AA Alkaline continuous Discharge Test

[vali]

I think Duracell batteries can be different depending where they were built. I got excelent results with cells made in EC (BTW I was thinking they were made in Ecuador but now I realized that EC means European Community).

The bad thing is they are gold priced and I (finally) found great rechargeables: LSD NiMH (been using rechargeables since 25 years ago and without proper care/decent charger I was thinking more times than less that they were hopeless).

Very interesting test anyways. I will see if I have some made in EC duracells and some cheap cegasa (local brand in Spain) and do the same test to compare with.

 

[UserName]

I started 1000ma discharges on a duracell coppertop, and a duracell ultra advanced (both made in usa cells). The 1000ma discharge has finished, and the cells are currently resting. I noted voltages at 15 minute intervals.

duracell ultra advanced, @1000ma rate
 0 minutes 1.40 volts
15 minutes 1.19 volts
30 minutes 1.12 volts
45 minutes 1.05 volts
60 minutes 0.98 volts        1088 mah 72 minutes
rest
@200ma rate, 753 mah  249 minutes
rest
@200ma rate,  90 mah  30 minutes


duracell coppertop, @1000ma rate
 0 minutes 1.39 volts
15 minutes 1.18 volts
30 minutes 1.11 volts
45 minutes 1.05 volts
60 minutes 0.99 volts        1197 mah 80 minutes
rest
@200ma rate,  568 mah 189 minutes
rest
@200ma rate,  85 mah 29 minutes

To be consistent with your testing methodology, should the cells rest only 1-2 hours, or is that a minimum? I'm going to start the first 200ma discharge before I go to sleep, but the rest I'll finish tomorrow, with hopefully the time to do 500ma tests on another pair this weekend.

--EDIT--
Code box updated with final results. I will post back with pics of the cells when I get time, and I will post date codes then. On a related note, where on the cells are the date codes, and how are they interpreted?

 

[rookiedaddy]

thanks for sharing :twothumbs. Yes, the 1-2 hours is the minimum rest time I use. The cell Voltage will normally rebound in less than an hour.

 

[WildChild]

Currently doing a 100mA run on two Duracell Coppertop (Made in China). I'll report back when it's done.

[EDIT]First done: 1060 mAh[/EDIT]
[EDIT2]Second done: 1222 mAh[/EDIT2]

 

[Battery Guy]

Hello ltiu, the discharge is done using MAHA MH-C9000 discharge function. This will discharge the cell at user selected discharge rate (500mA/1000mA) until the cell Voltage reaches 0.90V, not *for an hour*. Take the "Ikea AM3 E:2014-08 (CHN)" cell for example, at discharge rate of 500mA, it took 174 minutes until it reaches 0.90V and C9000 terminates the discharge which gives the reading of 1327mAh. Subsequent discharge after the cell Voltage rebound is set at 200ma to continue to drain the rest of available energy.

This test is the result of my curiosity to find out how different cells perform under continuous medium and high load, and what to plan for and expected of different cells in different devices. Hope this clarify the confusion.

Interesting test. Glad this got an 8 month bump so that I had a chance to read the thread.

A single, high rate discharge, followed by successive slow discharges on the same cell, is a nice way to determine the high rate performance (first discharge) and the total cell capacity. To get the later value, simply sum the capacity measured at each discharge step.

For an alkaline AA cell, you can discharge at 1000mA, 500mA, 200mA, 100mA, 50mA and 10mA. You basically only get two useful values from this test, the 1000mA capacity and the summed total capacity. But it is a much faster way of getting at the total capacity than discharging the cell at 10mA (that will take between 270 and 300 hours depending on the alkaline AA cell).

Cheers,
BG

 

[terence1957]

A glaring omission from this table seems to be a key for the units, which I guess is mAh - meaning larger values are better (or have I got it wrong?) As a non-electronics buff, this kind of thing can be very frustrating when the "obvious" is neglected. Otherwise, an invaluable post!

Terence

 

[hampton22]

We are in need of testing some Alkaline and Heavy Duty Batteries. Would you be interested in talking to us about working with us on this?

Thank You

 

[357mag1]

This thread is about the finding of which alkaline cells perform best and how each perform under a continuous discharge load.

Update 2010-01-18: Table updated with TESCO branded batteries

All cells are purchased off the retail malls/shops. Using Sanyo Eneloop as the base reference. Discharge equipment used is MAHA MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer, manufacturing date code 0I0BA, room temperature 25-28 degree celcius.

First, some legend:
M - Manufacturing Date
E - Expiry Date
CHN - China
IND - Indonesia
JPN - Japan
SGP - Singapore
USA - USA
THL - Thailand
!! - MAHA MH-C9000 display DONE immediately upon inserting battery or last discharge current is less than 20mAh

List of batteries tested:

Duracell Alkaline

Sanyo Alkaline

Panasonic Alkaline

Panasonic Evolta

Energizer e2 Advanced

Energizer MAX

Ikea AA- thanks polkiuj

TESCO Batteries - thanks pseudoblue
TESCO Value Zinc chloride (ok, this is not alkaline...)
TESCO Everyday
TESCO Power Hi Tech

The discharge function in MAHA MH-C9000 allows to select the discharge rate desired, in this test, we will focus on a discharge current of 500mA and 1000mA on the 1st discharge, while subsequent discharge current at 200mA. MH-C9000 will discharge each cell down to 0.90V and terminate, the word DONE will be display at the LCD.
A rest of at least 1 to 2 hours between discharge cycle to allow the cell Voltage to rebound and stabilize.

Here is the results:

The numbers are what displayed at MH-C9000 LCD after it's done discharging for the cycle.
The above result serves only as an alternative to what you may find on the Internet and cpf, it is not to be taken as authoritative reference, I'm NOT in any way a battery expert, but a curious consumer that happens to have an interesting equipment that allows me to do some testing and experimenting. I'm surprised to have found how some cells performs in the least expected manner.

As some cells performance are quite unexpected, I'll be doing more testing and update this thread as soon as the testing and data gathering is done.

This is the first time I'm doing this, so I greatly appreciate your pointing out any short-comings and mistakes I've made and I will try my best to correct it in future version and testing. TIA.

Observations (WIP):
- I've recorded the voltage after 30 minutes of discharge, at 0.5A, Eneloop is reading ~1.21V while all alkaline cells tested reads between 1.03-1.18V; at 1.0A discharge, Eneloop is reading ~1.14V while all alkaline cells drop below 1.05V.

Note:
- As pointed out by Tom (SilverFox): "there are often variations in cell performance with different batches of cells and from cells purchased at different locations", so YMMV.

for those who lives in SEA, I have another version with pricing information link here, the default currency is in Ringgit Malaysia

I've done similar testing using the C9000 and a Triton2 EQ and with the batteries I used my results fairly closely mirrored yours. I find the Energizer Max AA to consistently top out as one of the best followed closely by the Duracell copper top.

Funny because the Energizer Max D cells tested far worse than any other D cell I tried. Lower average voltage and capacity. I've discharged half a dozen from different batches and results have stayed consistently lower end.

 

[videoman]

Any chance of including the Costco' Kirkland branded ones ?. I've had great success with them on high drain electronic flash in quick recycling times.