Lidl red Tronic battery test

[michkam]

I bought yesterday 'Ready to use' 2300 mah and tried them in train that is very demanding and thay almost performed on the level of eneloop pro.
This was very suprisingly for me.
I'll do some tests.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I bought yesterday 'Ready to use' 2300 mah and tried them in train that is very demanding and thay almost performed on the level of eneloop pro.
This was very suprisingly for me.
I'll do some tests.

Yeah, I have 6 packs of the 2300mah they are very good, and have a close to rated capacity, I want to get some AAA next time.

I live about 5min walk from a lidl store, but they are building a new super store and demolishing the smaller current one, so i have had no lidl for months, it was supposed to be ready for Christmas but it looks like it will not be finished before February at the earliest. :sigh:

John.

 

[apagogeas]

According to the packaging the 2400 Tronic cells were supplied by Kompernass while the 2300 cells were supplied by Eures. I think that both Kompernass & Eures are German wholesalers rather than manufacturers – so don't know where they were actually manufactured.

I have been a fan of Lidl but have been disappointed by their lack of interest in these under-performing batteries. I guess that most customers are not in a position to measure battery capacity just as I don't know how to check that pure cotton shirts really are pure cotton. This sort of thing undermines trust.

Same here in Greece, I got these 2400 Tronic Eco recently and all are about 1200mAh or so. Same happened the very first time I got the non-eco version of Tronic 2500 a few years back (and never got them again obviously) which again registered about 1200mAh too, all of them. On the other hand, both Tronic Eco 2100 and 2300 versions return capacities close to the stated value and keep up well over a couple of years I have been testing them (two have seem to lost some capacity however but I think they have been overdischarged in a pack I use them) and I think those 2300 are even better compared to 2100 ones. So, what I understand is, there are two companies producing Tronic for Lidl, one is Eures (the good quality) and the other company the bad quality. After that experiene, I only buy 2100 and 2300 Eco versions.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

My Lidl in the UK has the Tronic Nimh Battery`s this Thursday the 9th for £2.99 a pack for the 4xAA 2300mah 4xAAA 950mah 2xC 4000mah 2xD 4500mah 1x9V 200mah

So check you local Lidl for availability.

John.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I decided to try a pack of Tronic eco AAA ready to use 950mah and i am checking the capacity on my Maha C9000

Out of packet capacity

1: 718mah 2: 471mah 3: 727mah 4: 643mah

First refresh and analyze at 500ma charge and 200ma discharge 0.2C

1: 891mah 2: 863mah 3: 884mah 4: 875mah

I am going to run a second refresh and analyze to see if the capacity increases and will post the results when it is complete.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************
STRANGE

I bought an Tronic charger from Lidl it can charge up to 8 nimh cells at once and has an lcd display that shows the charge level in 10% increments and only cost £9.99, But it had a faulty channel 1 so i returned it, the replacement charger blew up when i turned it on with 6xAA cells in the charger (bang)

The strange thing is, about 4 years ago i bought virtually the identical charger but it showed 5 bars on the lcd instead of % level and it blew up (bang) the same as the one i bought when i turned it on with 6xAA cells in the charger, I asked to see the manager at Lidl and told him about the problem, and possible faulty in this model of charge, I decided to get a refund as i cannot trust this charger even though it has an 3 year warranty.

John.

 

[Cekid]

I asked to see the manager at Lidl and told him about the problem, and possible faulty in this model of charge, I decided to get a refund as i cannot trust this charger even though it has an 3 year warranty.

John.

how's your lacrosse and maha doing?

i totally lost confidence in charger reliability these days and your story just support my theory...i am planning to buy some opus charger but when i see them under names like ambient weather and extreme light or such, i realized it's all about badge engineering...ok, i am not buying a house, but it's not about money anymore, i am sick of dead chinese electronics around my house...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LUZHL4C/?tag=cpf0b6-20

is it opus? or is it ambient weather?

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I have not used the Lacrosse for years, as i bought it just as the meltdown problem came to light, though i had no problems with mine.

A channel died on my first C9000 a couple of years ago, I bought 2 more, the first one had a faulty slot button so i had to get a replacement, I have one doing a capacity check at the moment, I just wish you did not have to press so many buttons, when you are using 4 of the same battery`s and running the same program, the Opus C3100 you only have to enter it once for all 4 slots.

John.

 

[Cekid]

it's just a proof of my impressions about poor build quality of battery chargers in general...bad power supplies, broken channels, dead lcd screens, software bugs, melted case, broken buttons, the list is endless...

what is your most reliable charger so far?

