Best battery for low drain devices?

Hello. What do you guys think is the best battery choice for low drain devices such as clocks and remotes? I have always used alkalines, but now I am wondering if LSD or Lithium may be a better long term value. Is the premium initial cost of these worth it?

I think for very low drain devices like clocks, the advantage of better batteries like lithium starts to decrease. Alkalines perform pretty acceptably in very low drain scenarios. A lithium primary battery will still get more runtime than an alkaline in these devices, but the alkaline may get more runtime than an LSD cell. I believe under very light load, the capacity of an alkaline AA primary is around 2500mAh, but don't quote me on that, as I can't recall where I read it.

As far as which will cost you less in the long run, I'm not sure. Any battery that has a low self discharge rate should do fine for these devices (i.e. don't use non-LSD NiMH).

Also not sure about the remote scenario. I think a remote may draw a decent amount of power, albiet in very short bursts.

I would go with lithium primaries. Not having to worry about my cells leaking in my devices are worth the extra cash.

AlphaZen said:

...What do you guys think is the best battery choice for low drain devices such as clocks and remotes? I have always used alkalines...

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I have the option of having DOZENS of 'yesteryear' Rayovac / RadioShack 1300 / 1600mAh non-LSD NiMH cells available to me (had SEVERAL Furbys and Shellbys running when the grandchildren lived in NJ) so I'm moving away from alkalines (TOO MANY LEAKS when my health went 'sour' for a few years and I 'forgot' to check / rotate / replace them ). Even a cell with Internal Resistance SO HIGH that it BLINKs the 'Mode' indicator on the C9000 will accept a slow charge from another charger and run a remote for months.

For a Newbie just starting out, you might consider trying out some of those $1 Rayovac 4.0s 'OnSale' that many folks are talking about. Or experiment with no-name, less than 2000mAh *CHEAP* non-LSD NiMH (or even NiCD) cells (Lower capacity = thicker separator). SEARCH for reviews here, or be the guinea pig yourself.

Or just buy alkalines with warranties, i.e. Duracells and/or Energizers, and 'deal with it' as needed.

Years ago Bob Crane (from CCrane) said that if one had to replace cells in a given device less than three times a year it would probably make more sense to use alkys. Admittedly times, chemistries and prices have all gone through big changes since then but I still think there may be some merit to that statement.

I love LSD cells but I like alkalines for clocks and remotes.

I only use cells that look perfect in every way for low drain devices. While that won't rule out all chance of leaks I'm sure to use up any questionable cells more quickly somewhere else where I may keep an eye on them. Little things may really add up over the long haul with alkaline cells.

My AA clocks all use just a single cell so there is no chance of the stronger cell charging the weaker one with reverse polarity after it runs down -- that cuts down the chances of cell leakage considerably IMO.

For remotes and other low drain devices I deliberately look at the inside of the gadget and determine what the safest position would be to set it down should the worst situation occur and a cell leaked. From then on I always set them down that way. It's pretty easy to see that most remotes will fare far better from a leaker if they are setting keys up as opposed to keys down. I've looked at enough of them with this in my mind that I am convinced that many remotes (and perhaps other devices, too) were designed deliberately this way even though it is not mentioned specifically in the manuals. Over decades and many remotes I've only had one alky leak and because of the position it was always in when I set it down I was able to clean it out and keep it in service. I also recovered from a leak in a ZTS battery tester because I always set it down on it's back.

AlphaZen said:

Hello. What do you guys think is the best battery choice for low drain devices such as clocks and remotes? I have always used alkalines, but now I am wondering if LSD ... may be a better long term value...

Click to expand...

Providing you charge up the LSD batteries before the voltage goes too low, you should be fine. This voltage called the cut-off point can potentially render the LSD battery unuseable. The discussion came up regarding low power wireless PC mouse being a device that could more completely discharge (i.e. use) what little charge might be left in a battery due to the low current draw.

Backing up a bit, the initial idea was that a periodic discharge was thought to be helpful to the life of the battery. So the idea was that if a little bit (of discharge) was good...then a whole lot of it would be better. This point also came up in a thread discussing purpose built discharge units.

The one advantage of NiCads is that this cutoff point can be as low as zero volts without any issue. So these might be a better choice but they suffer from some of the same issues with discharge of conventional NiMh batteries.

Thank you for all of the responses. I think Lithium seems like the best choice, because, based on what I have read here, you don't have to worry about leaks or having them go too low. Also, they should last a long time and the additional money will be incremental over a long period versus alkaline. Maybe I'll try the Advanced lithium by Energizer to save a few bucks over the Ultimate.

I divide my old alkys into 3 bins:
1. > 1.50v mediumweight toys
2. > 1.30v lightweight toys & remotes (especially anoying toys in need of leaking batteries, so far only one lucky one in last 7 years)
3. > 0.99v clocks & few remotes

Bin 3 keeps growing larger, since most last 3+ months in a clock. We have only 7 one celled clocks. And 53 cells waiting to be used up.

I can tell you that I put an AA Eneloop in a wall clock that's designed to take an alkaline C cell and after 10 months the Eneloop had 945 mAh left in it according to the C9000. Does that help answer your question?