The end of alkalines? Panasonic thinks so...

Panasonic has developed new batteries called Oxyride. These are disposables that deliver more than twice the performance of high-end alkalines for the same price.

Panasonic Oxyrides

Hmmm...wait a sec, from the articles it said the battery reached stored in Japan last year! Now if it is indeed the same price as Alkaline.../ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Could any Japanese flashaholics confirm this and the price of this new battery? Any flashlight runtime test with this? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Not bad for a primary, but then there is the spendy lithium.

Notice how the comparision for the NiMH, they used 1800mAH cells...

The author of that article is exactly right when he says "AA and AAA rechargeables are still the most cost-effective way to power many such devices, but lots of people use disposables anyway, perhaps because they forget to charge the batteries they own or because they never buy rechargeables in the first place." With NiMH cells readily available for $1 or less, I don't get why anyone would even use disposables any more in high-drain devices. Within a fairly short time rechargeables pay for themselves enough so that you can even purchase another set to have recharged when the ones in your device are depleted. To me it's easier and faster to pop batteries in a charger than to run to the store and buy new ones. This isn't even getting into the money you save.

If only I could find the equivalent of primary Li AA cells in C and D size at some reasonable price. Most of my uses for these sizes are very intermittent, so I like the low discharge rates of primary cells.

My wife had a bad experience with leaking NiMH, so they are currently on the "not in my house" catagory.

I was wondering if anyone had seen this article in the Times last week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/technology/circuits/07pogue.html

The author does a bunch of nun scientific tests. Based on what I read, sounds like the batteries deliver their load at a higher current than alkies....good for those high drain hot wire and LED applications...

The Oxyride is ancient news. kj has been doing runtime plots with these for the last how many decades /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I can live with the compromised performance of off the shelf zinc maganese dioxide alkalines for those days I am caught short, which is less and less likely given that my Energizer 15 minute charger is a real speed demon /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

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jtr1962 said:
With NiMH cells readily available for $1 or less, I don't get why anyone would even use disposables any more in high-drain devices.

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Shelf life. Unlike NiMH cells, you can put them in an infrequently-used device and forget about them for 5 years.

For the foreseeable future, Alkaline cells will have a place. In things like wall clocks, remote controls and such.

In any light I care much about, NimH rule! Though some of my good stuff thrives on Alks.

Confusing eh?

in singapore,
the oxys are going for USD1.00 per pc

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Skibane said:
[ QUOTE ]
jtr1962 said:
With NiMH cells readily available for $1 or less, I don't get why anyone would even use disposables any more in high-drain devices.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shelf life. Unlike NiMH cells, you can put them in an infrequently-used device and forget about them for 5 years.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry about that. I should have said "I don't get why anyone would even use disposables any more in frequently used high-drain devices."

There is still one problem using them in infrequently used devices-they occasionally leak. In fact, I've had enough leak on me and ruin things that I no longer use alkalines in anything except wall clocks and remotes. Once I get some AAA rechargeables I won't be using them in remotes either. That leaves wall clocks and the odd stick-on thermometer as the last bastion for alkalines for me. Once we get rechargeables which get past the self-discharge problem I'm completely done with disposables.

If the rechargable alkalines were perfected better they would be a nice option... best of both worlds, low self discharge and rechargable. The problem is everytime you recharge them capacity drops till they are so weak they die in 1/10 the time as normal alkalines... perhaps after 25 or so recharges.

A very knowledgeable person told me once that the manufacturing cost for the LiFe cells are about the same as for alkalines.
Prices are just kept high for several marketing reasons.

I don't have a full grasp of the whole situation, but as I understand it, Energizer has a patent on the mercury-free formulation for alkaline cells and is making moves, I think, to force other people to stop using this formulation. That puts pressure on other manufacturers to either drop alkaline production or go back to putting mercury in their cells. This may be Panasonic's way to do an end run around the patent problem.

Is this anything like the Panasonic Power Edge Oxy-Alkaline batteries? Kodak is selling a line of them, too.

I bought a ton of them last year. I need to use them up as the use by date is 2007. But my battery use right now is really low.
The Oxy-Alakloine chemistry apparently self discharges faster than regular Alkaline.

If these are different, do they have a better shelf life than the Oxy-Alkalines?

Anybody want to buy/trade something for some Oxy-Alakalines?