More dying Energizer 2500's...

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I had two pair of E 2500 charged on my C Crane sit for maybe 5 days, and the first pair quit powering my GPSr about 2pm (It will normally last until 8-9pm).

The second pair (which have shown trouble already) where already down to 1.1ish at that point.

I'm thinking there COULD have been a problem with the C Crane. I will know more when I put the second pair (charged last night) into the GPSr in the morning.

CURIOUS is the fact that both pair are acting the same as their mates. I've only had single cells die up to now.

So far I have had zero problems with Duracell 2500's, and the two pair of Rayovac Hybrid have been cool so far...

 

[CM]

My Energizer 2500 (the ones made in Japan, not China) are pretty close to spent now after only a year of light usage. Less than a hundred charge/discharge cycles. I have 1800mAH that get longer runtimes in my lights than when I use the 2500's. The 1800's are at least a few years old.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

Yes, I failed to mention that my E 2500 are JAPAN made. I always THOUGHT that was a good thing....

Oh yeah, these are also somewhere around a year old with MAYBE 125 charge cycles, but probably more like 100.

 

[Lumbee1]

All of my Energizer 2500's are all starting to fail after a year and a half. One 4pk powers my digi cam, while the other 4pk (2 pairs) get swapped in and out of my Fenix L2T. When I first got my Fenix, I could go a month between charges. Now, I rarely get high mode for a few days before it drops to low mode indicating low battery. The digi cam doesn't get used nearly as much, but now I am having issues with the batteries dying quickly in it.

I am going to toss all of the Energizers and either stick with Duracell 2650's or Eneloops.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I think part of the issue is pushing the limits of AA construction performance/quality when they moved above 2300-2400 mAh cells.

 

[xiaowenzu]

I think part of the issue is pushing the limits of AA construction performance/quality when they moved above 2300-2400 mAh cells.

I think you're right. The higher capacity cells (above 2400) start to break down in about 0.5-1 year depending on use. Scary stuff. This defeats the purpose of trying to save money using Nimhs. It's best to get Sanyo Eneloops 2000.. they are currently the best performing Nimh currrently.

 

[SoundMix]

Along with Energizers, I also had some Sanyo 2700's go bad with light use.

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

One SERIOUS problem with all this is that all one can find at a brick and mortar establishment are the 2500+ mAh batteries.

I have some older 1800-2000 mAh that have been hanging in there great!

 

[BentHeadTX]

I bought some Sony 2500's with the Sanyo HR stamp 1.5 years ago. They were recycled about 9 months back with massive self-discharge of only a few days. All eight of my Powerex 2500's with Sanyo HR stamp are dying in less than a week after charging. They are going to the recycle bin also.

My 2 year old Titanium 2400's are still going strong after about 75 cycles on them and work well. They self discharge but very slowly.

I have been using Powerex 2700's since October 06 and they are working much better than the 2500's they replaced. Long term viability is not known but they should be fine as they test well on a battery analyzer at high loads.

With that being said, I am buying Eneloops from now on for several reasons. They can handle high amp loads without voltage sag, they don't self-discharge much at all and the capacity is enough for my needs.

I started out my NiMH life with Powerex 2100's and they lasted 3 years and well over 150 cycles. I have some 3 year old Sanyo 2300's that power my wireless trackball and they get recharged every two months. Sanyo 1700's (3 years now) work great and have held their capacity in my LuxV Mag mod. The Eneloops have the capacity of the original 2100's but won't self discharge and can handle higher currents. My experience with the HR series of 2500's was a step backwards so the Eneloop 2000's are several steps forward. It will be nice to have NiMH that I don't wonder if they will be dead when I need to use them again.

 

[Flash_Gordon]

I am becoming more than a little skeptical of NiMH AA cells of 2500 mAH capacity and above. This comes from much anecdotal information on this forum and my own experience.

I just trashed three sets of almost new 2500 mAH cells. This was one set of 4 Energizers from WallyWorld and two sets of Sanyos purchased online. Same cells and the same failure mode. Very fast self discharge along with the propensity of one or more cells in a set to collapse under almost any load. I left home with three sets of new, tested and conditioned cells, which left me scrambling to have to mix and match to come up with a working set.

On the other side, I have several sets of PowerEx 2300 mAH cells which have been bulletproof. No failures and no weak sisters. Pushing three years of use with many cycles.

