OK, here's another update on my Energizer AA Ultimate Lithium battery snafu. The tale turns on a faulty battery testing tool...
Voltage. My earlier 1.5v reading was taken with an older multimeter. The community's comments made me suspicious of its accuracy. I replaced it with a new Klein Tools Digital Multimeter, Model No. MM450. I found that using the Klein, all but one of the cells fell in the range of 1.78-1.80v. The one outlier registered 1.77v. Given that these readings are what would normally be expected from these cells, I feel the cell voltage is not in issue, and is now in line with the voltage reported by others.
ZTS Pulse Load Tester. Because the retested battery voltage was so consistent across the six packages tested, I began to suspect that my pulse load tester might somehow be compromised. I was able to persuade a colleague who works at a well-known engineering firm to perform an analysis of my batteries. This firm is a multi-state engineering company with expertise in multiple disciplines, including equipment failure analysis. They have some very sophisticated, high-end analytical tools that command a confidence factor far in excess of the rough-and-ready reading my little hand-held tester can provide. They found that all but fifteen of the 120 cells were within the expected parameters for capacity. More to the point, they also found that my ZTS Pulse Load Tester was ever so slightly miscalibrated. After recalibrating my hand-held tester, it duplicated the more sophisticated engineering test results almost exactly.
I consider this reduced percentage of compromised cells to be a much less worrisome outcome than what I feared from my original working hypothesis. First and foremost it restores my confidence in Energizer's Ultimate Lithium cells (even those manufactured in Singapore). Second, of the fifteen compromised cells, the recalibrated Pulse Load Tester (as confirmed by the more sophisticated load testing) show that six are at 80% capacity (not too bad), five at 60% capacity (annoying), two at 40% capacity, and two at 20% capacity. So even though the capacity in these cells is diminished, most of these compromised cells did not completely fail, and only four of the 120 (3.33%) are well and truly compromised.
I hope this update restores confidence among the brethren in your Ultimate Lithium bunny cells. (There was a comment made by brother michaex above that his trust in the Energizer Lithium cells had been shaken a bit by my report...I hope with this to restore his faith.) 👼
Your comments are invited. (Kindly avoid flaming the poster however. Thank you.)
Voltage. My earlier 1.5v reading was taken with an older multimeter. The community's comments made me suspicious of its accuracy. I replaced it with a new Klein Tools Digital Multimeter, Model No. MM450. I found that using the Klein, all but one of the cells fell in the range of 1.78-1.80v. The one outlier registered 1.77v. Given that these readings are what would normally be expected from these cells, I feel the cell voltage is not in issue, and is now in line with the voltage reported by others.
ZTS Pulse Load Tester. Because the retested battery voltage was so consistent across the six packages tested, I began to suspect that my pulse load tester might somehow be compromised. I was able to persuade a colleague who works at a well-known engineering firm to perform an analysis of my batteries. This firm is a multi-state engineering company with expertise in multiple disciplines, including equipment failure analysis. They have some very sophisticated, high-end analytical tools that command a confidence factor far in excess of the rough-and-ready reading my little hand-held tester can provide. They found that all but fifteen of the 120 cells were within the expected parameters for capacity. More to the point, they also found that my ZTS Pulse Load Tester was ever so slightly miscalibrated. After recalibrating my hand-held tester, it duplicated the more sophisticated engineering test results almost exactly.
I consider this reduced percentage of compromised cells to be a much less worrisome outcome than what I feared from my original working hypothesis. First and foremost it restores my confidence in Energizer's Ultimate Lithium cells (even those manufactured in Singapore). Second, of the fifteen compromised cells, the recalibrated Pulse Load Tester (as confirmed by the more sophisticated load testing) show that six are at 80% capacity (not too bad), five at 60% capacity (annoying), two at 40% capacity, and two at 20% capacity. So even though the capacity in these cells is diminished, most of these compromised cells did not completely fail, and only four of the 120 (3.33%) are well and truly compromised.
I hope this update restores confidence among the brethren in your Ultimate Lithium bunny cells. (There was a comment made by brother michaex above that his trust in the Energizer Lithium cells had been shaken a bit by my report...I hope with this to restore his faith.) 👼
Your comments are invited. (Kindly avoid flaming the poster however. Thank you.)
