Eneloop 5th Anniversary GLITTER AAs 38 month test.

ChrisGarrett

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[/URL]5th Anniversary Eneloop Glitter AAs by Christopher Garrett, on Flickr[/IMG]

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[/URL]Eneloop Glitter Date Code by Christopher Garrett, on Flickr[/IMG]

Bought two 8 packs off of Woot in '14 for $37 shipped, with two dumb chargers.

They are dated 2012-09 and the batteries are also dated 9-12, so they're just over 38 months old.

Out of their pack, all 8 Glitters measured 1.292v on my RatShack 22-805 meter. Two bounced up to 1.293v, but then settled on 1.292v.

I'll take 'what is consistency for $500, Alex?'

Onto the Maha Wizard One they went for a discharge at 300mA, which are the first numbers and then a break-in at 1900mAh. Internal resistance at the start of B.I. is noted in parentheses and then their final capacities.

Blue: 1211mAh/(1.48v)/1980mAh

Silver: 1226mAh/(1.43v)/1952mAh

Black: 1197mAh/(1.49v)/1957mAh

Green: 1210mAh/(1.46v)/1953mAh

Yellow: 1219mAh/(1.51v)/1970mAh

Orange:1215mAh/(1.51)/1982mAh

Pink: 1208mAh/(1.48v)/1962mAh

Purple: 1215mAh/(1.48v)/1961mAh

Not too shabby. The last four were left discharged for 2 days before I could break them in, so I don't know if their slightly higher IRs, as a quad, are due to that fact?

An extreme spread of only 29mAh upon discharge and a final spread of only 30mAh.

Chris
 
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kreisl

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Your test, after 38 months of storing unused Eneloops, is comprised of 1 cycle (1x Break_in) only?

Your numbers with the spread indicate that the cells are not reconditioned and, if that is true, those numbers have no merit or interest at all. They are irrelevant numbers. (In sports, the fans are not interested in seeing how well the iron man preparation of a triathlete goes, the progresses during his preparation season. The fans are interested in his final condition, when he enters the official competition. Same with stored Eneloops. They really need some serious working ("training", say 5-10 cycles including fast cycling and 1-2 Break_ins) to get back in final shape, best condition. That's what i call "reconditioned". 1 single cycle, especially the ineffective slow Break_in cycle, won't cut it.)

Relevant info is: what's the max capacity of each cell after 38 months of non-usage?

Your published numbers do not represent the max capacity. They only show that your cells are not in top re-conditioned state.

You'll see that the spread will be much smaller, < 8mAh, once you've properly reconditioned the 8 cells. And their max capacity will be higher too .. back at around 1990mAh (mh9k display).

From my experience, Break_in will NOT recondition a cell, especially NOT if it's performed just 1 single time. Break_in is great for applying on perfectly reconditoned cells to test their rated capacity (since you need to enter the nominal capacity in the first place yikes) but it is imo rather less effective for reconditioning or forming charge.
 
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Grijon

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Different strokes for different folks, kreisl.

I don't know what ChrisGarrett's personal rationale was for testing the way that he did and posting what he did, but this was very interesting to me to see how this 38-month-old package of Eneloop AA Glitters performed in an initial discharge then Break-In - which is exactly what I would have done if I had had them!

So: I'm very glad that he did what he did and posted it for us to see.
 

kreisl

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which is exactly what I would have done if I had had them!
Okay then, np. That test answers exactly 1 question: What is the Break_in capacity of 38 months stored blister Glitter? Beyond that, nothing can be said, stated, concluded. Not even compared since there is no direct reference. No point can be made.

I also get it that one would not want to do more than 2 runs: for 8 eneloops and 1 mh9k, it takes 2 runs because 1 mh9k has 4 slots. And 1 run takes 39h+ (C>D>C = (16+1+5+1+16)hrs). So you're investing 78hrs and still are far away from having gained valid data with which a point could be made on the forum.

