Battery Technologies (Renewal) bankrupt

[PhotonBoy]

I wasn't surprised to hear this. I tried their batteries once and found them to suck big time.

"Battery Technologies Inc., maker of the world's only rechargeable alkaline manganese batteries, says it will file for bankruptcy-court protection while it prepares a restructuring proposal. BTI batteries are sold in Canada under the brand name Pure Energy and in the United States as Rayovac Renewal."

 

[Empath]

If Rayovac doesn't indicate interest in bailing them out, since they've got less than a million in debts, I'd say that is a strong statement from Rayovac of the absurdity of the product.

 

[Gene]

I agree. These were the worst rechargeables I ever tried. Great idea but very lacking in real world use. I bought 8 "Renewal" AA's and two of the Rayovac's "Power Station's" when they first came out and they were HORRIBLE! They wore out too fast and I could never trust them. I still have 4 Sanyo NiCD's and a GE NiCD charger that I purchased at the same time and they are still going strong after all this time!

One positive thing I can say about the Rayovac "Renewals" is that they sure made Michael Jordan, (who was their spokesman and in all their print ads at time), a LOT richer than he already was!

 

[lemlux]

I continue to use AAA renewals in my ARC AAA's. When fresh they are brighter than NiMH's and I rarely use the light long enough to discharge it deeply.

I also use AA renewals in my Surge. This light sits around without being used much. NiMH's would self-discharge, and Lithiums would blow the bulb. When I do use the Surge I'm prone to top off the batteries so that the output is close to that of a fresh battery.

These batteries had about half the capacity of a regular alkaline. They work well for infrequent use lights with limited run times where voltage of 1.5 per cell at time of use is desired.

Yes, I've also thrown away alot of Renewals that I've made the mistake of deeply discharging. These are good for a very limited profile of applications.

 

[MrAl]

Hello,

I have had mixed feelings on the batteries myself, but
i have noted that the batteries did have their place in
the battery world.

In my TI-85 calculator, i used to go through AAA alkaline
batteries quite a bit. I switched to NiCd's but they
ran down too fast, not having enough capacity.
I switched to AAA Renewals, and i was very satisfied because
they had the capacity of standard alkies but were also
rechargeable. It just so happened that the calculator
ran the batteries down to a level that allowed them to be
very nearly full charged again without harming them by
discharging too deeply. Also, now that i depend more on
the computer for heavy calculations and analysis rather
then the calculator i dont use the calculator that much
anymore, yet when i pick it up two years later the batteries
are still charged and the calculator works fine. This would
certainly not be the case if i was using NiCd's.

My experiences with the batteries lead me to the following
conclusions:
[1]
The Renewals need special attention with regard to the
level of discharge. They can not be discharged to a level
that will damage them. This is probably about 1.2 volts.
[2]
The data that can be obtained from Rayovac (i've sent for
advanced studies on the batteries and looked carefully
at everything) is very misleading. This data suggests
that the batteries can be recharged up to 50 times, which
seems to indicate that you can get the equivalent of
50 alkaline batteries or nearly so. This is not the
case. Not only does the capacity drop off as the
battery is cycled, the level of discharge would have
to be very very high for you to be able to use the battery
a full 50 times. Indeed, you could get 100's of thousands
of charges from a NiCd if you did the same thing, but you
would never be able to use the full capacity of the cell
which defeats the purpose. In other words, they redefined
the way a cell is normally used in the real world in order
to be able to quote the 50 recharges.
In actual use, ive been able to get about 8 recharges
when used in the calculator (and i used to use this really
a lot) before the run time got so low it became very annoying
to have to stop and change batteries again so that they
could be recharged again.
[3]
The battery voltage gets very 'soft' after recharging a number of
times. That is, the voltage starts out at 1.6 volts but then
runs down to 1.4 volts, and then after the device is turned off,
the batteries regenerate back up to about 1.55 volts, so when the
device is turned back on again it has to first run off of about 1.55
volts again, which over a few minutes drops back down to 1.4 volts or so.
This means you have to readjust the LCD screen contrast, which also
gets very annoying. This alone means you wont want to use the
batteries beyond about 8 recharges.
[4]
I wasnt able to find any other battery that would provide a decent
run time other then regular alkalines. This meant i did save
money as a result of using the renewals, but the break even
point was much longer then expected going by the Rayovac
advertisements alone used as a basis for deciding to purchase
a charger and set of batteries.
[5]
The startup price is quite high unless you can get the charger
and first set of batteries in a sale of some sort.



The above shows that the batteries do have their place; i couldnt
find any battery in AAA size that would provide the desired run time
as well as retain most of its charge after two years or so, but
the batteries certainly wont be appropriate for every application.
In flashlight apps, they will probably be run down too far to
be able to be fully recharged again after one or two charges.

In other words, in order to get good use out of these batteries
you have to have the right application to begin with or you dont
mind keeping a careful eye on the charge level of the battery.


Good luck with your LED circuits,
Al

 

[itsme1234]

Hm... this looks fishy. There is no "Rayovac Renewal" on rayovac.com; only "Rayovac Rechargeable Alkaline". And the date for the article is

Apr. 1, 2003. 01:00 AM

 

[lemlux]

Rayovac originally used the brand name "Renewal" because it was technically more accurate than "Rechargeable". Several years ago they changed the name to "Rechargeable Alkalines" because "Renewal" was too confusing to Joe Consumer.

I have some batteries with each label. Those with "Renewal" are probably at least 6 years old.

 

[Gene]

Good points Al and Clark. I have to admit that I probably ran them into deep dicharge a couple more times than I should have. That's one of the reasons I didn't like them. I don't want rechargeables where I can't.

I purchased them when they first came out because of the deep discounts they were giving at the time. I believe a four cell charger and eight AA cells came to around $10.00 with a rebate coupon they were including with the combination.

I'll tell you though, the Renewal cells I had definitely lost 50% or better of their charge if I let them sit even for a couple of weeks. Maybe that can be blamed on them being the first generation and they improved them in the insuing years. I mainly used them in my portable radios. When I installed them with a fresh charge, they lasted a good while but not as long as fresh, regular alkalines.

So as you can see, my experience was less than satisfactory. After experiencing NiMH rechargeables however, I'm pretty happy but as with NiCD's, NiMH's don't hold their charge very well either. I also have had no negative effects running the NiMH's until complete discharge.

To me the best solution over any of these by a country mile, for intermittent or long term storage, is of course lithium cells. Lithium's though like everything in life, have their drawbacks also. Such as being cost prohibitive, (which is changing for the better), and available in only two sizes.

 

[PhotonBoy]

I think there's been some re-branding and name changes for the batteries in both Canada and the U.S. In the battery sections of the major stores I frequent, the batteries don't have much shelf-space and there's a lot of dust on them. (I don't think the date of the article implies it's an April Fool's joke.)

Essentially, the batteries lack oomph and expire after disappointingly few charging cycles. They *might* have taken off if a different charger weren't required.

 

[JSWrightOC]

I had used these for a little while but was quite dissatisfied with them. I had numerous unexplained cell failures, and several more would actually begin leaking--usually in the charger--and, in general, have experienced most of what everyone else has experienced. Even though the charger would stop the charging cycle (LED goes out), if I left a cell in it for too long it would start oozing electrolyte.

Oddly, while I had plenty that would fail or otherwise be rendered unuseable, the last time I used the whole set I was still using the very first four that I owned. They even held a charge, and worked (although not nearly as good as new ones) but they worked--and did not leak. Figure that one out. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif