Toys R Us shamelessly hawking primaries

[was.lost.but.now.found]

Has anyone (with kids?) noticed the flier that came with certain toys from Toys R Us advocating the use of primary batteries? I don't have it in front of me, but it went something along the lines of "you should never use any kind of rechargeable batteries unless they are specifically recommended by the manufacturer for the given product." I can see if there was some kind of scare going on with NiMH that they might need to warn the public, but there has been no such scare that I'm aware of. And it was written in such a way that made it seem like they were just trying to up their battery sales, which are probably suffering with the whole green movement and more people using rechargeables. You can't buy a soda from that place without them asking you if you need batteries.

 

[rhymemaze]

Has anyone (with kids?) noticed the flier that came with certain toys from Toys R Us advocating the use of primary batteries?
...You can't buy a soda from that place without them asking you if you need batteries.

I have not seen the flier but that last statement was funny. I bought some of my Geotrax stuff there and those remote controlled trains and planes take 6AAA each (3 for the controller 3 for the train/plane)!!! I couldn't imagine NOT using rechargeable batteries in those toys.

 

[Light Sabre]

Well, Maglite says alkies only. One of my weather stations says alkies only. So it's not just Toys R Us. I tried switching as many electronic devices to NMH or Lithiums as I could. Found out that too many of them don't like them, so switched back to alkalines. My weather stations indicate batteries are low at 1.3V, so a freshly charged NMH wouldn't last very long. If I put lithiums in it, then the display becomes unreadable. Some devices are just very voltage sensitive, high or low. Not sure if you have ever noticed that in a 2D (3 volt) incandescent flashlight with a PR bulb, that the voltage listed on the side is 2.4V and for a 4D/AA (6V) light the bulb says 4.8V. That's because the battery is part of the complete circuit and a battery has an internal resistance. Some of that 3V or 6V is dropped across the batteries. Energizer's data sheets say 150-300 milliohms for D, C, AA, and AAA alkaline batteries. The internal resistance for their AA and AAA lithium batteries is 90-150 milliohms. So if you put lithium batteries in an incandescent flashlight not only do you have the higher initial voltage, but the voltage drop across the batteries is lower and the bulb is overdriven for two reasons. Some bulbs seem to take it ok, some die early. So the same type of thing may be happening with the toys. Probably keeps the quantity of returns down also. Just thinking out loud here.

 

[Mr Happy]

It's very bad for weather stations to say batteries are low at 1.3 V. If you look at the Energizer Alkaline Handbook and Figure 12 in particular, you can see that an alkaline cell has delivered less than 25% of its capacity by that point. I switched over to eneloops in my Oregon Scientific weather station after noticing how it eats batteries, but I will have to be careful because it continues to work while draining alkalines down to less than 0.8 V.

As for bulbs, the 1.2 V per cell rating is ideally suited to NiMH as that is almost an exact match for what the cell will deliver. So NiMH in flashlights should be fine in almost all cases.

 

[shadowjk]

Wireless thermometer said battery low about a year ago, still working fine with those same batteries...

 

[Kremer]

You can't buy a soda from that place without them asking you if you need batteries.

The checkout people are required to ask if you need batteries. At our store there's a paper hung up that says if the cashier doesn't ask if you need batteries you get a gift card or something.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

The checkout people are required to ask if you need batteries. At our store there's a paper hung up that says if the cashier doesn't ask if you need batteries you get a gift card or something.

That's whay the title of the thread says "Toys R Us", and not "Toys R Us cashier'. I meant the company as a whole.

The point if my OP was to illustrate that while it is true that there are a limited number of electronic devices out there that may not perform up to spec on NiMH as opposed to alkaline, there is nothing inherently dangerous (that I'm yet aware of) about NiMH that would cause injury to the user or damage to the product by performing a direct substitution of NiMH for alkaline. Quite the contrary, IMHO (LSD) NiMH outperforms alkaline in the majority of electronics devices when excluding ultra low drain ones like tv remotes. IMO it is disengenuous to say otherwise.

 

[Fallingwater]

Wireless thermometer said battery low about a year ago, still working fine with those same batteries...

Have you checked that the readings are fine?
My multimeters work for a while after the low-battery warning comes up, but the readings get higher and higher.

 

[Kremer]

That's whay the title of the thread says "Toys R Us", and not "Toys R Us cashier'. I meant the company as a whole.

I was just pointing out that even at the cashier line they make a last ditch effort to hock more batteries.

The point if my OP was to illustrate that while it is true that there are a limited number of electronic devices out there that may not perform up to spec on NiMH as opposed to alkaline, there is nothing inherently dangerous (that I'm yet aware of) about NiMH that would cause injury to the user or damage to the product by performing a direct substitution of NiMH for alkaline. Quite the contrary, IMHO (LSD) NiMH outperforms alkaline in the majority of electronics devices when excluding ultra low drain ones like tv remotes. IMO it is disengenuous to say otherwise.

+1 100%

 

[shadowjk]

Have you checked that the readings are fine?
My multimeters work for a while after the low-battery warning comes up, but the readings get higher and higher.

Yes, it's disagreeing with the proper mercury version by as much as it did when it had a fresh battery...