IKEA Is Saying Goodbye To Non-Rechargeable Batteries (cnet.com) 106
Ikea will remove all non-rechargeable alkaline batteries from its global home furnishings by October 2021, according to statement from the company emailed Wednesday. CNET reports: Aiming to reduce energy consumption and environmental waste with the move, the home furnishing giant cited the results of recent life-cycle assessment studies showing the environmental impact of alkaline batteries is higher compared with rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries, when used in common household devices. The Swedish company, based in the Netherlands, said between September 2018 and August 2019 it sold about 300 million alkaline batteries globally. Ikea calculates that if all of its customers switched from alkaline to rechargeable batteries and recharged them just 50 times, global waste could be reduced by as much as 5,000 tons on an annual basis. Ikea added, however, that where required for an individual product to function, some lithium ion button cell batteries will be kept in the product range. "We are on a journey to inspire and enable people to live healthier and more sustainable lives within the boundaries of the planet," said Ikea Sustainability Development Manager Caroline Reid. "By phasing out alkaline batteries and focusing on our range of rechargeable batteries, we are taking one step on that journey, offering customers an affordable and convenient solution to prolong the life of products and materials and reduce waste."
The demise of alkaline recycling might help too (Score:3)
*In my community it was officially blamed on the e-cigarette (or whatever trendy name you want to use for it). Apparently too many people were putting the batteries from those into the battery recycling containers and that was causing all kinds of mayhem and safety concerns.
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Years ago I too wanted to recycle them, although I'm astonished at the idea of e-cigarettes using alkalines. E-cigarettes took off long after 18650 and similar battery cells were easy to get, so it's a strange thing to hear. Anyway, I too was quite taken aback to learn that the garbage can is the only real place to put used alkalines. Now days I see that it fits in well with the theory that most forms of recycling are scams.
Eneloop is a fairly reputable brand. I've heard that Amazon Basic rechargable batter
Re:The demise of alkaline recycling might help too (Score:5, Informative)
E-cigs don't use alkaline cells. Alkaline cells of the size they need don't contain enough energy. Instead, even the disposable ones use reasonable quality rechargeable Lion cells, which have the required shelf life and energy density, and are cheaper than the lithium primary cells which would be the alternative.
Disposable vapes (Score:2)
What about the one time use disposable vape pens?
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That's what I am saying - disposable vapes are fitted with good quality Lithium ion cells, because they are cheap, have enough capacity, and a long shelf life when fully charged. They could use smaller cells if they used non-rechargable lithium cells, but they would have to be custom made and therefore are more expensive.
The reason they use good quality ones is that poor quality ones have lower capacity and tend to self-discharge, which would lead to them not lasting through a full use and going flat before
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I don't think you'll find an 18650 in an ecig. Unless it is an ecigar - people don't want them over 18mm wide. Possibly some of the more bulky vaping devices might.
Mostly they seem to have pouch cells or cylindrical cells equivalent to quad-a cells - 08400's - such as are also used in Microsoft's styluses.
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It's hard to even find a larger vape that uses 18650s. Mostly they use shorter cells now.
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Plainly we need a "coinstar" for spent cells.
I don't know why anyone uses alkalines anymore for general use cases. The NiMH low self-discharge cells are plainly up to the job.
One excuse, I suppose, is manufacturers not certifying their products to work with common rechargeable cells and not wanting to void warranties. That's something that could be fixed with a bit of pressure on the manufacturers. Especially true in smoke detectors and the like... there the manufacturers would actually have to do some t
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I don't know why anyone uses alkalines anymore for general use cases.
Nominal 1.2V per cell (they charge up to near 1.5V, but have a very flat discharge curve that hangs around 1.2 for the bulk of the discharge) vs. 1.5V nominal for alkaline (and can be charged to close to 1.7V/cell). Most battery level detection circuits are designed for the highly sloped discharge curve of alkalines, and the low voltage cutoff might be too high to cope with having only ~2.4V in a device that was designed for e.g. 2.5-3.4V operation on a pair of alkalines.
That being said, if your device wi
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I have not encountered a device that has issues with them in many, many years.
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When buying Eneloops, only buy from Panasonic (yes, they sell through Amazon). Real Eneloops [eneloop101.com] are made in Japan even though their chargers are made in China.
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You can also buy them from... IKEA. They have their LADDA line which is actually the same bettery as the Eneloop Pro: https://www.slrlounge.com/pana... [slrlounge.com]
I bought a set for my VR or wireless Xbox 360 controllers, external flash, etc., and they work great.
That said completely getting rid of alkaline batteries doesn't make sense. The batteries in your TV/AV remote controllers can easily last 5 or more years, as can quartz clocks and so on. I don't think it makese any sense to replace those with NiMh cells at all
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The batteries in your TV/AV remote controllers can easily last 5 or more years, as can quartz clocks and so on. I don't think it makese any sense to replace those with NiMh cells at all.
ULSD NiMH doesn't last QUITE as long, but they do last a long time. They can also last for years in those contexts, though perhaps not as many. If you accidentally put something heavy on top of your remote, and it lands on a repeating key, your alkalines won't last very long at all. On the other hand, I've had problems with NiMH batteries being too low-voltage to charge. I have only one charger that brings those back, my other two just refuse to charge them (including the eneloop charger, even the second ge
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On the other hand, I've had problems with NiMH batteries being too low-voltage to charge. I have only one charger that brings those back, my other two just refuse to charge them (including the eneloop charger, even the second gen one that charges cells individually.)
I have a LaCrosse BC-700 that normally does really well with the eneloops. It also has issues charging batteries that have a voltage below a certain limit.
I've gotten around this by charging both a low-but-not-critically-low battery and the one that's below the cutoff limit at the same time. I use a paperclip to connect the positive terminals of both batteries in the charger for a second or two. That's enough for the charger to detect the below-cutoff battery exists and it starts to charge it normally. I'd
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In fact there is only one supplier for NiMH batteries in Japan now: Panasonic. So if a NiMH battery is made in Japan then it's an Eneloop.
Might be normal or might be Pro, the normal ones have a bit lower capacity but more charge cycles.
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Eneloops are significantly more expensive than alkaline batteries, and can't hold charge for anywhere near as long. Also, pretty much all current "Ni-MH sold pre-charged" batteries are first gen Eneloop tech batteries. In my experience with them, it's generally worth getting third or fourth gen, because they'll last a lot longer (as in cycles).
There's also a problem with size. You have to keep in mind that typical Ni-MH batteries (not low discharge) have a significantly higher capacity than low self-dischar
Mercury (Score:5, Informative)
The only reason they collected alkaline batteries separately from trash was that they had a small amount of mercury in them, and they didn't want them ending up in an incinerator. Once they figured out how to make them without the mercury, it was safe to just throw them out. I know there are companies that recycle alkaline batteries, but from what I've read it doesn't make sense from an energy-use standpoint. That is, it costs more in energy to recycle them (you have to separate out the metals, which is energy-intensive) than it does to just refine ore.
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I have done some research on recycling alkaline batteries, because we use tons of them at work in our products. As far as I can tell, the only part worth recycling is the steel casing. For some reason, the active ingredients are too mixed up to make recycling them practical. The article was quite old. Maybe we can do better now. We send boxes of spent alkaline batteries for recycling, but I would guess they are just disposed of safely, in such a way as to avoid fire and contamination.
Small problem with that: (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly sized NiMH cells have a nominal terminal voltage of 1.2V.
Many devices designed for 1.5V cells either won't function, will function poorly, or may stop functioning sooner due to this.
Furthermore, NiMH rechargeable cells functionally don't come in sizes larger than AA, C and D are just a shell for a AA sized cell.
Then there's the amp-hour capacity issue: comparing a AA alkaline primary cell to a AA NiMH cell they're not bad, but if you need C or D, not so great. A D-size alkaline primary cell is about 15000mAh, as opposed to the 2450mAh of these NiMH cells.
Once you factor in the cell voltage and start comparing on the basis of watt-hour capacity, it's even worse.
I'm not so much an advocate for contunuing to manufacture and use single-use primary cells as you might think, but many devices just aren't designed to use rechargeables. Change the designs so, for instance, a 4-cell AA device runs well on 4.8V instead of 6.0V nominal, and it's okay. But if you have older devices that don't give you the option of adding one more cell to make up the difference, you might find you're going to have a problem.
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Re: Small problem with that: (Score:2)
Many toys are either energy efficient or too boring to keep. Only the play tunes at bedtime toys use large quantities of batteries, and even for those, I'm only at about 10 replacements. I just changed the batteries in a favorite backhoe after 2 1/2 years of operation.
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The only time in my life I was using rechargeable batteries regularly was when my parents bought me a portable cassette player. Those things chewed through AA batteries really fast.
Re: Small problem with that: (Score:5, Funny)
Consider yourself lucky. My walkman not only chewed through the batteries but it also liked to eat the tape of my cassettes.
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I only regret - as pointed out in TFA - that actually there are no viable solutions for recharging button-shaped batteries, and they are used everywhere. I wonder if one day technologies like supercapacitors could repalce them.
