Mixed results with Ikea Ladda 2450mAh AA NIMH batteries

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skyhawk

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 11, 2025
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9
Location
BC, Canada
So I've had it.

I will not have any more of my property destroyed by alkaleak batteries. This has resulted in me going down the NiMH rabbit-hole over the last few days.

I've got a brand-new Opus BT-C3100 charger, and I grabbed one of each pack of LADDA made-in-Japan batteries stocked at my local IKEA.

The 750mAh AAA batteries seem to work great. The charger reliably charges them at the 200mA setting, and I reliably get right about 750mAh out of them on discharge tests.

The 1900mAh AA batteries seem to work great as well, but not with a nice gentle 200mA charge - the charger will reliably not fully charge them on that setting. I do get reliable full charges on the 300mA setting.

I cannot get the 2450mAh AA batteries to reliably fully charge, on any of the settings I've tried (200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA). Sometimes one of the batteries will charge for much longer than it's cousins, by no rhyme or reason I've been able to identify, up to a shown voltage of 1.5V, which seems a bit much. The charger seems to be content to call the rest of them around 1.4V.

Am I doing something wrong, or are these 2450s really not that great, or somehow confusing the charger's termination algorithm?
 
I charge NiMH on my Opus C3100. AAA at 500 mA and AA at 1A. The charger provides more consistent termination voltage at these settings.
 
nimh are tricky to charge, smart chargers often do not terminate charge correctly, with some cells, but work fine with others, I had this problem many times, with several different chargers. For those stubborn cells I use dumb timer charger. seems to do the job.
 
TIFisher said:
I charge NiMH on my Opus C3100. AAA at 500 mA and AA at 1A. The charger provides more consistent termination voltage at these settings.
Click to expand...
My preference would be to use the lowest current that delivers correct results, as this will be more gentle on the battery.

In my case, with these particular AAA cells, I get correct results at 200mA. The 1900s produce correct results at 300mA.

I'll try 1A on the 2450s, but 1A on AAs seems insane to me. They already get noticeably warm at the maximum 700mA that's attainable with the center slots occupied - and that's with the charger resting on a 140mm computer fan because I don't like listening to the built-in fan.

alpg88 said:
nimh are tricky to charge, smart chargers often do not terminate charge correctly, with some cells, but work fine with others, I had this problem many times, with several different chargers. For those stubborn cells I use dumb timer charger. seems to do the job.
Click to expand...

Is there any such charger which allows the user to specify *how much* time any given cell should be charged? If I know the cell is discharged, and I know the charge current, I can easily calculate how much time the cell should be charged. But most "timer" chargers are as dumb and cheap as possible, with no user interface at all, so far as I know.
 
Trickle charging is good.

However, sometimes, the larger the cell the more they may like higher current charges.
Also, especially with NiMh cells, you have to fully cycle them a few times before they fully charge.
Use them to their full potential a few times and then check again capacity again.
 
skyhawk said:
Is there any such charger which allows the user to specify *how much* time any given cell should be charged? If I know the cell is discharged, and I know the charge current, I can easily calculate how much time the cell should be charged. But most "timer" chargers are as dumb and cheap as possible, with no user interface at all, so far as I know.
Click to expand...
Not that I'm aware of.
 
aznsx said:
I lack the knowledge / experience to help with this, however the last line in the 'conclusion' section at the end of this article is interesting; but then again, the whole article might be of interest;-)

Click to expand...
Indeed.

> The conclusion of the above must be to never use a low current on a -dv/dt charger, the general recommendation is never to go below 0.3C
 
Monocrom said:
Must admit, I don't like change. Eneloops have earned an excellent reputation. Why switch to something else?
Click to expand...
What else would I even switch to? Lithium primaries are expensive, and the "1.5v rechargeable" Lithiums need proprietary chargers and will have self-discharge from their integrated regulators.

I'm only using made-in-Japan LADDAs instead of Eneloops because there's an Ikea just a few blocks away selling them for *cheap*, and everything I've seen indicates they're just as good as the Eneloops.
 
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the fray - Fujitsu (LADDA) makes NiMh batteries in other countries not just Japan. India, Indonesia etc. They have a global manufacturing presence now.
(A lot of internet info is outdated)

I'm not saying don't use them or that they aren't good batteries. They are good. However...
several tests have proven that they don't always match eneloop's performance.
 
bluflaam777 said:
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the fray - Fujitsu (LADDA) makes NiMh batteries in other countries not just Japan. India, Indonesia etc. They have a global manufacturing presence now.
(A lot of internet info is outdated)
Click to expand...
This may be the case, but the packaging for these particular batteries specifically states "Made in Japan".
 
Fujitsu makes the eneloops made in Japan - eneloop is just the brand that has them made with their wrappers on them just like ladda. Eneloop stopped making their own cells when sanyo was bought out by panasonic and the eneloop factory was sold to fujisu and panasonic kept the eneloop brand.
 
skyhawk said:
So I've had it.

I will not have any more of my property destroyed by alkaleak batteries. This has resulted in me going down the NiMH rabbit-hole over the last few days.

I've got a brand-new Opus BT-C3100 charger, and I grabbed one of each pack of LADDA made-in-Japan batteries stocked at my local IKEA.

