TinderBox (UK)
Flashlight Enthusiast
With Eneloop Pro or XX the cycle life is like up to 500, But if you run them empty before you recharge every time you might get less than 300 cycles as they are not a resilient as normal Eneloops.
John.
John.
eneloop safety for the record
- Thread starter airwolf41
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chillinn
Flashlight Enthusiast
Actually, running Eneloop Pros empty every time will get you closer to 50 cycles, max, before their internal resitance has built up so much as to make them nearly useless.
Eneloop Pros are vastly less resilliant to user abuse, such as being completely drained, below 1V, than standard Eneloops. When you consider the cost premium of Eneloop Pros compared to standard Eneloops, the far greater resilliance of standard Eneloops to unintended cell abuse, the 4x greater cycle life of standard Eneloops, and the negligible increase in capacity Pros have over standard, (except for very specific test cases) standard Eneloops are the way to go even with Zebralight's recommendation for Pros.
Tachead
Flashlight Enthusiast
Actually, far more then 50 unless you suck them right dry maybe. AA Cycler tested Eneloop Pros by cycling them on a MC3000 at 1500mA down to 0.9V. They lasted 120 cycles and even after 120 cycles still held close to 80% of their original capacity.
chillinn
Flashlight Enthusiast
The problem I saw, at about 50 cycles, maybe more or less, because I was ignorant at the time of best practices, of continuously draining below 1V (and/or no rest cycles between charge and use, use and charge) is not just the internal resistance, but the increased voltage sag under load. The cell still works, still has capacity, still tests out "good enough," but in light applications, the light will run dim. I still use my abused Eneloop Pros, they still charge, hold charge, still have plenty of capacity... but they suck under any voltage load. But even if I am way off on my 50 cycle estimate of continual abuse, your 120 estimate based on that experiment still supports my recommendation for standard over pro. It's an economic question of lifetime ownership. The Pros don't make a whole lot of economic sense for # of charge cycles and fragility weighed against a negligible increase in capacity. If you have the capital to afford Pros and not care about this, lucky, then use L91 Energizer Lithium primaries instead, because at least L91 live up to the hype.
Also, standard Eneloops often exhibit better than spec capacity after a few charge cycles, narrowing the capacity gap between standard and pro. Unless there is some specific reason a user needs a little more minutes of light out of a cell before cell swaps, Pros are a poor economic choice for flashlights. By the numbers it is like 77% more capacity, but that is almost never realized because of how bad Pros can be and how good standard always is.
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Woods Walker
The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
I run a SC5w with enelops all the time. No problems. In fact can't think of a safer setup. I mean rock solid chemistry combined with good light and single battery.
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Tachead
Flashlight Enthusiast
In his tests, the voltage sag was taken into account. The cycle number(120) was based on each cycle holding a minimum of 0.9V at 1.5amps draw and a minimum capacity of 80% of the original(new) cells tested capacity.
http://aacycler.com/about/how/
http://aacycler.com/battery/aa/panasonic-eneloop-pro/
I agree the standard Eneloops are a better value though. But, when Amazon Basics high capacity(same performance/cell as Eneloop Pro) are available for less then $17 for 8, it isn't exactly costly for the extra capacity. And, 120 cycles still equates to several years of service for most people.
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