For the record, a more meaningful test would be:

1) Taking the Glitter out of the blister at the time of purchase, 38 months ago, recondition them, and finish by performing 1 Break_in test. (a second Break_in test at that point in time would give the exact same mAh result, so 1 Break_in is enough.). The values gotten out from that Break_in test are valid values, e.g. G1234:1999/1998/2002/1997mAh, G5678:1998/2001/1997/1998mAh.
2) Then storing for 38 months.
3) Finally repeating the procedure: taking the stored Glitter out from your storage container, recondition them, and finish by performing 1 Break_in test. (a second Break_in test will give the same mAh result, you'll see.). The values gotten out from that Break_in test are directly comparable to the former test, say G1234:1991/1989/1990/1987mAh, G5678:1985/1988/1987/1990mAh.
For this test, of course, the cells must have the same slot position: G15 always in #1, G26 in #2, G37 in #3, and G48 in #4. Why? Because the 4 slots of the RL mh9k charger differ slightly in performance, this phenomenon is called tolerance.

Such a test would tell us something about max capacity before, max capacity after, max spread before, max spread after, actual loss of max capacity (per cell). And since the two data sets have reference character, it would now be legit to perform simple statistical analysis techniques on them, like averaging, standard deviation, etc.; the results of the calculations wouldn't be meaningless. (If you perform data analysis on an invalid data set, the result will have no meaning whatsoever. Totally pointless.)

Yes, different strokes for different folks, i agree. I think i made my point, so i'll leave it at that. Merri Xmas y'all.
 
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Kurt_Woloch

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And now for some translations for people not so fluent in foreign languages:

For the record, a more aussagekraftig test would be:

Taking the Glitter out of the blister at the time of purchase, 38 months ago, recondition them, and finir par performing 1 Break_in test. (a second Break_in test at that point in time would give the exact same mAh result, so 1 Break_in is enough.). The values gotten out from that Break_in test have some value, e.g. G1234:1999/1998/2002/1997mAh, G5678:1998/2001/1997/1998mAh.

"aussagekräftig" is the German word for "meaningful", and "finir par" in French means the same as "finish by" in English.

Do I now sound like a smart aleck as well? ;-) (I looked it up... "smart aleck" IS an English word.)
 

ChrisGarrett

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Wow...what a tough room tonight.

My post was up 6 days and nothing.

Anyhow kreisl, my post tells a lot 'for those willing to open their eyes and see what is before them.'

Kwai Chang Caine

Buddy, it's just an observation, not the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle.

I have two packs of Eneloop Glitter AAs dated 9/2012. These are low self discharge NiMH batteries. Since they're such, people might want to know what's going on right out of their pack, right?

I was able to show you, to three decimal places, where the voltages were at for all 8 Glitters, which in and of itself, shows how incredibly uniform they are in self discharge mode.

I was able to show you what was left in the batteries after 38 months. Remember that Eneloops are reported to be charged up to ~70% on solar, at the factory.

I was able to give you relative I.R. numbers for the 8 and after 38 months of idleness.

I was able to show you what capacity the batteries yielded after a 'break-in' period on the popular Maha C-9000.

For people wanting to buy a limited, but 3+ year old pack of Glitters, which I did in 2014, they can be somewhat confident that they're getting typical 'fresh production' performance.

I used four of the eight in a Fujitsu power bank to charge up some li-ion cells and my LG flip phone and got them down to 1.10v-1.14v before charging them back up on the Maha, which gave me 1939mAh-2000mAh.

They seem to be working fine.

Chris
 

Kurt_Woloch

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OK, sorry for being harsh in my last post. Sadly, the IR values don't say too much to me because they are given in volts, not in milliohms or Ohms, which would be the usual unit for internal resistance. You have to go deeper into the text to determine which charger was used and try to determine what the resting voltage before the charge was in order to calculate the correct internal resistance from this. And then this is the internal resistance while charging, which might be different from the internal resistance while discharging. Now I read that some of those chargers terminate the discharge at 0.9 V, and some do so at 1.0. I'm assuming a charge current of 2 amps which the voltage is measured at, so you get a rough formula for determining the actual internal resistance, which would be (measured voltage - termination voltage) / (measuring current + discharge current). That's still not accurate because we don't know the termination voltage of your charger. I'll calculate the best and worst cases from that:
Best case: (1.43 - 1) / 2.3 = 0.187 Ohms
Worst case: (1.51 - 0.9) / 2.3 = 0.265 Ohms

While it's nice to know the resting voltage after 38 months, it would have been nice to know what the sag under load is, i.e. how the cells behaved while discharging them. Of course they stayed above the termination voltage of the charger for a long time, but what would happen if you loaded them with a bigger current, i.e. 1 amp, such as in a digital camera?