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

The problem with such faulty chargers is that they are ruining the reputation of rechargeables in general, or make recharging appear at least somewhat dangerous... then there are some people thinking: "OK, so someone has to be there while the batteries are charging... wait, that doesn't work when we're going out with the family... OK, it doesn't work, so screw those rechargeables and let's use alkalines again." I'm not making this up...

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

Well just look at the Samsung Note 7 it shows you have to be careful and keep an eye on even the best brands while they are charging.

John.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Yeah, and then some makers of self-balancing boards advertise that their boards are having a Samsung battery inside. ;-)

On the upside, I'm using a Tronic charger as my main charger, and it hasn't failed me so far. It was only 9 Eur, has 4 charging slots for AAA/AA/C/D cells and 2 for 9V's, but I only use 2 at a time because it regularly misses end-of-charge with more than 2 cells inserted due to a lower charging current. It only charges at 1 amp max., but it does so without any problems. I generally didn't have such a bad luck with chargers so far, but I don't have really smart ones actually with various settings, display et al. Oh, wait, I do have one, but that one DOES have a problem with slot 3 out of 4 where the discharge resistor seems to have broken. This is a more advanced Tronic which even has a display, but, as it seems, it's also more prone to failure.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I am using an 8 year old 6+2 slot Tronic charger myself and it works great, I bought it from eBay, I just ordered another one as a backup as the new Tronic chargers appear to be of poor quality.

I have had 1 with a bad channel and 2 that have blown-up.

John.

 

[BloodLust]

Interesting. I wonder if Lidl in Australia or London carry them as well since I travel there a few times a year.
I want to try the C and D ones.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

Interesting. I wonder if Lidl in Australia or London carry them as well since I travel there a few times a year.
I want to try the C and D ones.

The Lidl website has a store locator, once you set your location you can see the leflet for your local Lidl, Last Thursday was when the battery`s were in my Lidl store.

http://www.lidl.co.uk/en/index.htm

John.

 

[Mr Baz]

I tried a few batches of cells for Aldi and Lidl neither were great though Aldi ones seemed to hold up better. Discharge is a problem on both honestly they are completely outclassed by cells like Odec (you can get them on Amazon) my advice is not to bother.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I tried a few batches of cells for Aldi and Lidl neither were great though Aldi ones seemed to hold up better. Discharge is a problem on both honestly they are completely outclassed by cells like Odec (you can get them on Amazon) my advice is not to bother.

Never had a problem with Tronic battery`s and i have 24x AA 2300mah and 8x AA 2100mah and 6x D 4500mah and 4x AAA 950mah while they dont match the stated capacity, they are very close and i have never had any performance problems with them.

John.

 

[bella-headlight]

Today I picked up a dozen of the Tronic AA 2300mah cells & 8 of the Tronic AAA 950mah cells for £2.99 or about $3.60 per pack of 4.
I am going to pop them on a few of my analysing chargers & see what the capacities are

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

Today I picked up a dozen of the Tronic AA 2300mah cells & 8 of the Tronic AAA 950mah cells for £2.99 or about $3.60 per pack of 4.
I am going to pop them on a few of my analysing chargers & see what the capacities are

Did they have an Tronic LCD battery charger for sale?

John.

 

[bella-headlight]

Not that I saw John.
They had AAA & AA (4 packs), C & D (twin packs) & 9v cells.
BTW the cells say Tronic ENERGY eco, AA"s are 2300mah & the AAA"s are 950mah.
These are the cells

[/IMG]

[/IMG]
Are these the "red" Tronic cells or a different cell ?
I have 4 x AA"s in my MAHA C9000 & 8 x AA"s in 2 Lii-500"s as I type doing capacity tests.
I can say already that I am impressed by the numbers so far as a few cells have finished their capacity tests & have gone back into re-charge mode.
I should be posting my results on the AA"s in about an hour.
The 8 x AAA"s will be tested tomorrow & I will again do half in the C9000 & half in a Lii-500 for comparison.

 

[bella-headlight]

Well the results are in !
Lii-500
2393
2400
2408
2378
2402
2396
2380
2408
MAHA C9000
2384
2381
2362
2396
The above are all 500ma discharge rates.
So all 12 cells tested over the claimed 2300mah.
Very consistent results with the 8 cells in the Lii-500"s averaging at 2396mah & all within 30ma of each other.
The 4 cells in the C9000 averaging 2381mah & within 34ma of each other.
The Lii-500 on average showed 15ma more capacity so extremely close to the C9000.
Have I just been lucky with these cells ?
Are they different cells to the "red" Tronics ?
By testing 12 cells in 3 different chargers & getting such uniform results I must conclude that the results are accurate.
I am very impressed with these cells although only time will tell how well they hold up in use but at 90 cents a cell they seem to be a steal.
I hope that the AAA"s test out as well.