Do some manufacturers prey on the weak and stupid?

fireguy

Newly Enlightened
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Ontario, Canada
I think I probably qualify in that category! :laughing:

I've dabbled in electronics for a few decades and like to think I know a little bit about the subject. However, I'm far from an expert. But I must confess my knowledge about batteries has been on par with the general population.

I've used rechargeables for years but never really found myself happy with their performance. About a year ago I bought a bunch of cheap chinese NiMH on ebay and a small smart charger. I was ecstatic with the performance of these batteries! Making the jump from 600 mAh NiCd's to 2700 mAh NiMh was the best move I've ever made. Everything electronic just ran for an eternity longer than what I had become accustomed.

But then I found CPF and bought a C9000. Now I must hang my head in shame. I tested these miracles of modern technology and found that my 2700 mAh cells were only giving me around 1,800 at best. After several break-in cycles, they were pretty much the same. Certainly 1,8000 mAh is considerably better than my old, battered and abused 600 mAh NiCds, so it was no wonder I was elated!

But now that I'm learning about batteries, chargers and all this wonderful stuff, I realize just how little I knew, and just how poor my purchases have been. (Well, except for the C9000 which is probably one of the best purchases I've ever made.)

After reading several posts here, I bought some Eneloops. After running through a cycle with one of the AA's, I find my 2,000 mAh Eneloop is actually giving me around 1,971 mAh, or 98.5% of its rated capacity. Certainly better than the 75% I'm getting on the 2,700 chinese cells.

I wonder why battery manufacturers don't do a better job of reaching the masses and giving more information to educate them? Surely Sanyo could have some great information on the internet to show why their cells really are fantastic, and not just through marketing hype. Obviously, manufacturers of the cheap cells don't want this, but the name-brand manufacturers who do spend the money for research & development and come out with cells that actually provide what the label says would surely benefit from this. I had never heard of Eneloops before joining CPF!

How many people are buying crap batteries and chargers that are causing considerable damage to their batteries because they just don't know any better? How many products are being sold that are not only junk, but may pose hazards as well? Obviously not everyone needs or wants a C9000 or similar charger/analyzer. For certain most people think "it's just a battery". Some will only consider price, or are attracted to a 15-minute charger. But with a global awareness of the environment and some really cool technological advances in both batteries (such as LSD cells) and chargers, wouldn't it make sense to have more people using good battery technology? I wish I had known more about batteries years ago. I would have saved myself a lot of money and aggravation.

And as an end to my little rant, let me thank everyone on here for their great knowledge and the willingness to share it with everyone, and answer all the questions, especially the ones from newbies like me. Every time I read a post on here I learn something! :twothumbs

Ok, it's late and I should stop typing now!
 
After running through a cycle with one of the AA's, I find my 2,000 mAh Eneloop is actually giving me around 1,971 mAh, or 98.5% of its rated capacity. Certainly better than the 75% I'm getting on the 2,700 chinese cells.
Actually Eneloops are rated at 1900 mAh minimum, so anything more than that and you are ahead :)

Surely Sanyo could have some great information on the internet to show why their cells really are fantastic, and not just through marketing hype.
Yes, they could. They could indeed.
 

Excellent response, Mr Happy! And quite a clever way of showing the link. It looks like they have some great information there. I guess I should say that Sanyo does provide the information, but people have to want to find it? (Geez, I feel so embarrassed now - the information was there all along. :ohgeez: Why is there no 'foot-in-mouth' emoticon? :D)

However, I think my basic point is still valid. There's still a lot of education that could be done, and the industry as a whole would benefit from having people purchase quality goods, not just the cheapest (that is more expensive in the long run).

Just as a point of clarification: I'm not suggesting that the reputable, name-brand manufacturers prey on people. I wonder if some the the manufacturers of junk cells and bad chargers are. If the reputable manufacturers promoted their products more and provided more education (which, I have learned, Sanyo does), would people be less likely to buy the junk?
 
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An educated consumer is rare, the whole reason why name brands can prey on the population is not just because the average consumer is uneducated but that the average consumer wouldn't educate themselves even if all the information is out there, which it usually is. It just takes some digging which most aren't willing to do. We are all guilty of leaving gaps in our knowledge. Some more than others. As cpf members we don't leave gaps in our lighting knowledge. There are other forums out there too. Take, for example, autopia.org. How many there can blame cpfers for thinking Turtle Wax is a good wax because "That's what everyone uses," I'm also a member there and can tell you lots of reasons why Turtle Wax sucks. Just like we can tell them their maglites they're using for paint inspection sucks. Ha There, Their and They're all correctly used within two sentences. Language education is important too. It bugs me more than it should to see loose and lose being used incorrectly almost all the time, you lose your keys because your keychains were loose.
 
