If you are interested in AAA and AA batteries, C and D converters, and also need a charger that received a good review from CPF member HKJ, check out this
coupon for CostCo. It's good through 2015-Oct-25. In
message #3 of the same thread, a poster reports paying only $23.99 USD for the bundle. That's a good deal. The charger is slow, but of high quality.
In case you do not already know, Panasonic sells two completely different technologies under the Eneloop brand. Eneloop and Eneloop Pro batteries that are made in Japan are the good ones. The good ones are made by a subsidiary of Fujitsu, under an exclusive patent.
Eneloop batteries made in China are manufactured by Panasonic. Panasonic must use a different technology, because it does not have rights to use the patents owned by the Fujitsu subsidiary. Eneloops made in China have proven to be inferior in cycle tests.
I don't know the demands of the
ThruNite TN4A. If it's eating batteries, you may end up deciding to go with Eneloop Pro batteries instead of the regular Eneloops. The Pros have a 25% longer runtime, and can sustain higher current draws, but they provide only 1/4th as many charge cycles.
There are anecdotal reports of users who got fewer than half the rated number of cycles from some of their Eneloop Pro batteries. As these are anecdotes, however, you have to take them with a grain of salt.
Here are some of the threads I have bookmarked. Click the
symbols to open the respective threads.
Out of curiosity, I decided to run a cycle life test to compare the high capacity Eneloop XX to the Turnigy 2400. In Australia at least, the Eneloop XX cells are quite expensive - about 30% more than regular Eneloops and they rarely go on special. Regular Eneloops are often on special at less for an 8 pack than the Eneloop XX cells cost for a 4 pack! The Turnigy 2400 cells on the other hand are quite cheap. Ignoring shipping costs, they're cheaper than regular Eneloops even when the Eneloops are on special
[Many charts and other info deleted for brevity.]
Overall, I'd say that this is a disappointing result for the Eneloop XX. Unless the absolute maximum capacity is required, I would generally recommend the Turnigy 2400 cells ahead of the Eneloop XX cells - particularly considering the large price difference!
In March 2014 I purchased a pack of 8 new eneloop XXs (4HR‐3UWX) from "large online retailer" (before Panasonic rebranding).
I have been using my Maha MH-C9000 to charge them at 1000ma for the past 16 months. I use all 8 batteries and then recharge them, so they are getting even wear.
Within the last week, my C9000 reported 'High' on 4 batteries. I estimate they have been charged only 60-70 times (they should handle 500 charges). The ones that are still "OK" are looking pretty tired in my flashlight fresh off the charger.
I tried C9000's "Refresh Analyze" - and as last resort "Break in", both to no avail (unit says "High" for failed batteries, ~1850-1900mAH for surviving ones).
Is it possible I charged them too quickly @1000mA? Thats less than 0.5C so I thought it would be OK. But the Panasonic BQ-CC17 charges at 300mA.
Thanks
In the testing that I've done - that others have already pointed to, I found that the cycle life of the Eneloop XX cells was nowhere near as good as the regular Eneloop cells. The results that I've obtained are only directly applicable to the testing method that I used, but I would be surprised if you could find a usage scenario under which the Eneloop XX cells performed anywhere nearly as well as regular Eneloops when it comes to cycle life.
I don't think that charging them at 1000 mA on the C9000 would likely cause a (significant) reduction in cycle life - the 100 mA top off for 2 hours might cause a little degradation, but I think that if the cells were being deeply discharged, that's much more likely to be the cause of them developing high internal resistance so quickly.
