Questions Regarding CR2032 Lithium Batteries

I now have several gadgets that require CR2032 lithium cell batteries, food scale, garage door opener remotes, et cetera, and I have a couple of questions regarding the same.

First, would it be worth it to get rechargeable CR2032's and a charger and, if so, which batteries/chargers are good?

Second, which are good brands of disposable CR2032 lithiums? I've purchased a few from Amazon, in the past, and they didn't hold up. They seem to be hit or miss.

Please, bear in mind I'm not battery/tech/electronic/gadget savvy, I'm just a user

No the rechargeable CR2032 cells are not worth it. They cost a lot and are only good for 50 full cycles. I'm not sure why they wear out so fast but the datasheets were explicit about the terrible cycle life. Also they have half the capacity.

I buy my CR2032 from Battery Junction. They have some great bulk prices. It is a shame environmentally but it is cheaper to use disposable than to use bad rechargeables.

parametrek said:

No the rechargeable CR2032 cells are not worth it. They cost a lot and are only good for 50 full cycles. I'm not sure why they wear out so fast but the datasheets were explicit about the terrible cycle life. Also they have half the capacity.

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Rechargeable coin cells can in fact offer great advantages over nonrechargeables for certain types of devices - namely devices that typically use only shallow-depth cycles, e.g. solar powered devices like calculators and keyboards, and also devices that use them for memory backup. This is because their Lithium Manganese dioxide chemistry enjoys the same advantage as common Li-ion 18650 chemistries - you can obtain much greater cumulative life if you use only shallower depth cycles (> 10x life in extreme cases).

For example Sanyo claims 2.5x more life at 5% discharge depth vs 20% depth for their ML621. Namely at 5% depth you get 3000 cycles = 150 equivalent full cycles (150 = 3000 * 0.05), and at 20% depth you get 300 cycles = 60 full cycles.

3000 cycles is over 8 years of life for a solar powered device that drains < 5% overnight while lights are off. Indeed our Logitech solar powered K750 keyboard uses a ML2032 and is over 7 years old and still works fine (likely now it has much less runtime when used for long periods of very dark use (deep discharge), but we rarely use use it that way).

As for pricing, generally for coin cells there are widespread counterfeits of all the top-tier brands. To avoid these low-quality fakes you can buy from a reputable vendor (e.g. DigiKey, Mouser). If you buy in bulk you can obtain very good prices (even competitive with the fakes).

Btw, another important point deserves strong emphasis when estimating coin cell capacity, and comparing primary vs secondary coin cells. Namely, much more so than for larger cells like 18650, the usable capacity depends strongly on the (average) current because IR increases greatly as the cell drains. Except for very low currents you won't obtain anywhere near the nominal capacity. But this effect is not so strong if you are only doing shallow-depth discharges because you are never (or rarely) using the ranges where the IR is much larger.

Jack Ganssle has done many coin cell capacity tests, see How much energy can you really get from a coin cell?s His results confirm the strong impact that IR has on (primary) coin-cell capacity. In particular this implies that naive capacity estimates based on datasheet values are often greatly inaccurate. This is required reading for anyone interested in these matters.

The analysis is more complex for pulsed loads, e.g. ultra low energy wireless sensor or Bluetooth low energy devices. For a good introduction see Nordics's white paper High pulse drain impact on CR2032 coin cell battery capacity and TI's white paper SWRA349: Coin cells and peak current draw.

In summary, be sure that you are very familiar with the (unique) behavior of coin cells else your estimates may be meaningless.

kilogulf59 said:

Please, bear in mind I'm not battery/tech/electronic/gadget savvy, I'm just a user

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A person needs a charger to charge rechargeable batteries.

Sounds like your uses are not heavy discharge for the most part. Keep it simple and get Battery Junction or some other reputable place to send name brand 2032's, my advice.

OK, thanks for the help folks :thanks: ...Amazon and Energizers it is

Don't buy from Amazon, eBay etc. unless you can be sure it is shipped from a highly reputable electronics supplier. Probably over 80% of the coin cells on Amazon & eBay are fake. Digikey or Mouser are safe bets.

Do not buy from Amazon. No telling where they source their stuff.

Go to Batteryjunction for fresh batteries.

As others have noted, I too have found it especially difficult to source good quality authentic button / coin cell batteries ....

Thanks for the advice on places to purchase. I figured Amazon would be reputable...

kilogulf59 said:

Thanks for the advice on places to purchase. I figured Amazon would be reputable...

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Remember, Amazon just acts as the sales front end for a lot of third parties. To be really sure lock for the phrase 'fulfilled by Amazon', which may or may not also say 'sold by Amazon. When it says 'fulfilled by Amazon' that means that Amazon is putting their rep on the line for this transaction, and you have a much greater chance of getting quality goods. If you don't, they will make it right for you.