Sorry for ranting...

Wow...what a tough room tonight.

My post was up 6 days and nothing.

Anyhow kreisl, my post tells a lot 'for those willing to open their eyes and see what is before them.'

Kwai Chang Caine

Buddy, it's just an observation, not the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle.

I have two packs of Eneloop Glitter AAs dated 9/2012. These are low self discharge NiMH batteries. Since they're such, people might want to know what's going on right out of their pack, right?

I was able to show you, to three decimal places, where the voltages were at for all 8 Glitters, which in and of itself, shows how incredibly uniform they are in self discharge mode.

I was able to show you what was left in the batteries after 38 months. Remember that Eneloops are reported to be charged up to ~70% on solar, at the factory.

I was able to give you relative I.R. numbers for the 8 and after 38 months of idleness.

I was able to show you what capacity the batteries yielded after a 'break-in' period on the popular Maha C-9000.

For people wanting to buy a limited, but 3+ year old pack of Glitters, which I did in 2014, they can be somewhat confident that they're getting typical 'fresh production' performance.

I used four of the eight in a Fujitsu power bank to charge up some li-ion cells and my LG flip phone and got them down to 1.10v-1.14v before charging them back up on the Maha, which gave me 1939mAh-2000mAh.

They seem to be working fine.

Chris
 

ChrisGarrett

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OK, sorry for being harsh in my last post. Sadly, the IR values don't say too much to me because they are given in volts, not in milliohms or Ohms, which would be the usual unit for internal resistance. You have to go deeper into the text to determine which charger was used and try to determine what the resting voltage before the charge was in order to calculate the correct internal resistance from this. And then this is the internal resistance while charging, which might be different from the internal resistance while discharging. Now I read that some of those chargers terminate the discharge at 0.9 V, and some do so at 1.0. I'm assuming a charge current of 2 amps which the voltage is measured at, so you get a rough formula for determining the actual internal resistance, which would be (measured voltage - termination voltage) / (measuring current + discharge current). That's still not accurate because we don't know the termination voltage of your charger. I'll calculate the best and worst cases from that:
Best case: (1.43 - 1) / 2.3 = 0.187 Ohms
Worst case: (1.51 - 0.9) / 2.3 = 0.265 Ohms

While it's nice to know the resting voltage after 38 months, it would have been nice to know what the sag under load is, i.e. how the cells behaved while discharging them. Of course they stayed above the termination voltage of the charger for a long time, but what would happen if you loaded them with a bigger current, i.e. 1 amp, such as in a digital camera?

Sorry for ranting...

I didn't really understand your last post and my last reply was meant more for kreisl.

My original post wasn't meant to be a definitive, all inclusive test and most people will see this.

It was meant more as an quasi-formal 'FYI' affair.

My Maha C-9000 is almost a ubiquitous charger, so providing the I.R. numbers from that charger can be helpful to those that use the same charger. The termination voltage on the C-9000 is .90v.. I think that I stated that I discharged them at 300mA and didn't notice any odd behavior while they were discharging, nor would I be able to.

I could have hit them with 1A, but I try to discharge out of the packs at 300mA.

Resting voltage out of the pack shows a certain flair for consistency.

Obviously you and kreisl want/need more and well, I'm no rocket scientist and what I have provided will have to do. For those that are curious about the Eneloops and how they might behave out of their pack, after a solid 3 years after production, my post is meant more for them.

Anyhow, take it for what it is.

Chris
 

Grijon

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My original post wasn't meant to be a definitive, all inclusive test and most people will see this.

It was meant more as an quasi-formal 'FYI' affair.

My Maha C-9000 is almost a ubiquitous charger, so providing the I.R. numbers from that charger can be helpful to those that use the same charger. The termination voltage on the C-9000 is .90v.. I think that I stated that I discharged them at 300mA and didn't notice any odd behavior while they were discharging, nor would I be able to.

For those that are curious about the Eneloops and how they might behave out of their pack, after a solid 3 years after production, my post is meant more for them.

Chris

I was pretty excited to see it and was surprised that no one else had commented in 6 days. I hope the responses in this thread don't stop you or anyone else from sharing such things in the future.