Is my experience meaningful. Maybe, who knows for sure. Thomas Dist. still has 2300 PowerEx. The price is good and I think I'll buy some more of these.

High capacity in a defective cell is as useless as.....

Mark

 

[PlayboyJoeShmoe]

I would TEND to totally agree...

Except I haven't had a bit of trouble from Duracell HR 2500 yet.

Of course they don't have quite the time/cycles as all the Energizers that are going belly up.....

Also they have been used exclusively in my 2AA GPSr, which can't be said about most of my other NimH...

 

[VidPro]

i have some of the data on mine now.
when we FIRST got the first set of 2500s as soon as they came out, i marked them, mostly because they were totally different capacity.
after many cycles and year or so of use, those "firsts" will self discharge MORE than 1/2 after a mere week.

the others purchaced later, from the same place, are just fine after a week, and would make it 2-3week easy for our use.

knowing that these were purchaced within a few "cycles" of each other, and within the same basic time element, all i can figure is this "First" batch is trash.

here we use them (usually) right after charging/topping (within days), so there has never really been an issue with it. but i think this first batch is just TOO bad.

 

[clintb]

I have some Energizer 2500's that were purchased very soon after they appeared in retail stores. They've been very lightly used and certainly not abused. In all, I have ten cells, of those eight are high self discharge. I sent an email to Energizer stating the problem and received an email stating they'd send a $10 coupon. Seems to be pretty standard. I might put that towards the purchase of the 15 min charger to mess around with.

Since the cells (eight of them) are pretty much trash, I've put them in my Integy Booster 3 discharge tray. It discharges individual cells to 0V, but has protection from reversal. I then put all eight in a holder and hooked it up to my Ace DDVC at 250 mAh for 16 hrs. I've been monitoring the voltage for a week and so far they're staying above 1.2V. Next will be to top them off and check the capacity.

 

[oldvultureface]

This is far from a scientific observation but I had a set of 2500's used for about a year in my older high drain digital camera. The camera recently became unusable after only a few pictures. Two of the cells were dead and were recycled. The other two I use in a Nite Ize 2AA Minimag at work. It's used about 5 to 10 minutes total a day pulling 175 mA. After a week, the two remaining Energizers show only 40% charge remaining (at least they're matched!). Everything in the house that uses rechargables now gets Eneloops or Hybrids.

 

[CM]

The increased capacity to the detriment of reliability and internal resistance is making me move away from NiMH. Seems like everyone and their grandma are selling the latest "HIGH CAPACITY" cells that have very short shelf life or very limited cycle life. I may try eneloops but for me, Li-Ion is my choice of rechargeables.

 

[jayflash]

Does limiting the charge to 500mA help? I've had mine for over a year but usually charge at that rate.

 

[alexanderino]

I've been resuscitating my friend's 9 month-old Energizer 2500mAh batts with my new Maha C9000 for the past two days. Here are the discharge figures, before and after one refresh and analyse cycle:

Before - After
 1353  -  1870
 1392  -  1893
 1541  -  1964
 1548  -  1987
 1949  -  2202
 1986  -  2191
 2003  -  2402
 2157  -  2327

They were incapable of holding their charge for more than a week. Last time he used the first four in his Canon S2 IS, he got three shots :thumbsdow

I'll keep you updated as to their progress.

 

[VidPro]

I've been resuscitating my friend's 9 month-old Energizer 2500mAh batts with my new Maha C9000 for the past two days. Here are the discharge figures, before and after one refresh and analyse cycle:

They were incapable of holding their charge for more than a week. Last time he used the first four in his Canon S2 IS, he got three shots :thumbsdow

I'll keep you updated as to their progress.

yes please do, i would have never thought that cycling them would improve anything. and the MAIN thing is if cycling them on that pulse charger will reduce the self discharge.

but you did not mention any RATES that you were doing this at?

 

[Handlobraesing]

For capacity tests, overnight charging is the best, because it never suffers from false termination.

 

[peskyphotons]

I called Energizer and complained about my cells not holding a charge for more than a couple of weeks. After grilling me a little about how I was charging them they said they would mail me a coupon to replace them. My question is, are the new Energizer cells better than the old ones. Mine have a date code of 10-04 on them.

Thanks,
Alex