How green are you with your "used" AA cells?

[czAtlantis]

At work i do use maybe 4-8 alkaline AA cells a week in my camera flashes.

Omg, I thought alkalines are used in cameras, flashes etc only in battery commercials! Why do you use alkalines in this? Buy eneloops or any other ni-mh and it will last much longer and will be much cheaper.

[Helmut.G]

Omg, I thought alkalines are used in cameras, flashes etc only in battery commercials! Why do you use alkalines in this? Buy eneloops or any other ni-mh and it will last much longer and will be much cheaper.

Actually if the flashes are used daily, high capacity cells are better than eneloops, they will last noticeably longer per charge.
Eneloops are good if you don't want to worry about your batts. Charge them up, come back 12 months later, they're ready to go.

[czAtlantis]

Yes it can be truth but even eneloops will last much longer than alkaline :-)
I personally have bad experience with high capacity cells - they have high internal resistance and their capacity falls quickly with daily use.

[Lynx_Arc]

Yes it can be truth but even eneloops will last much longer than alkaline :-)
I personally have bad experience with high capacity cells - they have high internal resistance and their capacity falls quickly with daily use.

There is too many people that have had bad luck with ~2500mah+ nimh cells and since you can get higher capacity LSD cells in the range of about 2300mah I see little reason to bother with non LSD cells with the exception of perhaps initial cost.

[Lynx_Arc]

Yes it can be truth but even eneloops will last much longer than alkaline :-)
I personally have bad experience with high capacity cells - they have high internal resistance and their capacity falls quickly with daily use.

There is too many people that have had bad luck with ~2500mah+ nimh cells and since you can get higher capacity LSD cells in the range of about 2300mah I see little reason to bother with non LSD cells with the exception of perhaps initial cost.

[wquiles]

Just do what a lot of us did that don't have local access to eneloops, buy white topped Japan made duracell precharged batteries.

I have seen them at Target and Best Buy for sure. But I'm sure most places that sell Duracell rechargable batteries will have them, Walmart, ect. The packages are marked, "precharged" and will of course have white tops. I have found a few white tops in with chargers. I'm personally watching to see when the newer Sanyos get sent out as Duracells.. The older versions have a white top, the new 1500 charge batteries have a grey top. No luck so far finding them.

Finally!








Cells came at 80% charged per ZTS battery tester, and voltage was 1.31 volts per my La Crosse BC-900U AA/AAA 4-bay charger. I am giving them a full charge now

Also in the store was an almost identical package from Duracells, but with the dark grey tops (instead of white), but with the same identical part number (DX1500) but the marketing/package was different (plus they were more expensive as well). The dark grey package said "stayed charged longer" vs. the white tops that are branded "StayCharged" - again, they both had the same part number!

Are the dark grey ones the new 1500 cycles model and the white top the older 1000 cycles model? (that would/could explain the price difference)

Will

[tandem]

I wonder if the dark grey cells could even be the Chinese made non-eneloop cells. If so they are not nearly as good as a real, original, eneloop. In Canada at some stores you can find them both on the same rack at times.

[calipsoii]

Where can I get/buy the white topped Japan made duracell precharged batteries?

Looks like you already found them wquiles, but in case you decide you need more, Costco (at least in Canada) sells a big pack of the Duraloops as well. They might be bundled with a charger but I've seen them without.

[tandem]

Sorry for the OT but how much are a "big pack" of Duraloops at Costco in Canada?

I need to score some more packs of AA (apparently over a hundred are not enough for my family) and am waiting for Shoppers to have a decent sale on them again.

Duraloops / Eneloops and MAHA C9000 - more than paid for themselves over the years. Just. Keep. On. Working.

[fyrstormer]

I only use lithium AA/AAAs so they last next to forever, then I toss them in a coffee can with my used printer cartridges to drop off at the local Best Buy when I remember to make the trip.

I once built a charger that would accept four used AAs as input and drain them into two rechargeable AAs as output. It was a very simple device, just using diodes to prevent backflow. Now that I know about driver circuits, I should probably revisit it with a more elegant and flexible design.

[RI Chevy]

Where can I get/buy the white topped Japan made duracell precharged batteries?

I got mine at Walmart. They sell both the black and white topped batteries. I think I am the only one that goes in and takes all the packages off the rack until I find the white topped cells.
Several drug store chains also carry them, but they are more expensive. Go with a coupon and they are even better deal!

[Wrend]

I get my Eneloops from Thomas Distributing (.com). Good price, and free US shipping on orders over $75.

The regular Eneloops don't have the highest capacity, but they should last a lot longer in cycle life and cumulative lifetime capacity potential than most (all?) other AA and AAA NiMH cells.

Compared to regular primary cells, one Eneloop AA cell (down to 80% usable capacity) can potentially equal 1000 name-brand alkaline AA cells in cumulative lifetime capacity.

I leave mine charged and ready to use in sets that only get used together, so I can just take out the depleted ones from a device, put them on the charger, then put in charged ones without having to wait for anything to charge. Very convenient.

[Erzengel]

I wish the big companies would take back batteries to be recycled

Here in Germany (maybe the whole EU), all sellers of all kinds of batteries are required to take them back. Therefore every supermarket has a box where You can dump used up batteries, no matter where You bought them. This makes recycling very easy for consumers. I'm now fully switching to Eneloops (including Eneloop lites) for all devices at home. Now I don't have to look for batteries if one device gets empty, I always have at least one pair of charged AAs and AAAs in my drawer.

[GarageBoy]

I wish that was the case in the US

Batteries have a decent amount of recyclable materials in them and there are tons of them out there

[czAtlantis]

Does anybody know how do they sort different types of batteries after you throw them in recyclation boxes? I mean alkalines, ni-cd, liion, zinc-carbon...every chemistry has different materials inside and I can't imagine if you have all together how you can recycle new materials from the mix.

[fyrstormer]

Does anybody know how do they sort different types of batteries after you throw them in recyclation boxes? I mean alkalines, ni-cd, liion, zinc-carbon...every chemistry has different materials inside and I can't imagine if you have all together how you can recycle new materials from the mix.

That's the recycler's job to worry about. They may very well just read the labels on the batteries, or use computers with cameras that can automatically read the labels very quickly.

[Lynx_Arc]

Does anybody know how do they sort different types of batteries after you throw them in recyclation boxes? I mean alkalines, ni-cd, liion, zinc-carbon...every chemistry has different materials inside and I can't imagine if you have all together how you can recycle new materials from the mix.

I would think at the least you would have the following categories
1)nickle based (nimh, nicd)
2)lead based (SLA,AGM,auto/marine batteries)
3)lithium based
4)alkaline zinc etc everything else.
It may be that nicd and nimh are sorted into two categories as nicads are what they want recycled the most followed by lead based batteries.

[czAtlantis]

Yes I understand when you have these categories sorted...but how do they distinguish between AA zinc carbon, AA alkaline, AA liion?
I am little affraid it is not "recycle box" but "safely destroy box" - that they don't recycle general household batteries (just car batteries and another large ones) and just safely destroy them.