I hear that there is a 2032 rechargeable on the market. I can even find them on Amazon. A bit pricey though.
Re: Small problem with that: (Score:2)
I think the only AA-powered devices we have where we hit the 50 recharges are the Wii remotes.
But I wonder if the 50 isn't a mistake. Looking at AmazonBasics, the rechargeables' financial cost payback time is about 6 recharges. Is it likely that the environmental payback time is a factor of 8 times longer?
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Re:Small problem with that: (Score:5, Informative)
No, D size NiMH cells are 10,000 mAh [thomasdistributing.com].
I just wish more devices accepted 18650 Lithium-ion cells.
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Then they should start, or they should stop selling devices that use D-size batteries, if they sell any such devices now.
At the recommended charge rate of 0.3C to 0.5C [batteryuniversity.com], it would take between 2 hours 0 minutes and 3 hours 20 minutes. Is that the answer you were thinking of?
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Re:Small problem with that: (Score:5, Insightful)
Always wondered how people ended up using thousands of milliamp-hours as a common thing instead of just going back to the base unit of amp-hours.
Especially for round numbers like 10,000.
(I know it's from the source you linked here Ichijo and I'm not blaming you!)
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Always wondered how people ended up using thousands of milliamp-hours as a common thing...
I always wondered how people ended up using milliamp-hours when talking about energy storage, instead of using an actual unit of energy like milliwatt-hours, watt-hours, or joules.
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Because the amount of energy you can get out depends on the discharge current, and it varies wildly. So using an amount of energy stored for batteries is in general meaningless.
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Take a look, you can get AA, C, D and PP3 batteries now that are basically a Li ion cell with included discharge/charge electronics that charge using a standard micro USB lead and charger. Here are some examples
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0... [amazon.co.uk]
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0... [amazon.co.uk]
That said there are a range of uses for which I would only ever use a primary cell. The first is things like wall clock, weather sensors etc. does not make sense to have a rechargeable when you only replace the battery once a year or l
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Not sure how one company that is probably one of the last places I think of when I need batteries endangers the minute number of devices that require C and D batteries. Guess I'll just go to Costco when my boom box from 1986 needs some batteries replaced. Yes, I know there are still plenty that need them, but it's one companies decision, not a ban.
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What you suggest already exists in all common battery sizes. That is a lithium cell with integrated charge/discharge electronics than you charge from a standard USB charger with a microUSB lead. Here are some AA sized ones
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0... [amazon.co.uk]
They give you a flat 1.5V voltage discharge curve. It's a brilliant idea and frankly putting the charger in the cell is genius. Everyone under the sun has access to a USB charger just about everywhere you go.
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I've got one of those atomic clocks that I've had for years now. I just use plain alkaline batteries in it, because they last a long time. Long enough actually that I've had issues with them starting to leak. Anyway, I've measured the voltage on them when I finally change the batteries, and they get down to 0.95-1.0 V or so before the clock stops working right.
Likewise, I have one of those AA-powered MP3 players from back when those were popular. I don't use it as much anymore, but back when I did I wou
Proper C or D NiMh cells have lots of power, but.. (Score:2)
A proper D or C NiMH cell would easily outstrip an alkaline (or, shudder, a zinc-carbon) cell. But many NiMH cells of that size are mostly empty space. Many are AA cells in a larger plastic shell.
The fact that a AA NiMH cell can almost replace a D alkaline cell speaks to how much better NiMH cells are.
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Re:Small problem with that: (Score:5, Informative)
Primary cells of the AAA, AA, C and D cylindrical types have a nominal terminal voltage of 1.5V.
Similarly sized NiMH cells have a nominal terminal voltage of 1.2V.
Many devices designed for 1.5V cells either won't function, will function poorly, or may stop functioning sooner due to this.
Everyone says says stuff like this, but it just isn't all that true.
New alkaline resting voltage is 1.65V, but as soon as you put a load on it, unless it is a very tiny load, voltage will sag to about 1.35V, then over load time curve steadily down to about 1.2V, then curve more rapidly down to 1.0V before dropping off the cliff at the end of it's capacity.
Fully charged NiMH cells have a resting voltage of about 1.44V. NiMH resist voltage sag far better than alkaline, and some can handle as much as 8A and still ride the line at 1.2V for their entire discharge before dropping at the end of their capacity.
So the list of electronic devices designed for alkaline that do not work work with NiMH is vanishingly small, and, generally, would be things with extremely low amp draw, like 5mA, that would not sag the voltage of an alkaline under load.
