Cheap Powercell batteries from eBay?

[aab]

I bought 32 of these last year (16 AAA, 16 AA) and while my charger doesn't like them (whenever it's done charging them it says "BAD" instead of "DONE" 95% of the time for these batteries), I really like them. They cost less than $1 each if you buy a few and they have worked absolutely great for me and last months between recharges.

But it might depend on the charger you use, I think my old Duracell charger would flash a bad battery signal immediately without charging. My Energizer charger charges them and then says they are bad after it's done charging so I don't care.

Is there any reason I shouldn't buy more of these when I need more non-LSDs?

Thanks

 

[jasonck08]

Rule of thumb: Never buy off brand batteries from eBay. Buy Eneloops / Duraloops instead they can be had for $2 - 2.5 a cell and will last much longer than these cells. I have eneloops from 2007 that are still going strong!

 

[aab]

But is there any reason not too? They seem at least equal to the non LSD Duracells I had before at about 1/3rd the price, even if they last 1/3rd the time it still ends up being equal.

I've been using them for 18 months with many cycles on them and they work perfectly.

 

[moderator007]

If they work for you why not buy more. I bought these about a year ago. I am very satisfied with them. They were cheap enough. Ordered them with some other stuff because they were cheap and saved on shipping. I would recommend maybe you get a better charger. One thing i have noticed though is usually on the cheaper batterys there can be variances between when you order them. You may get good batterys or not so good batterys, luck of the draw. The more expensive batterys are usually more closer to capacity and reliable. Some times you just dont need to spend the extra cash for devices like a remote for a tv or a childs toy. But i do like the low self discharge batterys for what ever its use, no matter the brand.

 

[aab]

I'll look at those Turnigy batteries it's a good price for LSDs but do they ship to Canada?

I use both regular Powercell nimh (above) and Duracell LSD nimhs, i put the regular Powercells in high drain devices wheres the batteries will last less than 3 months, like my battery powered drink mixer, peppermill, handheld computer, etc. and use the LSDs in low drain devices where the batteries last over 6 months like remote controls (it makes no sense to put a non LSD in a remote control), LED flashlight, digital camera (I don't use it often).

 

[snakebite]

anyone run these through a c9000 yet?
they look a lot like the so called "2700" gs yuasa and the "2900" sold by aventrade.
but if real cheap and your expectations are low they may be an ok deal.
note that powercell is tm of meijer stores.i have some of their lsd aa and they are decent.the ones posted by the o.p are not from meijer.

 

[aab]

What just happened to my cheap batteries from China?

As I posted in another thread I got these cheap "Powercell" batteries from China and used them with great success in kitchen drink mixers, pepper grinders, etc. Last week I decided it would be worth using them in my grayscale handheld PC from 1999 (still very useful and the grayscale screen means I can view it in direct sunlight, in fact that's when the screen is clearest, it allows me to do lots of my work outside during the summer). I had been using my Duraloops in it and they lasted 2-3 weeks of daily use before getting at 30% when Windows starts complaining about low power.

The Powercells worked great for the first few days and today I took it and in control panel I think it said the batteries where at 70%, so I quickly update an excel workbook and save it. Then for some reason I open the battery door and just move them around and close it. I turn it back on and Windows immediately says "Main batteries are very low", I figured I placed them wrong and move them again, now the computer can't even power on for more than a flash on the screen. I move them again a few times, nothing, put duraloops I had in storage, turns on and says 90% charge, put the Powercells, still just a flash before it dies.

What I don't understand is why where they working great and powering the handheld with the back light (the back light uses about 5-10 times more power the the entire rest of the computer) and saying 70% charge, and then just from moving the batteries they are now deader than dead?

Anyway, I'll be using only Duraloops from now on, these handhelds run entirely from ram, they are like a laptop with no hard drive, and a partition of ram is reserved as your storage "drive" (which you can resize in realtime at any time). If you know how ram works, you know this means if the device runs out of power, your c:\ drive gets wiped clean. That's why they all have an emergency backup watch battery that can power the RAM (but not power the entire device) for several days or even weeks even with the main batteries removed. Even though it has a backup battery, I want to keep reliable Duraloops on this thing considering it cannot run out of power at any time, though I have a backup it's not always too recent.

This is the handhelc PC I'm using in case you're wondering, they're awesome devices even for today for work like word, excel, email, and there's 2 expansion slots so you can add wifi and a flash card or whatever hardware you want (it uses PCMCIA cards and Compact Flash cards). It's only 54mhz but that's plenty for a device like this, it runs very fast and even programs like excel start in about a second, and a full system reboot takes an amazing 6 seconds (video of reboot).

 

[Norm]

Re: What just happened to my cheap batteries from China?

Your two threads regarding the same batteries merged.
Norm