Again, I say thank you, Chris!
 

ChrisGarrett

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I was pretty excited to see it and was surprised that no one else had commented in 6 days. I hope the responses in this thread don't stop you or anyone else from sharing such things in the future.

Again, I say thank you, Chris!

I'm not really upset, or discouraged. My mistake is in assuming that people know that I'm not HKJ, Selfbuilt, or some others here who do bona-fide reviews. I'm just a hack with a little bit of knowledge and I don't involve myself in threads that get deep into electronic theory, or electronic schematics and I stay out.

My biggest surprise was that the two above were not all curious about what 3+ year old Eneloops exhibit out of their packs.

It's not like we're opening up 3 year old packs everyday and posting the results, right?

Anyhow, I yanked my second pack from Ebay, as nobody cared over there about the Glitters. It must just be me, but I was happier than a pig in poop when I got the two packs, since they were going for $70-$130 on Ebay and still are to this day.

Chris
 

swan

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Thanks Chris for sharing your observations- 38 months old and to show such even voltage and capacity just shows how good the mighty Eneloop is.
 

ChrisGarrett

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Thanks Chris for sharing your observations- 38 months old and to show such even voltage and capacity just shows how good the mighty Eneloop is.

That had me scratching my head. My RatShack isn't the best DMM, but it reads to 3 places up to 3.999v, so that was a bit encouraging. FDK knows their stuff and I'm pretty much done with other brands.

I recently bought 4 Fujitsu 2450s and 8 Fujitsu Gen. 4 2100s, but they own FDK and one can be confident that their cells are on par with the Eneloop marque.

I am curious how rhe eneloop pro holds up?

People are noting higher internal resistances in Eneloop Pros (et al.) after a shorter period of time relative to the standard Eneloop and clones.

Chris
 

fnsooner

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Thanks Chris.

I am guilty far too much of reading useful information and storing it in my memory but not showing my appreciation for the time and effort someone puts forth to give this info. It all adds up. Eneloops are awesome.
 

ChrisGarrett

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Thanks Chris.

I am guilty far too much of reading useful information and storing it in my memory but not showing my appreciation for the time and effort someone puts forth to give this info. It all adds up. Eneloops are awesome.

Maybe I'm weird, but I prefer the battery forum to the flashlight forums.

The brighter people usually hang out in the tech forums, I've noticed.

I'm still kicking myself, because I had done a 1 year test on new 2400 Duracell Ion Core (FDK hi-caps LSDs) and when I was discharging them after a year, my power evidently had a brown out and the Maha C9000 reset itself and went into charge mode.

All I have from that test is the resting voltages for four of them after a year of sitting:

1.287v

1.288v.

1.290v

1.290v

Break in capacity, FWIW:

2486mAh

2462mAh

2432mAh

2461mAh

Chris
 

JB

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My original post wasn't meant to be a definitive, all inclusive test and most people will see this.

It was meant more as an quasi-formal 'FYI' affair.

I saw that, and thank you for this quick FYI.

I shall have less hesitation in getting NOS Eneloop batteries if I happen to find a good deal on them.
 

marinemaster

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Got to love this forum :)
I only use white and black Eneloop apparently other flavors create disturbance [emoji91]
P.S. Japan made only [emoji1]
 

MarioJP

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Got to love this forum :)
I only use white and black Eneloop apparently other flavors create disturbance [emoji91]
P.S. Japan made only [emoji1]
I have better luck with the whites. Not sure what version of eneloop pro Duracell ion core uses.
 

ChrisGarrett

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I have better luck with the whites. Not sure what version of eneloop pro Duracell ion core uses.

Eneloop is just a product name and it's owned by Panasonic. Panasonic does not make Eneloops. They were forced to pick the brand name, or the plant/technology and they chose the former.

FDK is the company that owns the patents, the technology and the factory that produces the best LSD type batteries like Eneloops, Fujitsu, Duracell Ion Core...among others.

Fujitsu owns FDK.

The Duracell 2400mAh Ion Core LSD AA/AAAs are thought to be produced by FDK and would be the equivalent of the Eneloop XX/Pro 2550s or the Fujitsu Hi-Cap 2450s.

Chris
 
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