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You have to consider nominal voltage
Nominal voltage only makes sense when a cell has a "nominal" voltage. NiMH does, very load independently they manage to stay around the 1.2V across much of their cycle. Alkaline doesn't. It starts big and then drops continuously. If you device is depend on voltages higher than 1.2V as you asserted, then you'd be throwing out an Alkaline battery that has more than half its rated capacity remaining.
Device manufacturers take this into account and therefore there are very few devices on the market that actually
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You can compare the datasheets for the Eneloop and and a Duracell alkalines here:
https://docs.rs-online.com/247... [rs-online.com]
https://docs.rs-online.com/2a2... [rs-online.com]
So of course the alkaline nominal voltage is 1.5 and the NiMh is 1.2 but I'm not sure it's a very useful metric to design around. Basically if you want to get decent usage out of an alkaline, your device needs to accept 1.6 and work until 1.1 volts or so. And for the NiMh cells... it's 1.45 to 1.1v. So unless your device only works with in the range of 1.6-1.45,
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"Vanishingly small"? I'm sorry, you obviously haven't looked at battery powered devices very often.
My electronic door lock chews through alkaline cells in about 2 months and I'd love to use rechargeables instead, but it has a big warning on it not to do so and to only use primary cells. Looking online, many people have tried pretty much every type of rechargeable out there, they all lead to unreliable operation, and needing to replace the batteries on a near weekly basis. This is due to the lower voltage. U
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"My electronic door lock chews through alkaline cells in about 2 months and I'd love to use rechargeables instead, but it has a big warning on it not to do so and to only use primary cells. Looking online, many people have tried pretty much every type of rechargeable out there, they all lead to unreliable operation, and needing to replace the batteries on a near weekly basis"
Nickel-zinc. 1.6V, just slightly lower Ah capacity vs primary alkaline cells. But charging them can be finicky and their usual maximum
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charging them can be finicky and their usual maximum charge/discharge cycle count before reaching 70% capacity is around a meager 150.
Well, you're really selling them there!
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For poorly made devices that require 1.5V nominal voltage, they actually make lithium rechargeable batteries. These devices aren't lithium primary cells, they contain a tiny lithium-polymer cell and voltage regulator chip. They require a special charger.
And yes, the regulator chips are smart - when the lithium cell runs low, they automatically reduce the terminal voltage gradually to trigger the low battery warning.
They even have 9V batteries that work in a similar way, the primary difference is you don't n
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I would say your rechargeable door lock is not well designed. It chews through batteries like crazy because it actually expects the batteries to have around 1.5 V, so when they dip below that the lock doesn't work right. If you look at the discharge curve for an alkaline battery, they don't stay at 1.5 V very long under load, but they'll stay above 1.2 V or so for a long time. So most alkaline battery powered devices are designed to work down to 1.1 V or so in order to claim decent battery life. If your
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The quick change for rechargeable from 'working' to 'dead' can be very problematic as not giving user much warning. This is an issue where you don't immediately have replacement batteries that are with you.
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These days most battery powered devices use boost converters anyway, or maybe they have a few cells in series and a buck or LTO regulator. So the battery voltage isn't all that important.
Even stuff like torches are usually constant current LED drivers now, even the cheap ones.
This used to be a problem, back in the day my Lego motors would only run really slowly on NiCd C cells, but not any more.
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So the list of electronic devices designed for alkaline that do not work work with NiMH is vanishingly small,
A product that relies on alkaline batteries giving at least 1.5V, even on small load, is badly designed. It will probably fail after using only 10% or so of the battery capacity. The thing is, would the customer notice? If the period between changing batteries is long enough, customers will believe they are getting good battery life out of the product.
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In other words, it's a pretty low impact announcement... They don't sell a whole lot that needs batteries. It's a furniture store.
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They sell tons of things needing batteries. look at their cabinet lights. Despite the fact they're designed to be permanently, and stationarily mounted, they use absurd numbers of batteries and have no hardwire option. They also chew through them in a couple of weeks.
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They sell tons of things needing batteries. look at their cabinet lights. Despite the fact they're designed to be permanently, and stationarily mounted, they use absurd numbers of batteries and have no hardwire option. They also chew through them in a couple of weeks.
They do sell other cabinet lights that are plug in. I have some in my kitchen.
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>Primary cells of the AAA, AA, C and D cylindrical types have a nominal terminal voltage of 1.5V.
>Similarly sized NiMH cells have a nominal terminal voltage of 1.2V.
>Many devices designed for 1.5V cells either won't function, will function poorly, or may stop functioning sooner due to this.
