Torchboy asked a ways back
> relative values of capacity and self discharge?
I will keep a few high capacity NiMH cells around, that I can charge fully before a weekend camping trip. But right now for this use my Maha 2100 and 2300 AAs bought a few years ago are fine. I don't find myself battery shopping for higher capacity ratings.
I am looking almost entirely for the low self discharge cells when I shop for new ones.
Main criteria --- not leaking. Reliable. Brand name.
Everywhere I talk to people lately -- from hospital purchasing folks to my auto mechanic to the computer people -- I hear over and over about shoddy or fake-labeled products.
_All_ the expense is going into the packaging. Nice quality cardboard boxes, good clear printing, heck, they've even started using spellcheck. And inside the box, crap.
The auto mechanic showed me a box of oil filters he'd taken delivery of lately. He said nowadays he takes metal snips to one out of every box of 24 that he gets, he doesn't trust the labels, the lot numbers, or anything else to be true.
The shoddy oil filter had almost no filter element -- no filter paper --- inside the pretty metal can. He showed me a good one made here -- the filter element was thick double layer densely folded filter paper packed in with good rubber gaskets. No oil got by the good one. No oil got usefully filtered by the cheap bad one.
I was astonished. They spend the money on the box and painting the can, and save a couple of pennies by shortcutting the _filter_element_ and ruin the vehicle when it blows out inside and quits working and lets paper scraps go into the engine.
This stuff is cheap stupid. Not cheap smart. Cheap destructive stupid.
The medical device purchasers aren't talking as clearly, no doubt afraid of liability.
So how do I value batteries? Trust, verify, ask, check and hope (sigh)
:nana:
