Energizer 2500 Top Ten things to do with using them

This battery has almost been beaten up as badly as the La Crosse BC900 charger on these forums though the height of the complaints came about two years ago. My wife, just like countless others, had favourable impressions of lower capacity batteries that most thought would scale with the added "mAH"...no wonder there was such an outcry over their crappy performance. As most people had dumb overnight chargers, the issue seemed to be three fold:

1. Dead batteries that were charged just a week ago performed worst than the lower capacity batteries.
2. Low number of shots in current hungry devices like digital cameras due to voltage depression.
3. Voltage depression induced by self-discharge below 0.9V and storage at that condition...can you say destructive cycle.

Pity the folks that tried to charge these things with the fast "smart chargers" of that time...the batteries were a hot sorry mess that got exposed to yet another type of destrucive cycle.

Ironically, one of the things to come out of this was the re-design of the Maha C9000 with its 1.47V termination strategy. It may be the only charger out there than can deal with these batteries in a "smart fashion" without overcharging them.

For those of us, like me, who do not have a C9000 to babysit their Energizer 2500, what are we to do ?

I propose the following:
Top ten list of things to do (or not to do) with Engergizer 2500 batteries:

1. Use them in toys or simple flashlights until they run out of gas to give them a near full discharge. Stick in a dumb overnight charger that times out. Avoid smart negative delta-V chargers.
2. Use a simple discharge circuit (diode + resistor) to charge them before charging them in a dumb charger. Again, avoid smart negative delta-V chargers.
3. Do not use them for digital cameras
4. Use them to test the time-out capability of your smart charger. Best be done on discharged 2500s so that you do not beat on them anymore
5. ???
6. ???
7. ???
8. ??? >>> Go here to see Bottom Six
   
9. ???
10. ???

As you can see, I've run out of more ideas about how to keep these infamous batteries comfortable as they enter the twilight years of their life...HELP CPF !!!

Heh, I suggested along time ago, they'd make a pretty good shotgun projectile in a 20 gauge shotgun.

Someone recently brought up the fact that they are actually closer to 28 gauge though. 28 gauge shotguns are pretty hard to find around here, but still, if you had a big enough stockpile, it may be worth locating one. :naughty:

Dave

I am currently trying to kill the two that I have along with some 1300mah rayovacs. Putting them in incan lights for a few days. I don't have a dumb charger to abuse them with though.


My goal is 0v and completely nonchargeable and unusable caused by abuse.

jhellwig said:

I am currently trying to kill the two that I have along with some 1300mah rayovacs.

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My first set of NiMh were 1400 mAH Rayovacs from about 2001. They were great in a 4AA cell Canon camera with a lot of margin before the voltage cut-off circuit would come on. They are seeing duty in a one LED flashlight that I never let go dim.

The "dumb charger" is typically an overnight charge that charges at such a low current that a 8 hour charge is needed. If you leave them for 10 hours, then the amount of overcharge is only 25%...not too bad. However, a 1-hour smart charger that misses termination by two hours, you will put in 200% more additional charge. So chalk one up one for the dumb charger that actually LESSENS the abuse. If you want to abuse your 2500s...use a smart charger!!!

5. Do not use them. Recycle them, then buy eneloops, like you should have done to start with!

Mine got recycled years ago......lol.....they kept dying on me at the rc track i go to.

I still keep finding them around the house, and moving them to my recycle container. What a pain in the neck. It's just not worth trying to use them. I'm using eneloops just about exclusively now and they have been great.

I only ever purchased 2 to try out in my early digital camera (quite some time ago) 2 camera's later and I've still got the supposedly 2500mAh rated things that admittedly fail to impress... I get significantly longer runtime out of my Varta 2500's :thumbsup:


I'll keep them around for low drain devices until they "cark" maximising my initial investment and all that! LOL

PeAK said:

...
Top ten list of things to do (or not to do) with Engergizer 2500 batteries:
...Help CPF!!!

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Once again CPF forum members have come out to help and I've taken the liberty of paraphrasing them:...So we need one more to fill the slot or to bump these other entries and then we'll take the choices to a CPF forum POLL

It seems as Sony 2500 batteries bought in the last year or so are having similar issues (Silver Body with Orange stripe on one end)...older ones with orange body/"blue end" seem unaffected and generated most of the early favourable reviews.

Put them in a certain pink bunny with a drum. Set it going at night in a nice dark car park. Pop a surefire onto the front of your favourite gun, and see which happens first.... you run out of bullets, the bunny's batteries croak it, or you score a bullseye.

Magic Matt said:

Put them in a certain pink bunny with a drum. Set it going at night in a nice dark car park. Pop a surefire onto the front of your favourite gun, and see which happens first.... you run out of bullets, the bunny's batteries croak it, or you score a bullseye.

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Classic Matt! How could I ever forget to mention the "pink bunny". I'm beginning to see visions of whether a 2500 powered bunny makes it to the other side of my downtown street during rush hour. Tails you win and the bunny takes all if it's Heads.

Now I KNOW someone will flame me for this, and I've never done it before... but here is how I solved my Energizer 25000 problems:

About two years ago I complained to Energizer about my 20 AA's not holding a charge longer than a week and they sent me coupons for free replacements.

About a year after that I complained again to Energizer about my 20 "new" AA's not holding a charge for longer than a week and they sent me coupons for free replacements.

THIS TIME, I went to Wal-Mart and purchased five packs of Energizer rechargeable AA's for 9.99 a pack and used the five coupons. The next day I took them back to the store but unfortunately I "lost the receipt" and got a $50 store credit.

I then purchased Eneloop AA's (#69 through 88) from Thomas-Distributing with the $50 and lived happily ever after.

This is the BEST THING I could possibly do with my Energizer AA's!

RobSpook said:

Now I KNOW someone will flame me for this, and I've never done it before...
but ...This is the BEST THING I could possibly do with my Energizer AA's!

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I'm a big fan of the original 60's televisions series called "The Twilight Zone"...this sounds a lot like the episode called "The Self-improvement of Salvadore Ross"



So can I caption this as "Use them to justify Walmart's existence" ...what have we come to!!!

when I was using my 1AA rayovac headlamp heavily I kept 2 energizer 2500s on my rayavoc 1 hr charger and left them there for days and days and they were always charged and ready and the extra capacity hot off the charger made them useful if you used them the same day otherwise after a few days a LSD nimh cell had more capacity that had sat for 6 months. I must have recharged 2 cells 100 times in a few months saving wear and tear on some nicer cells instead. If you are not going to use them the same day you charge them and drain them dry throw them away.

Lynx_Arc said:

when I was using my 1AA rayovac headlamp heavily I kept 2 energizer 2500s on my rayavoc 1 hr charger and left them there for days and days...

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Thanks for reminding me about one of the weaknesses of the NiMh batteries formulations. While the trickle charge worked so well with NiCad batteries, you might describe this act on the 2500s as...

..."Trickling 2500s to death"

PeAK said:

Thanks for reminding me about one of the weaknesses of the NiMh batteries formulations. While the trickle charge worked so well with NiCad batteries, you might describe this act on the 2500s as...

..."Trickling 2500s to death"

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I dunno.... could be the uber fast self discharge is counteracted upon by a trickle charge