Re: Questions about Eneloops and chargers for them
Greetings, Stored Energy Lovers,
FWIW, back in 2010, I read through the CandlePowerForum front-to-back before buying NiMH AA's. I'm a pro photographer and use AA's in all manner of gear, both high discharge, like strobes, to low-discharge, like radio slave units. Basically, the suggestions on the forum back then were the same as today: Eneloops have the best life expectancy and the best manufacturing QC. Other off-brand batteries are pretty much untested and unknown.
Good advice.
Charger advice was more varied, but folks seemed to like the LaCrosse charger (except for that one batch that tended to catch fire!) and it offered the best flexibility in terms of setting charge/discharge rates in an easy to read manner. On charging, there was all manner of advice: 1c is ok, .5c is best, yadda yadda yadda. I use a lot of SLA rechargables, though, and applied that knowledge to recharging NiMH's:
The lower the charge current, the longer the batteries will last.
So, as an experiment I ordered Eneloops, Powerizer 2600, Tenergy 2300 batteries and a LaCrosse 9009 charger. Batteries were cycled when new @ 200mah charge and 100mah discharge. Yes, it took a long time to cycle them all! The Eneloops were all at or above rated capacity. The Powerizer and Tenergy were all below rated capacity, mostly in the 2.0ah range. I marked a sample of 8 of each battery brand with the date and ah rating. The batteries went out into my gear bags and went to work. Most were well taken care of, but some were left on in strobes and discharged down pretty low. All batteries were promptly recharged on the LaCrosse charger at 200mah.
I also gave a set of Eneloops and an Eneloop 4-slot charger to my 10-year old daughter to use in her point-and-shoot camera.
Two years later, I have no dead batteries. I rechecked capacity ratings, and all had fallen an average of .15ah. None lower than .3 ah. Wow. That's not much, is it? The cheaper batteries have performed exactly as well as the Eneloops.
My daughter, who was not quite as careful with her batteries, ended up with four dead batteries after two years. Not a well-controlled experiment, but there's an anecdotal data point for you.
So, anyway, in my test once I got past the fact that the Powerizer and Tenergy batteries are 2ah, ~not~ 2.3 or 2.6, I was still left with the fact they performed exactly like the eneloops at, what? half the price?
A fresh order of Powerizer 2600, Tenergy and Eneloop 1500's arrived over the past week. I also bought two more Lacrosse BC700 chargers (bringing the LaCrosse total to 4) and a Tenergy TN160 for bulk charging (anyone know what the charge rate is on that unit?). The new batteries are getting cycled, rated and marked now. Right now, the Powerizers are all looking like they are 2.4 to 2.6ah capacity, so they are not the same batteries as they were two years ago. The sample size will be larger this time, 16 batteries of each type. They will go in to service alongside the existing stock of batteries.
I'll report back in two years.
If I was more obsessive-compulsive and had less work, I'd have colorful graphs and exact recharge cycle data for you. Oh well.
That is all.