In order to educate the general public, the companies have to advertise.

I've always been baffled (doesn't take much some days :D ) why a company like Sanyo would not advertise the advantages of the Eneloop here in North America.

The only advertising I have seen for LSD batteries by ANY of the battery companies has been from Duracell (print and TV).
Duracell is the company that I would have least expected to advertise them, since it could take money away from their disposable alkaline sales. I think the fact that people dabbled with rechargeable NiMh cells in the past and got less than stellar results is the main reason why people still use so many alkaline cells.

Then again, some battery advertising is so out there (Energizer Lithium space station advert) that it's laughable.

If it wasn't for the fact that I found CPF early last year and got educated by the experts here, I'd still be using my battery killing chargers and I would have looked for cheap high capacity cells and think I got a deal.
 
I think "ignorant" would have been a better word to use than "weak and stupid".

A lot of consumers won't understand what the technical specifications on a battery mean so they have little chance of being able to measure them to see if the product does actually meet the specification. Even those who do understand the consequences of a mah rating won't have the equipment to measure it accurately.

You are able to measure the capacity of the batteries to some degree but proving that your batteries are underperforming to the degree that there was no wiggle room for the manufacturer adds a whole new dimension to the problem. How accurately does your charger measure battery capacities? When and how was your charger calibrated and is it still in calibration?

There was a class action suit over CRT sizes (TVs, monitors etc), since the manufacturers industry standard was to quote tube size, which is larger than viewable screen size. The CRT class action suit was won, so I think a nimh rechargeable battery size class action suit could be won more easilly.
 
Re: Do some manufacturers prey on the ignorant?

I think "ignorant" would have been a better word to use than "weak and stupid".

"Weak and stupid" was more humour than anything else, especially poking fun at myself for making uninformed purchases in the past.
 
Ya back in 96-97 i actually bought them rayovac renewable alkaline d batteries for a new mag 6d for coon hunting. :shakeheadWhat a waist. :crackup: i still have one of those batteries and the renewable power station for my antique collection. I was sure stupid back then. :crackup::crackup:
 
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Ya back in 96-97 i actually bought them rayovac renewable alkaline d batteries for a new mag 6d for coon hunting. :shakeheadWhat a waist. :crackup: i still have one of those batteries and the renewable power station for my antique collection. I was sure stupid back then. :crackup::crackup:

No, not stupid. We all make decisions based upon current technology and information. Seems like some companies are more interested in making quick profit rather than actually providing quality goods and services. No different than any other area. There are still a lot of poor products out there, but also some very good ones.

It just appears to me that batteries and chargers are somewhat falling behind in the technological savvy of consumers. Many other technological areas have gone through 'growing' stages where inferior products have been weeded out. IMHO many computer and automobile manufacturers are making better products than they did a decade ago. Perhaps since automobiles and possibly even computers are a major purchasing decision, there is more information for consumers (eg: reviews, magazine articles, television shows, etc.) and more opportunity for education?

Batteries for the most part tend to be a couple-of-dollar purchase and maybe don't warrant the time to investigate. If you buy a package of batteries at a dollar store and they don't last long, you're only out a couple of dollars. However, as I've learned, doing a bit of research and making a good investment is less expensive in the long run and makes life easier. It's nice to know that my camera will work if I see something I want to photograph, rather than having the familiar low-battery warning flashing.

Seriously, it's not that consumers are weak and stupid, just that it's easy to make purchasing decisions that aren't the best in the long run.
 
The current high end audio tweaks selling for hundreds and thousands of dollars are so far-fetched one has to wonder how anybody would fall for such obvious snake oil pitches.

I'm very disappointed with the amount of plainly fraudulent advertising allowed for many consumer products. Our government is clearly protecting the manufacturer in some cases.
 
I've taken some chances on batteries where all I had was the advertising hype and been disappointed. Now I try to stick to purchases backed up by forum and review responses.

Probably happens to everyone once in a while (if they were willing to admit it).:sigh:
 
The current high end audio tweaks selling for hundreds and thousands of dollars are so far-fetched one has to wonder how anybody would fall for such obvious snake oil pitches.

