Duracell 2650 cells drained to .17V

[shadowbuds]

How did this happen? I have a "baby monitor" I use that takes 4 AA batteries. I forgot to turn off the monitor and after I realized this I wanted to take a volt reading because I recently started checking all of my batteries volt status. two cells had 1.27 V. left on them, the other two had .17! I thought anything below 1.0 is bad, please refresh my memory if you would.

Now this thing has a "low battery LED indicator" when it's powered on, could the LEDs have sucked the juice? I don't want to speculate much because I have no idea why two cells would almost be sucked dry and the others wouldn't. At first I thought the volt meter was messed up so I placed the two 1.27 V. batteries in an led flashlight and it lit up pretty good but the other .17 V. bats didn't do anything.

So, is this bad? This is really strange becuase I have a set of 4 2650 Duracell batteries that I used regularly in this device alone and now they have an extremely high self discharge rate. I'm pretty sure i've left the monitor on untill the batteries died before, I wonder if this is how I killed them.

Anyways, thanks for the help!

 

[VidPro]

is it bad? well chances are it is worse than your seeing. In situations where you meter the battery voltage THAT LOW, chances are good that at one time or another, there even was reverse charge hitting one of the cells.
specially in multiple series setups like 4x.

all that 49Mhtz stuff might display a red battery low light, but it doesnt have a actual CUTOFF, so it will continue to operate, even if it doesnt make a good transmission or reception.

On the complete reverse of that , you probably did little to no damage to the batteries. Even if it reverse charged. because of the total consumption of the unit is never really that high.
its not like you had a Incadescent bulb that sucks down batteries in 30 minutes, reeking havoc on the batteries.

so ya try not ta do that, by charging more often, or something, but its not a big problem at all. it IS a much bigger problem when the LOAD is much higher than that.

charge it up and go on, at least your an aware human, millions of these are being used by people in that situation, occuring the exact same results, and going on just fine.

sooo, IN THIS CASE, not a problem, just dont apply the same logic to doing a 50W hotwire Mag mod

and now they have an extremely high self discharge rate. I'm pretty sure i've left the monitor on untill the batteries died before, I wonder if this is how I killed them.

yes that is one way you can kill them, but ya know we have tons of stuff that with 1600-2200ma battereis that did exactally that many many times, and they didnt roll over and die like these high cap batteries are doing.
try ya enloop or hybreedos in it and see if the same thing happens.

 

[Handlobraesing]

When one or more cells become empty before the others, the strong cells will keep pushing the current and eventually bring the dead cells to "reversed polarity" conditions.

If one of the cells in a pack develops a self discharge rate that is out of proportion high from the rest of the cells, polarity reversal will become a regular thing for that cell and will become dead very quickly.

How many cycles do you think you put through those cells before they developed extremely high self-discharge?

Mine did just that after about 30-50 cycles. Complain to Duracell and ask for return envelope + coupons.

 

[shadowbuds]

The sad thing is they were only charged maybe 15-20 times before they went south. Thanks for the info guys and i've been meaning to switch to hybrids (rayo's) becuase of the low self-discharge. I'll probably contact duracell when i'm not being so lazy.

 

[shadowbuds]

I'm unsure if "hijacking" my own thread is against the rules but I have one more quetsion. I thought I read that using a volt meter could hurt lithium batteries. Can anyone back this up or clear it up a little? Thanks.
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[VidPro]

a volt meter? never heard of that.
FlashAmp ing or shorting out a battery with the AMMETER part of a voltmeter isnt good for some cells, but on the other hand, some lasy cells voltaged up after putting a load on them for a bit.
i cant figure ANY logic at all that a voltmeter would "hurt" any battery.

course there is that "what you dont know dont hurt you" , meaning if you didnt realise the battery was going to heck, you might think it was working ok for your purposes.

then there is a Battery TESTER, a good battery tester will put a small load on the battery its testing, and its the only way to really test some types of cells, as voltage high alone dose not indicate much.
because the tester applies a load and does a bit of discharging, many many many uses of it will be discharging the battery like any other device.