Do you recharge Alkaline cells?

I got into this discussion with someone who primarily uses cheap chargers to recharge alkalines. I found it quite funny that people actually would do this when Alkaline cells are notorious leakers. Some will argue that they only leak if misused but i have had a few leakers just sitting doing nothing out of the device and i prefer using NiMH technology anyway.

Heck i'll use NiMH cells that barely maintain 1.2 volts and doesn't produce many milliamps but work fine in clocks or remotes but i wouldn't recharge alkalines but at the same time i do understand that some people out there are strictly no budget or they are mostly just cheap and would rather clean out a remote that has been subjected to alkaline leakage then buy a pack of Eneloops that will most likely never leak in it's lifetime.

But there, plenty of folks out there who have different methods in doing stuff and i don't knock anyone who still uses alkalines or will actually recharge alkalines. I just would prefer to keep alkalines out of my devices, other than ones that i don't really care much for or what not. But i have nearly depleted all my alkaline supply on this pest repellent from Black And Decker. So i was curious on whether anyone surfing this site actually charges alkalines on the regular basis, or even in a pinch. Personally if i need more batteries, ill just buy some Eneloops. May not be in the budget but i find they are worth every penny.

Strong International —i never heard of this company before tbh— has an EU-wide distributed 4-bay charger which claims to recharge disposable Alkaline AA/AAA batteries, how funny is that? (English page, leaflet, manual)

It is being sold these days in big geman electronics retail stores like Saturn, Mediamarkt, and also online on Ebay (Saturn shop, etc). I wouldn't buy or test the charger. Too scary ymmv.

i bought a renewal ps2 unit back in the mid to late 90s. i still have it and one d cell left . obviuosly i dont use it anymore but i just found it and a d cell in storage lol. gonna try to charge it up and check the voltage. probably better off tossing it but thought it was unique so i kept it around.

I do recharge RECHARGEABLE AA alkaline cells but not the disposable variety. Way too many no-nos.

My main concern would be the leakage which alkaleaks are well know for anyway. Do we know this "Strong" system increases leakage?

I bought an alkaline recharger and I did some recharging of regular alkaline cells. At best, could only get 5 charges out of them before the internal resistance became ridiculous. The same goes for the RAM ones, except you can get maybe 10-20 uses.

I used to charge them indoors and whilst they didn't leak, they pop and quite a loud pop. Seems to be the thing rather than a leak. When they start cooling, the ooze starts coming out.

From a thread on another forum, I now use alkalines in solar garden lights. Going ok so far

I use to recharge alkaline battery`s years ago, I still have 4 or 5 chargers that can charge alkaline, the one i use to use most is an grey Rayovac PS3, but you can only charge them 3-5 time with diminishing results, and it is many years since i last used them, nimh battery`s are so cheap and work great these day`s there is no need to recharge alkaline.

John.

Though I definitely do NOT recommend it, when I was a kid I used to recharge EverReady super heavy duty bats (came in a black wrap) in a dumb charger meant for NiCads.....used to get something like 2-3 charges before they leaked or wouldn't take a charge....not that they took much of a charge to begin with.

Now a days, I don't have any reason to look further than Eneloops or other quality LSD NiMH. Whey bother charging alkalines when you can get Eneloops or rebranded Eneloops AA's or AAA's for $2-3 per cell?

To recharge Alkalines, you do have to get the rechargeable kinds. If you need 1.5V instead of the NiMH/NiCD's 1.2 volt, there isn't much choice but rechargeable Alkalines. Over 15 years ago, I used some from Rayovac. They last only (nominal) 25 cycles. The equipment I used those on long since died, with that, I had not used rechargeable Alkalines anymore.

7histology said:

I do recharge RECHARGEABLE AA alkaline cells but not the disposable variety. Way too many no-nos.

My main concern would be the leakage which alkaleaks are well know for anyway. Do we know this "Strong" system increases leakage?

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Yeah, charging them will increase the chances of leakage. I wonder whether chargimg them could potentially start a fire. Leakage alone is enough reason I wouldnt attempt to recharge them. It certainly makes more sense to buy Eneloops, when they only cost $2 per cell, 5x recharge times is worth that cost alone, but since they are capable of thousands of cycles its more than worth the investment.

