My ROV Hybrid AAA's are taking a dump.

[Turbo DV8]

This isn't scientific yet, but I think the ROV Hybrid AAA cells are not very robust. I have had a few confirmed cases where the AAA cells lost their LSD properties. Last night I took eight ROV Hybrid AAA cells which were all fully charged on the La Crosse 2-3 months ago and set aside, and "topped them up" for use. At 500 mA charge rate, between 250-720 mAh went "into" the cells. I am setting them aside for two months to do a proper discharge test. Will update then. It doesn't look promising. From what I have observed on the AAA Hybrids, I would not recommend them. The Eneloop AAA's just keep going, and going, and... oops, that's a different brand!

 

[J_C]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

... or they just weren't fully charged, or have been overcharged and damaged.

I'm not suggesting it's necessarily one of these reasons, only there exists more possibilities, and I've not noticed substantial decrease in mine though I don't have them in high drain devices, only a few cordless keyboards, mice, Dorcy flashlight I seldom use. On the other hand, these low drain devices would tend to show higher self discharge since they are used intermittently over a long period of time before being recharged again.

 

[Black Rose]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

I have a couple of Hybrid AAAs that appear to have lost their LSD capability as well, or at least when I did my last test.

I've also seen this happen with other AAA batteries that are produced at the same factory, so it is not a Rayovac issue per se.
It also only seems to affect the AAA cells...the AA cells are fine.

I see by my spreadsheet that it is time to do my semi-annual discharge tests on them.

I have a dozen of them to test, so stay tuned.
I'll update this post with the results as they come in.

This is doubling as a 6-month self-discharge test (300 mA discharge rate):

Cell         Orig Cap      6-mo. Cap          Cap. Loss
1               738           372                49.5%
2               762           500                34.4%
3               747           488                34.7%
 
4               720           423                41.2%
5               739           472                36.1%
6               756           488                35.5%
 
7               749           383                48.9%
8               757           424                43.9%
9               693           413                40.4%
 
10              729           527                27.7%
11              738           552                25.2%
12              700           527                24.7%

These cells are used in 3xAAA Dorcy 9-LED lights that are normally scattered about the house for emergency purposes.
They are charged/maintained with a Maha C-9000.

Cell #1 definitely seem to have lost it's LSD capability.
Not sure what to make of cell #4 and #7. They are discharging at a slightly faster rate than the other two cells in their group, but still nowhere near as bad as #1.

 

[Conan]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

I have these Powerbase Instant AAA LSD batteries. From the very start they would not hold a charge for long while in storage. They even perform worse than some of my non-LSD AAA rechargeables.

 

[Turbo DV8]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

... or they just weren't fully charged, or have been overcharged and damaged.

Without going into my life's story starting from the cradle, I can assure they were all fully charged at the same time, then set on the shelf together. Also, I carefully monitor cell voltages near termination to guard against missed termination/overcharging. As I mentioned, prior to this, I have a few confirmed cases of non-abused ROV Hybrid AAA cells simply losing their LSD properties. These were lightly-used cells, almost shelf queens. And lest someone claim I didn't "exercise" them enough, these are LSD cells. Their whole selling point and claim to fame is that they retain their charge when, um ... not in use! I'll keep posted here.

 

[Black Rose]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

I've updated post #3 with the test results of my 12 cells that reside in 3xAAA lights.

Most of them are OK, but 3 are questionable.

 

[Elliot]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

I've updated post #3 with the test results of my 12 cells that reside in 3xAAA lights.
Most of them are OK, but 3 are questionable.

I also have many 3 cell AAA lights. For some reason, a few of them seem to to run down 1 cell (out of the three) on a regular basis.

 

[45/70]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

I have something I've observed, for you guys with 3AAA cell carrier lights. I don't use the carriers anymore. Not because they are a PITA, which they are, but because I've had AAA cells short out against the flashlight body. Any cell which the wrapper doesn't wrap around the negative ends of the cell (which in the case of AAA cells, is most of them) can cause one or more cells to short out. This isn't a really obvious short, I'd imagine the current flow is minimal, perhaps due to the thin layer of anodizing. In storage for any length of time though, they can and do short out.