I'm very disappointed with the amount of plainly fraudulent advertising allowed for many consumer products. Our government is clearly protecting the manufacturer in some cases.

Snake oil is big business in the audio world. Biggest snake oil out there is ultra premium wire. They expound on the virtues but no one in those companies will ever step up to a true double blind test between lamp cord and $100 a foot speaker cable. But you get the placebo effect that it has to sound better or you'd look like a fool spending so much on speaker wire.
 
You are right in the sense that most manufactures, usually cheap ones, or as some people call them here "no name" brands, lie about batteries capacity.

But, I must admit I am not so disappointed about those cheap Chinese batteries I use (Tenergy). Some time ago I bought 24 AA Tenergy batteries paying $18 shipped. Those 2600 mAh rated batteries are really between 1900 and 2100 mAh. Not a bad deal for $ 0.75 per battery. I have used these batteries for more than 3 years now without any issues. Some in digital cameras, GPS, remote controls and most in my daughter's toys. I charge all my batteries in a La Crosse BC-900 charger at no more than 500ma. From time to time a do a discharge-charge cycle.

For my emergency flashlights I use some Eneloops (~$3.50 per battery) I bought last year (after learning about them here at CPF). For the flashlights used to "play" lighting the trees behind my backyard I use these cheap Chinese batteries.

In conclusion. If we need reliable batteries we should buy Eneloops or other good brand batteries. For toys and to play with flashlights cheap batteries is enough.
 
You can also throw in how much "damage" did that cheap smart charger do to your batteries from the time you started using it to the time you switched to a new charger. How often did you charge mismatched batteries, etc. Likely the batteries were no where near 2,700, but perhaps more than what you finally measured.

Semiman
 
Snake oil is big business in the audio world. Biggest snake oil out there is ultra premium wire. They expound on the virtues but no one in those companies will ever step up to a true double blind test between lamp cord and $100 a foot speaker cable. But you get the placebo effect that it has to sound better or you'd look like a fool spending so much on speaker wire.

$100 per foot? True audiophiles don't buy such bargain bin wire. TARA Labs The Zero. 2m costs $14'900 :p

But, jayflash and qwertyydude: while I agree that there are some ridiculous audio snake oil products on the market, there are also some expensive audio components that actually make a difference. For example, there was a guy over at headfi who had terrible problems with electromagnetical interference - all his cables would act as antennas, and he had some serious noise problems. In the end, he bought some heavily shielded copper wire, meant for industrial applications in high EMI environments. I don't know how much he paid, but all in all it might well have been 100$ per foot. And then there's the people who yell snake oil when they see something like an USB headphone amplifier. Even with the cheap iPod buds I can clearly hear static coming out of my laptop.... and have you ever tried hooking up Sennheiser HD600 headphones to a consumer audio device? Many have way to low voltage for even reaching moderate volume levels. And of course the group of people who ask you in disbelief "you paid how much for your headphones? I never pay more than 20$ for 'em - headphones are headphones!" (Please note the plural form. most of those people are on their fifth pair, because they always break down...). Exchange headphone with flashlight.. and most of you will know what I'm talking about ;) Quality comes at a price.

Ok, what I wanted to say with this rant: 'Snake oil' is relative. Of course there is the law of diminishing returns. $100 Grado headphones are great, $500 ones are better still, but you won't hear a difference if you plug them into an iPod.

And there's another point: The TARA cables are without doubt a great display of engineering. So are some 50'000$ tube amplifiers. Their internal layout, their uncompromising power supply, tons of the best audio components built in.... There are people who enjoy (and most importantly able to afford) those devices - C'mon, is the Spy007 really 'worth' it from a practical standpoint? But it is beautiful! And the further you go up the no-compromise scale, the more it'll cost, and the more are people inclined to yell 'snakeoil'.

Sorry for OT - but hey, wasn't me who started talking about audio ;)
 
You can also throw in how much "damage" did that cheap smart charger do to your batteries from the time you started using it to the time you switched to a new charger. How often did you charge mismatched batteries, etc. Likely the batteries were no where near 2,700, but perhaps more than what you finally measured.

Semiman

That's an interesting point. Would it matter if I charge mismatched batteries if the charger has separate channels for each battery? I could see how this would affect mismatched cells if it charged them in pairs.