The 750mAh AAA batteries seem to work great. The charger reliably charges them at the 200mA setting, and I reliably get right about 750mAh out of them on discharge tests.

The 1900mAh AA batteries seem to work great as well, but not with a nice gentle 200mA charge - the charger will reliably not fully charge them on that setting. I do get reliable full charges on the 300mA setting.

I cannot get the 2450mAh AA batteries to reliably fully charge, on any of the settings I've tried (200mA, 300mA, 500mA, 700mA). Sometimes one of the batteries will charge for much longer than it's cousins, by no rhyme or reason I've been able to identify, up to a shown voltage of 1.5V, which seems a bit much. The charger seems to be content to call the rest of them around 1.4V.

Am I doing something wrong, or are these 2450s really not that great, or somehow confusing the charger's termination algorithm?
Click to expand...
I use a panasonic BQ-CC17 charger for eneloops and never had a problem. This charger uses a pulse charge that allows the cellls to charge slowly without missing their termination and without getting hot - very reliable.
 
bluflaam777 said:
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the fray - Fujitsu (LADDA) makes NiMh batteries in other countries not just Japan. India, Indonesia etc. They have a global manufacturing presence now.
(A lot of internet info is outdated)

I'm not saying don't use them or that they aren't good batteries. They are good. However...
several tests have proven that they don't always match eneloop's performance.
Click to expand...
This.

The internet is full of endless "just as good" commentary and people insisting "they're just rewraps." And, as always, feel free to almost completely disregard anything from Reddit, haha.

I've always been skeptical of the "rewrap" narrative, especially because so much testing shows a clear difference. You can have two similar products made on the same line that are different specs. "Made in Japan" doesn't guarantee that they're Eneloop re-wraps, necessarily. At best, I think the "rewrap" could be downmarketed Eneloops that were rejects from the "name brand" line. That's a common way to salvage the high costs of QA for a top tier product (essentially, anything that's "good" but not "great" can be resold under a different SKU/brand).

Don't get me wrong, Ladda batteries are fine for things like remotes, and if you just need a few around the house. In my usage, before I even looked into testing, I find them to not be as reliable. I got a few cause someone was in the store, and asked if I wanted them to grab me a pack. They live in remotes, and are great for that.

But, at the end of the day, the answer to any AA or AAA problem is, "Just get Eneloops." You'll find countless people with similar issues as you over the years, across the internet. Outside of buying fake Eneloops from Scamazon, you just don't see problems with Eneloops.

Sure, they're more expensive, but they're not ungodly expensive.


Looks like you can get the GOOD BQ-CC17 charger and 4 AA's from Best Buy for $27 (Sku: 5467116). They do in-store pickup, or shipping.
Wal-mart sells the kit (K-KJ17MCC82A) with the GOOD charger, 8AA's, 2AAA's, and some C and D adapters for $44 (shipping only).
Battery Junction sells the GOOD charger with 4 AAA's for $18.25 (K-KJ17M3A4BA), then grab a pack of AA's if you don't mind, and want to save some bucks.

It sucks you bought kind of a pricey charger for the cells, AND the batteries, but just rotate those into remotes, and get some Eneloops, use the BQ-CC17 charger, and never worry, again!
 
Schokokeks said:
It sucks you bought kind of a pricey charger
Click to expand...
No worries about that. One of the main things that's been keeping me away from rechargables is an easy way to verify that the batteries actually do what they say on the label. I love the discharge testing capabilities of this thing, they let me quantify that the batteries are actually good.

In my case, I almost *never* replace alkalines because they're discharged, I'm almost always replacing them because they're leaking - hence my interest in completely getting rid of them.

I do have some lithium-ion batteries, mostly for use in flashlights, and the Opus charger should be great for those as well. I'll look into acquiring one of these BQ-CC17 chargers. Thanks for the pointer.

Looks like you can get the GOOD BQ-CC17 charger and 4 AA's from Best Buy for $27 (Sku: 5467116). They do in-store pickup, or shipping.
Wal-mart sells the kit (K-KJ17MCC82A) with the GOOD charger, 8AA's, 2AAA's, and some C and D adapters for $44 (shipping only).
Battery Junction sells the GOOD charger with 4 AAA's for $18.25 (K-KJ17M3A4BA), then grab a pack of AA's if you don't mind, and want to save some bucks.
Click to expand...
I should have clarified that I'm in Canada. Most of the deals you're referencing are not available in this market.
 
Last edited:
For any Canadian who stumbles on this thread, the best deals I've been able to find for the referenced charger include bundled batteries, from Amazon:

in White with 4x 2000 mAh AA
and in Black with 4x2500mAh AA
 
skyhawk said:
What else would I even switch to? Lithium primaries are expensive, and the "1.5v rechargeable" Lithiums need proprietary chargers and will have self-discharge from their integrated regulators.

I'm only using made-in-Japan LADDAs instead of Eneloops because there's an Ikea just a few blocks away selling them for *cheap*, and everything I've seen indicates they're just as good as the Eneloops.
Click to expand...
Reminds me back in the day when Hyundai was putting out TV commercials that their models were just as good as Toyota's but at greatly reduced prices. Well, that turned out to be a lie.

My Eneloops, I bought 2/3 most of them online. 1/3 at a large chain Pharmacy. Buying online is just easier, more convenient.
 
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