Timothybil said:

Remember, Amazon just acts as the sales front end for a lot of third parties. To be really sure lock for the phrase 'fulfilled by Amazon', which may or may not also say 'sold by Amazon. When it says 'fulfilled by Amazon' that means that Amazon is putting their rep on the line for this transaction, and you have a much greater chance of getting quality goods. If you don't, they will make it right for you.

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I don't think this completely avoids counterfeits because Amazon frequently groups their sourced stock with that from 3rd parties, e.g. see the Forbes article How to avoid dangerous counterfeits on Amazon this holiday season, esp. the section "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com" is not even immune to counterfeits".

And "they will make it right" doesn't help much for items like coin cells where it is difficult if not impossible to recognize counterfeits. That's partly why I recommended using major electronics parts suppliers like DigiKey and Mouser.

I will keep DigiKey and Mouser in mind. I assume Battery Junction is good as well?

I have no experience with Battery Junction (never heard of them). They appear to have a storefront on Amazon so if they fulfill through Amazon then you have the same problem as above.

Digikey and Mouser are among the top 5 electronic component distributors in the world. I've never heard of anyone receiving fake or counterfeit products from them. But I've lost count of the number of times I've heard such about Amazon.

Batteries (including coin cells) are among the most widely faked items in existence. If you follow electronics forums you'll often see complaints about such, e.g. the EEVBlog thread Is there some kind of widespread CR2032 issue?

rr100@EEVBlog said:

10 years ago I used to buy the cheapest 2032 from ebay sometimes even bulk with no packaging at all and all was good.

But now something crazy is going on: they just don't work too long. Car keys (notice the plural) that used to work for years now work for only 2 months, I put one in some pocket organizer and is "battery low" in 6 months without using it, stuff like that [...]

I tried many brands, all sealed/blister, even some rip-offs from brick and mortar stores.

Any idea what's going on here? Some widespread "fakery"? Some critical ingredient got banned or something?

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And here's another example from SmartThings:

michaelahess@SmartThings said:

Far better options [vs. Amazon] <snipped links to Arrow, DigiKey, Mouser and FutureElectronics...>

All authorized distributors of Panasonic.

I've had to send back 6 of the 7 battery orders I've made on CR's from Amazon. SO many fakes out there. And these cost half (or less) as much. I use Prime for everything, but batteries.

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Gauss163 said:

I have no experience with Battery Junction (never heard of them). They appear to have a storefront on Amazon so if they fulfill through Amazon then you have the same problem as above.

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Whatever that means.

A quick check for quantity 10 Panasonic 2032's:

Digikey was clumsy, gave up on it.

Mouser was fine. $15.39 includes shipping estimated

Battery Junction was easy to navigate and gave a shipping cost to my zip code. Total $9.13

I recently bought 10 2016's. Each package had a holographic design.

I purchased four dozen button cells from Amazon a few years ago for a bicycle light used for riding at night during the fall/winter, 6 months a year. Only used a dozen of the cells the first year. The second year I went to begin using the remaining three dozen button cell batteries and learned that they died in storage - in a cool, dry place. Never again.

Battery Junction is located in Connecticut and is a woman owned establishment. Been a customer of their store for over 5 years and purchase all of my batteries from them in quantities of up to 80 batteries per order including button, CR123a, RCR123, 18650, AA, AAA, and 9V.

KITROBASKIN said:

Whatever that means.

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It means Battery Junction might be fulfilling some orders through an Amazon warehouse. As I explained above, there is a very high risk of receiving counterfeit coin cells from Amazon or any other supplier whose supply chain is not trustworthy. Many electronics professionals and hobbyists buy their coin cells only from major authorized distributors such as Digikey or Mouser because they have a long history of never supplying fakes. There may well be other (smaller) sources that are just as trustworthy but I am not aware of any.

I wouldn't give up so easily on Digikey. A couple minutes more time to order will pay off in the long run if it saves you from the hassle of having to frequently replace short-lived fakes.

I bought a charger and 4x 2032 rechargable battery`s to use in my 3D tv glasses a few years ago, It was cheap and worked reasonably well for a few weeks and then i got bored of 3D and have not used it since.

John.

Considering what places charge for shipping, unless you're buying a case, it's probably cheaper to go to a local retailer and buy them.

Based on my experience and that reported by others, buying from local brick and mortar yields a high risk of fakes, and is more costly. In the past you could get better prices from major distributors but it appears now they won't ship by USPS due to changes in Lithium shipping regulations, so the shipping price is at least $8 or so by UPS/Fedex ground. Usually what I do in such cases is wait till I need to order something else, and ship them combined, which makes the coin cell shipping almost free (the cost per cell is around $0.26 in qty 10)