How can I check my smart charger to see how "smart" it is? Is there any way to test it to see if it's damaging the cells? When charging they don't get very hot. The most I've done so far is measuring the discharge capacity in the C9000, charging the battery in the smart charger, then measuring the discharge in the C9000 again. But this wouldn't tell me if there was any overcharging on the part of the smart charger.

The details on the "smart charger" are below, as well as a link. I'm curious to know how you can tell if a charger is any good, apart from reading reviews on forums like this and relying on expert information.


4 Individual Charging Channels
6-Level Charge Protection
–Delta V/0 Delta V cut off
Over Temperature Protection(60℃)
Timer Control Protection (6.5 Hours)
Reverse Polarity Protection
Over Current and Short Circuit Protection
Defective and Non-rechargeable battery detection
Low Current Leakage Minimizes loss of capacity and maintains charging of battery by Controlling Current Leakage
Trickle Charge to Maintain Battery Charge
Worldwide Voltage 100V-240V
Battery Rescue Function
Pulse and Series Charging Technology for Fast and Efficient Charging
Battery REFRESH Function and Reduce Memory Effect and Enable Full Discharge for Longer Battery Life
Powered by AC Outlet /USB 5.0VDC

Adapter
- Input: AC adapter 110V-240VAC, 50/60 Hz, 5W
- Output: 5VDC - 800mA
Charger
(Electronic SCH600F)
- Charging current: AA/R06 or AAA/R03*2:1000mA; AA/R06 or AAA/R03*4: 500mA

http://www.spowerking.com/pro_001.asp
 
Thank the battery Gods for Sanyo! Their Eneloop NiMh has rehabilitated and rejuvenated my belief in rechargeable AA's.
My experiences in the 80's and 90's with junk rechargeables were dismal, to say the least, and it culminated in my abandoning and giving away all my old junk chargers and NiCd - NiMh cells.
The whole odious experience poisoned me to the advantages of rechargeable cells for an entire decade! I suspect many others were induced to surrender their faith in rechargeable and go back to alkalines too... (qwertyydude, you forgot the infuriating misuse of "to" and "too" :laughing: )
Only much reading of all the user testimony and wonder surrounding the Eneloop convinced me to get back into the fray... Thank the battery Gods for Sanyo!
 
First thing I thought of when I read this was... *you think that's bad... what about "600W" speakers on ebay!?!?!*

Apparently I'm not the only one who immediately started thinking "audio industry" when on the subject of manipulation and deceit in sales. I guess I'm also not the only person who owns a set of Grado's :) (I think they were $80, easily one of the best $80 ever spent)

In the flashlight industry, I have not seen very many examples of flashlights that are selling ONLY a price tag, but there are many examples of that in the world of "audiophile" gear. Then there are some expensive components that are actually justifiably expensive, and then there is a massive slew of garbage being slung to the big-box/ebay/fleamarket/discount-electronics-super-duper-blowout-super-sale that is all super over-rated.... If you think we have lumen over-rating problems in the flashlight world, you should see what they can get away with when you have specification that means practically nothing, but that they have convinced the general public is the most important factor, WATTS, lol.

This type of activity by corporations may not be exactly honorable, but I'd rather live in a world with dishonorable corporations, with the freedom to avoid them, than under the rule of a dishonorable and oppressive government. Vote with your WALLET!

Eric
 
I rarely quote Harry Anderson but even a blind hog finds a nut now and again:

"Never eat at a place called Mom's.

"Never play poker with a man called Pops.

"And a fool and his money were lucky to have ever gotten together in the first place..."
 
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Let's not forget Monster Cable!! The biggest baddest wolf of them all! :mecry:

I actually bought one of their S-video cables many years ago. I haven't used it much until lately - for my standard-def DVD-recorder. It's nothing special - so nowhere near the $50 or so I paid for it several years ago.

I also ended up buying a Monster Cable HDMI cable when I bought my Hitachi HDTV plasma. They were not selling ANYTHING else at Circuit City at the time I bought it - but I DID need an HDMI cable for my cable box - so out of laziness/convenience I got the Monster version. I think it was another $50 or so..

Anyhoo - If I have any choice in the matter, I would avoid Monster at all costs if I had the time to get a cable online. I later found out that their 'mbps' ratings on their various HDMI cables are complete and utter bullsh*t!!! I had my parents buy an HDMI cable from Sears for only $30 or so when they got their plasma HDTV - yet even that is more than one needs to spend if you can go online.

The BS never ends. :banghead:
 
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