I only have two 3 AAA lights that can be considered useful, and I use 18500's in them. These provide superior runtime, are less hassle, and are just a better solution.

Back to Turbo,

Dave

 

[Black Rose]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

In my case, these 3xAAA lights are plastic bodied and have a thin metal strip running down the inside of the battery tube. Chances of a short are minimal.

IMHO 18500's are not wide enough; they need to be 23500 or 23550.
Also, putting a $10 Li-Ion cell in a $5 light does not make economical sense in this case, as these lights are mainly power outage lights and we have 7 of them.

 

[45/70]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

Also, putting a $10 Li-Ion cell in a $5 light does not make economical sense ......

Good point Black! I already have the cells for my DragonHearts though, so it's not a problem for me.

The diameter problem can be solved by trimming an old mouse pad to size and inserting it into the battery tube. I do have to stick a few US nickels in to make proper contact with the tailspring, but it works well and there's no rattle.

As for your plastic lights, dunno, but I suppose it still could be a cell shorting against the strip. One thing about the carriers is that the cells don't stay put very well If the light is bounced, or shaken very hard, the cells can move around within the carrier. The carriers don't fit all that tight in the barrel either. It only takes a small misalignment to cause the unprotected negative terminal of a cell to short against the metal body of a metal light.

Dave

 

[Turbo DV8]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

This isn't the two month follow-up, but thought I would add that another ROV AAA Hybrid took a catastrophic dump tonight. Two months ago I charged two matched cells and put them in my DVD player remote, which sees light use very day or two. Tonight I was stepping through frames on a DVD and the player suddenly quit responding. Checking the cells, one was still at 1.28 volts, but the other was 125 mV... about as dead as can get. The BC-900 wouldn't recognize it, so I put it on the Sanyo MQN05U (150 mA) for a minute. When I put it back in the BC-900 at 500/250 mA rate for test, the voltage instantly rose to 1.42 volts, where it has stayed for 45 minutes now. Seems all indications point to sudden high internal impedance. I am running the test right now for fun, but regardless of the "capacity" number which comes back, this cell is destined for the scrap heap, along with the growing list of my other ROV Hybrid AAA's. I am starting to wish I had picked up a few more packs of the AAA Duraloops at Target when they were on sale for $6.50/4.

 

[Turbo DV8]

Re: ROV Hybrid AAA's may be taking a dump.

Here is my two-month Self-discharge test of seven ROV Hybrid AAA's.

1st #: Test capacity, in mAh, prior to sitting two months
2nd #: Remaining capacity after 2 months, as determined on BC-900 @ 250 mA drain.
3rd #: Percent loss.

Consider variations between cells to be more important than absolute values, since the BC-900 "test capacity" is derived with no rest between charge and discharge.

758 780 764 756 756 758 757
498 353 623 359 508 548 374
-34% -55% -18% -53% -33% -28% -51%


As you can see, only one of these seven cells can any longer be considered "LSD." And even then, how would one have any chance of keeping a set of two or three matched cells with degradation numbers all over the board like that? I am now testing all remaining ROV AAA Hybrid's and also all my Eneloop AAA's for two-month self-discharge remaining capacity. The Eneloops were purchased the same time as the ROV's and have about equal use, so those results should be interesting to compare with the ROV.

 

[357mag1]

While my Hybrid AAs seem every bit as good as the Eneloops except possibly for long term storage which the new Rayovac packaging reflects. I noticed while doing discharge test of AAA types on the C9000 the voltage drop is almost .1 more for Hybrids versus the Eneloop. In my AA test the Hybrids always match or slightly beat the Eneloops.
This leads me to believe the technology either doesn't work as well in the AAA format or the quality control is lacking.

