which were made of the flat square cells.

 

[lctorana]

Ahhhh...

Alkaline F22s!

Thanks!

 

[evan9162]

Yep. Though the stack was pretty well bonded together, I don't think there was a good way to extract an individual cell from the stack. Probably no good reason to disassemble it.

 

[Fallingwater]

For vintage radio reasons, I have recently dismantled some NiMH ones, and found seven of what I will call AAAAA cells!

More info about these "five-A" cells, please

 

[Fusion]

http://www.break.com/index/lantern-battery-trick-fails.html

there you go, four "F" cells.

 

[lctorana]

More info about these "five-A" cells, please

Erm, dunno what to say, really.

They're 7mm diameter, 41mm long cylindrical flat-top cells, and the mAh capacity is - well, whatever your 9v NiMH battery is. Say, 160 or 180 or 200mAh.

I know this is only a smidgin less than AAAA, so thay might be called slim-AAAA, or some other naff title, but the extra size reduction results from the need to pack 7 into that PP3 case.

 

[Marduke]

Erm, dunno what to say, really.

They're 7mm diameter, 41mm long cylindrical flat-top cells, and the mAh capacity is - well, whatever your 9v NiMH battery is. Say, 160 or 180 or 200mAh.

I know this is only a smidgin less than AAAA, so thay might be called slim-AAAA, or some other naff title, but the extra size reduction results from the need to pack 7 into that PP3 case.

There is no AAAAA battery, so they must have been AAAA's. The probably squeezed another one in there to help compensate for the low voltage. Alkaline 9v batteries are.... 9 volts, from 6xAAAA @ 1.5v each =9v. Rechargable AAAA's run at 1.2 volts, so 6xAAAA @ 1.2v each = 7.2v. If they squeezed another one in there, they can get 8.4v out of it.

 

[turbodog]

I just opened a Ray-o-Vac 6 volt battery and it contained only 4 non-standard 1.5 volt cells.

They ARE standard cells, just not ones you recognize.

They are an "F" cell. It's a classification, just like "C" "D" "AA".

 

[lctorana]

There is no AAAAA battery, so they must have been AAAA's.

I did say there were seven of them, and I did say they are smaller than AAAA.

Don't care what you call them.

 

[65535]

Did anyone notice that all the cells had no dielectric coating of any kind? The batteries would short out on themselves if not connected in parallel that is a complete BS video. Just so you know.

 

[Quickbeam]

F Cell Information:

http://www.prc68.com/I/No6.shtml#F

and scroll down in that same page for more info on lantern batteries...

 

[Marduke]

While shopping at Target, I saw something interesting. A Rayovac 6-volt lantern that uses a battery holder that uses 4xD's, but is in the shape of a 6-volt lantern battery. The light even advertises it can use either the special holder, or a 6v lantern battery. I've seen several lights with this adapter, but I have yet to see it sold separately.

http://www.rayovac.com/flashlight/4d-b_rb.shtml