Welcome, guest [login | register]

Posted by Bill S on March 12, 2007 at 12:16:51 pm EDT
In reply to Re: Headlamps & Lithium batteries posted by Tom D on March 10, 2007 at 10:40:26 pm EST

Tom says he "just swap out two batteries when my camera quit working".

Oooooooo, Tom, the battery makers and camera folks say to never, never, never mix partially used and new batteries or batteries of different brands or bad things will happen. Actually, this isn't just commercial hype to sell more batteries. A few years back I had a long talk with some of the tech people from Eveready (when that company still existed under that name, before the change to Energizer and several changes of corporate umbrella). Part of the problem is that when a battery gets used, the voltage drops and when there is uneven voltage more than some critical amount, the battery is being put into a "recharge" situation (I don't remember the exact wording they used). Anyway, depending on the setup (part or all in series or parallel setups), the probability of battery leakage is increased. Yeah, when running low on my battery supplies on long trips, I do the same thing - try various combinations of the used batteries until I find one that works to keep the headlamp going for that last couple of miles back to the car. But the discussion with the battery techs (and some of the battery gurus in our satellite division) converted me to making sure I always use fresh batteries of the same brand in critical widgets ("critical" = "expensive") and change them when they get to half their usage. And what do I do with the half-used batteries? Weelllll, I put them in headlamps (headlamps are much cheaper than cameras).

Replies

View: flat | threaded

There have been no replies

Post a Reply

Before replying, please read the complete thread.