 

[keeftea]

Some interesting numbers to say the least. I just picked up 12 new rov aaa's for 5 a piece package said 2006 on the back of package, if i remeber correctly all came off c-9000 at 400mah in the 375 -490 ish range. I do not keep track on a spreadsheet but i remember thinking not good out of the box. Since reading this, i have a set of 4 that were broken in(labled) and in use, gonna swap them out and do a 1 and 3 month test.. I will use my 801d at 2a b/c they stay nice and cool and will give me a 95 percent charge and we will see whats up. Not sure when the hybrids came out but 2006 seemed early. Someone above talked about quality control and that is probably the case or is there 2 different factorys that make them in china? Or are the aaa's that sensitive and fragile?

I will add this, i also picked up 8 enloops from bh photo $9.99 and they were all recent production they just sell a ton of them i guess. But out of box was def higher then rov's. After a R/A at 800/400 all tested were at least 790-812, thats the #'s i recall. I thought that is quality control
and what everyone on cpf talks about with sanyo.

 

[Turbo DV8]

Previous tests in post #12:

758 780 764 756 756 758 757
498 353 623 359 508 548 374
-34% -55% -18% -53% -33% -28% -51%

Update: Four more AAA ROV Hybrid AAA 60-day self-discharge tests:

754 747 725 710
233 380 533 492
-69% -49% -26% -31%

So, out of eleven cells so far, there is a 60-day self-discharge capacity loss spread between 18% - 69%. Good luck matching this junk! Having lost any semblance of LSD properties, all these ROV Hybrid AAA cells are useless to me now as stand-by cells in equipment. I will be adding around twenty more results over the next week, as the cells come to "ripen" at 60 days. None of the Eneloop AAA's have popped out at me with any red flags indicating high self-discharge. However, in the spirit of comparison, also in the next week I will post the results of eight Eneloop AAA cells which will ripen within the next week. I suspect the cells which came back in the 200-300 mAh range on the BC-900 might just terminate discharge right away on the C9000 since it reads voltage while under load.

 

[Turbo DV8]

I just finished 60 day self-discharge tests on 18 more ROV Hybrid AAA cells. I will just state here the percentage of capacity lost from baseline in 60 days, same as above:

48% - 49- 60-45-41-33-77-45-54-70-32-76-83-65-52-43-23-60

Here is the result of the same 60 day test on seven Eneloop AAA cells, purchased at the same time as the ROV, and having equivalent usage:

10% - 11 - 11 - 11 - 11 - 12 - 11

Not only can I consider all the Eneloop AAA cells to still be LSD, they are all still matched within 2% of each other, whereas the ROV's are all over the board, with a difference of up to 60% between any two cells.

Now I will do two things. First, all my ROV Hybrid AAA cells get dumped in a drawer as giveaways. They are of no use to me if I cannot match them and they lose charge at accelerated and uneven rates. Second, I kick myself in the behind for returning so many unopened packages of the AAA Duraloops purchased for $6.50 during Target's sale late last year. I saw I had 30-40 AAA Hybrids, and could see no need for more AAA's. Now I am hurting for AAA's, but Eneloops, not Hybrids!

 

[Kestrel]

Second, I kick myself in the behind for returning so many unopened packages of the AAA Duraloops purchased for $6.50 during Target's sale late last year. I saw I had 30-40 AAA Hybrids, and could see no need for more AAA's. Now I am hurting for AAA's, but Eneloops, not Hybrids!

I also regret passing up that ~infinite supply of $6.50 four-packs of Duraloops at that awesome Target sale that you mention. I only got what I needed at the time & didn't know that would pretty much be the last great Duraloop sale.

 

[45/70]

Thanks for the follow up, Turbo. It makes me feel a bit better about holding out for eneloop AAA's. I've been tempted to pick up some Hybrid's, but from other people's experiences and yours, I think I'll continue to hold out for the eneloops. I don't know why I originally only bought 4 of them, but that's what I did! :sigh:

Just as info, the 4 I bought about two years ago are dated 8/06 and were not unwrapped and used until about a year ago. I recently ran a break in on a C9000 and all 4 ended up over 800mAh. In the last year, they have had maybe 20 cycles at most so, I suppose they're just now, "broken in".

Dave