MidnightDistortions said:

Yeah, charging them will increase the chances of leakage. I wonder whether chargimg them could potentially start a fire. Leakage alone is enough reason I wouldnt attempt to recharge them. It certainly makes more sense to buy Eneloops, when they only cost $2 per cell, 5x recharge times is worth that cost alone, but since they are capable of thousands of cycles its more than worth the investment.

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The rechargeable Alkaline are designed to be recharge. There is a risk of fire recharging any battery, but I know of no reason why rechargeable alkaline is more fire-prone than rechargeable NiMH.

As I said earlier, ~15 years ago, I used to use rechargeable Alkalines made by Rayovac. Perhaps I was lucky, I have no leak problem at all with them and I had about 12-20 of them for a few things that required 1.5V. Not a one leaked whereas the Duracell & Everyready non-chargeable leaks on me left and right.

Had they have better cycles (in the high hundreds verse in the low tens), I would have preferred them over an Eneloop. Some 2xAA stuff just doesn't work well with 2.4V.

Read up on rechargeables alkalines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_alkaline_battery

Rick NJ said:

The rechargeable Alkaline are designed to be recharge. There is a risk of fire recharging any battery, but I know of no reason why rechargeable alkaline is more fire-prone than rechargeable NiMH.

As I said earlier, ~15 years ago, I used to use rechargeable Alkalines made by Rayovac. Perhaps I was lucky, I have no leak problem at all with them and I had about 12-20 of them for a few things that required 1.5V. Not a one leaked whereas the Duracell & Everyready non-chargeable leaks on me left and right.

Had they have better cycles (in the high hundreds verse in the low tens), I would have preferred them over an Eneloop. Some 2xAA stuff just doesn't work well with 2.4V.

Read up on rechargeables alkalines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_alkaline_battery

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Yeah, my guess is that the rechargeable alkalines are more resistance to leakage.

Speaking of which the set of alkalines i had in my new weather station, one of them leaked a bit, there was a bit of white powder, not sure if that constitutes leakage but it wasn't hard to remove seeing it was just a dust of white powder. Just replaced it with some Eneloops. I wanted to wait to get some AAA Eneloops (with some AA adapters) since those devices don't rack up a lot of mA but it's no big deal, trying to wait at least a year before i need to restock my AAA Rechargables to keep the manufacture dates separated quite a bit. Once i stock up one those i'll probably get 24 to 36 AAA's.

Recharge alkalines? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

No.

Depends on what voltage they are. I always use the Nickel Zinc mode on my charger and most of the time the battery needs to be at 1,3v or higher to get success. Ofcourse it does charge them to 1,9v, but drops down to 1,5v or so after a while.
Yes they tend to leak much much faster after that, i had 2 Varta's leak in my laptop bag, but luckly no damage was done there.

All tho duracells seem to leak faster. I have duracell here, and they all leaked their stuff.

n3eg said:

Recharge alkalines? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

No.

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:lolsign:

n3eg said:

Recharge alkalines? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

No.

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No disrespect, n3eg, why is that funny?

It is not so strange to need 1.5V, and Rechargeable Alkalines is the only 1.5V rechargeable solution that I can think of that is readily available to consumers.

Rick

Nope. I see absolutely no reason to do it. All of my devices run happily from Eneloops.

Grizzman said:

Nope. I see absolutely no reason to do it. All of my devices run happily from Eneloops.

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So you don't need 1.5V which is good. But it you do need 1.5V for the whatever equipment you are running, Eneloops wont do it.

Why do you keep typing the same thing?

It's a poll.....do you recharge Alkaline cells? I answered.

I did not state that under no circumstances would I use rechargeable alkaline cells.

Grizzman said:

Why do you keep typing the same thing?

It's a poll.....do you recharge Alkaline cells? I answered.

I did not state that under no circumstances would I use rechargeable alkaline cells.

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I asked n3g a question. It was not directed at you, so no need to get annoyed at reading the same thing. Unless you are the same person as n3g.