Alkaline Battery Charger

[dudemar]

I remember about 15 years ago there was an infomercial for an alkaline battery charger. I forgot the name of the charger, all I remember was it was designed by some Canadian professor and it charged alkaline batteries! I was about 12 years old and I just remembered thinking how awesome it was. I would've bought it in a heartbeat, but like most 12-year-olds I didn't have any money (or a credit card, lol).

Looking at a few threads made me take a walk down memory lane. I googled for said product and found something similar to it:

http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/battery_xtender_alkaline_battery_recharger

Here's my question: is this charger any good? Does it give a full charge safely? Or is this a bogus product? It would be neat to re-use alkaline batteries over again, but some things are too good to be true...


Dudemar

 

[half-watt]

once had an alk. charger. cells never seemed to perform as well when recharged as when first used as purchased fr/the Mfr.

even if this one works better, alk. cell chemistry is still alk. cell chemistry with its poor non-linear characteristic discharge curve and inability to provide beaucoup amounts of current in hi-current draw applications.

my two shekels is that some Eneloops or Sanyo 2700 mAh NiMH cells and a less expensive charger (the one in your link is $40, a couple of bucks more, or whatever, for 4AA cells) might be just a bit more expensive and give overall better performance in medium to hi current applications, as well as some lo-med current draw applications.

you can find at Thomas Distributing (just Google the on-line store by that name; i've purchased several chargers and cells from them with no problems and fast delivery) some very nice chargers for as low as ~$30 and add in another $10-$20 for four (or more) very high quality NiMH cells and your only at $40 to $50. of course, chargers for larger cells and the purchase of those larger cells will increase the cost more than purchasing larger alkaline cells. however, there is still the much better performance of NiMH cells due to the NiMH chemistry and its flatter/more-linear characteristic discharge curve to consider. this fact permits regulated electronics to often stay in regulation longer with NiMH cells vs. alk. cells.

alk. cell's greater storage capacity vs. the Eneloops could be better in VERY low draw applications where runtime is perhaps the most desired criteria and where the alk. characteristic discharge curves is less of a liability. however, the 2700 mAh capacity of the Sanyo cells i sometimes use in place of the Eneloops give "near alkaline" performance in VERY low constant drain applications.

again, this is just my two shekels. YMMV.

 

[LumenHound]

That company from 15 (or maybe 20) years ago is still around and they are still selling rechargeable alkaline batteries and chargers.

Pure Energy Visions Corporation

 

[Marduke]

It's not worth it. A lot of brands of alkalines tend to leak when you recharge them. Even when it works, you only get a handful of cycles out of them.

It's MUCH cheaper to just invest in a decent NiMH system.

 

[rizky_p]

Not worth it, get a REAL rechargeable instead. IMO.

 

[Mugrunty]

Ha ha ha, I remember I had a math final coming up in school and my graphing calculator's batteries died. Me, not wanting to buy more for one test, decided to charge up the batteries in the calculator. So I did with my power supply in the lab, at school. Like everyones been saying, I made it through the test...but they died shortly after. I only charged them for an hour or so at 1/10C. But the calculator doesn't draw much at all so I was ok. It's like I said in another post, it works as a "macgyver" method at best.

 

[Darkpower]

I remember about 15 years ago there was an infomercial for an alkaline battery charger. I forgot the name of the charger, all I remember was it was designed by some Canadian professor and it charged alkaline batteries! I was about 12 years old and I just remembered thinking how awesome it was. I would've bought it in a heartbeat, but like most 12-year-olds I didn't have any money (or a credit card, lol).

Looking at a few threads made me take a walk down memory lane. I googled for said product and found something similar to it:

http://the-gadgeteer.com/review/battery_xtender_alkaline_battery_recharger

Here's my question: is this charger any good? Does it give a full charge safely? Or is this a bogus product? It would be neat to re-use alkaline batteries over again, but some things are too good to be true...


Dudemar

Like someone else said...don't waste your time with it. :thumbsdow

I bought the Battery X-tender, messed around with recharging Alkalines for about a month last year and I will tell you that 50-75% of the recharged batteries will leak. I wasted time. Secondly, it does to some extent, recharge but the voltage that appears on the battery in an open circuit measurement is what I call "fluff" voltage. As soon as you put a load on, that voltage sags and the recharge capacity is but a tiny fraction of the overall capacity. I tried AA and D batteries. The D cells may need 3 to 4 days, and the AA may need 2 days to charge and like I said, much of the measurable voltage is "fluff". Theoretically it works by applying a tiny trickle current to avoid leaking which is theoretically caused by heating and pressure build up cuased by higher currents.

The only good thing about the charger, is that it will charge RAMs (rechargeable Alkaline Manganese), NiMhs, and NiCds. But is a very slow charger (soft) so its an ideal charger if you want to slow charge your NiMh.

 

[Cydonia]

I remember hearing some hype about rechargeable alkalines around that time period too. Amazing the company is still around pushing that idea after all this time...

 

[lctorana]

I remember hearing some hype about rechargeable alkalines around that time period too. Amazing the company is still around pushing that idea after all this time...

You should feel proud, man!

Rechageable Alkaline technology is as Canadian as maple syrup!

 

[dudemar]

That company from 15 (or maybe 20) years ago is still around and they are still selling rechargeable alkaline batteries and chargers.

Pure Energy Visions Corporation

Holy cow I think that's the company!:wow: I can't believe they're still in business after all these years... just figured they were a fly-by-night telemarketing company.

 

[Black Rose]

My father in law had some of those Pure Energy rechargeable alkalines at one time. He wasn't that impressed with them.

I still see those batteries at Wal-Mart here.

 

[donn]

The Battery Wizard is for sale in the U.K. Not a clue who produces it or how/if it works.
A quick google says it recharges the batteries up to 90% of their original capacity up to 10 times.

http://www.nauticalia.com/uk-info/electronics/power_packs_and_batteries/battery_charger/97091.html

This forum has a thread on it:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=646802

Think I'll stick with the eneloops myself.
D.