This is complete nonsense that has reality backwards. AA Alkaline operating range is ~1.5V - ~0.7V. All correctly built devices will accept voltage in this range as their operational voltage, because alkaline vol
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If the voltage provided by NiMH is too low, you can switch to NiZn which has a terminal voltage of 1.6V.
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One of the problems with some rechargeable technologies is indicating low battery, before the battery actually dies. This is fairly easy to do with alkaline batteries, as the voltage falls steadily from 1.5V at the start of life, to about 0.75V at the end of life, depending on how the battery is loaded. All you have to do is measure the battery voltage on a known load.
With some rechargeable technologies, particularly Lithium, the discharge curve is virtually flat, up to the point where the battery is practi
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Do they need assembly? (Score:2)
Things (Score:2)
Mainly portable lamps, flashlights, and some small kitchen appliances.
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Many of their stationary lighting requires absurd numbers of batteries, with no hardwire option. I have 4 of their cabinet lights that use 6 AAA batteries each, they also only last a couple weeks to a month on a set of batteries. I gave up and modified them to connect to an AC adapter, but they sure aren't designed for it.
I hate that so many products that are not designed to ever move also don't have the option of wiring them to power and insist on chewing through mountains of batteries.
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Well that's their next evolution in replacing product lines that require a shit-tonne of batteries!?
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But the world is going the other way. "electric" used to be a synonym for corded. now it's a synonym for "battery powered", and while many electric devices should be battery powered, that should always be the last resort, not the first choice.
20 years ago, every house built was pre-wired for motion and door sensors, and all those sensors were hardwired. Now they don't run wires, and all those sensors are battery powered. Worse yet, even if you have the pre-wire, most new systems can't use it and use batteri
I have an nicad/alkaline recharger (Score:3)
It works for AA, AAA, C and D cell batteries. 9v? nope.
I can usually get more extra charges for the batteries (depends on a bunch of things) if the charger detects that there are no faults.
It was a gift so the only cost is the time (and electricity) it takes to recharge, which it tells me when I toss discharged batteries into it.
I have a bunch of AA nicads, which I either toss into their own chargers, or use one of the solar chargers I have around the house. I've had most of those batteries for over 10 or so years and only a couple of them have degraded to the point where they won't hold a charge anymore.
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Most alkaline batteries can be recharged, but only a few times, usually less than ten . The problem is that during charging, gasses will form within the sell, causing rupture. You'll usually recognise it by cell leaking, and since electrolyte is usually corrosive, there better not be anything valuable under the charger.
Notably, you can in fact recharge 9V alkalines just as well as AA, AAA, C and D cells. Chemistry isn't different. More likely, it's a limitation of your charger, because voltage and current c
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The problem with recharging alkaline cells is that they leak. You might get a bit more use out of them but you risk destroying your devices.
The IKEA NiMH cells seem to be made in Japan, which means they are re-badged Eneloops. They are extremely high quality and reliable.
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9v? nope.
Shouldn't surprise you. Try putting 6 AAA cells in series and charging them. It probably won't work either. Why is that relevant? Well a 9V battery is simply 6 AAA
+ an extra A (apparently can't write the next smaller battery name because Slashdot thinks your post is ASCII art) cells in series.
A 9V alkaline battery has an internal resistance of 1-2ohms. A AAA battery has an internal resistance of 0.15ohms.
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https://www.amazon.ca/Energize... [amazon.ca]
9v rechargeables have been available for a while. The problem is the button cell batteries.
Waste... (Score:1)
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Better yet if companies didn't design things that were never designed to move to require batteries instead of just plugging in to a wall socket!
That and kids toys... There is no bigger use of batteries in this world than kids toys!
Not that easy, though! (Score:2)
Rechargeable s don't have the same voltage as the other ones, 1.2V vs 1.5V for example.
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1.5V alkaline is nominal voltage. It goes down rapidly as battery discharges. Near empty alkaline voltage is around 0.7-0.8V and hardware designed for alkaline batteries should accept it.
Ni-MH cells are far better at holding voltage, staying steady at 1.2V until they're nearly empty. Which is why there is actually hardware that will have warnings against using alkaline batteries in it, because it won't accept such a big operational voltage range. It won't break, but it will usually stop working when alkalin
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Devices made for the 3V 2032/2025 button-style batteries (cycling computers, car keys/remotes etc) regularly stop working when the voltmeter will still show ~3 V (new ones are some 3.3 V I believe). Are these just two small "1.5 V" alkaline cells in series, or do they use a different chemistry?
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Definitely different chemistry. 3V ones are lithium based, 1.65v versions are zinc-air.
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Those are lithium cells. You should NEVER use lithium cells in AA devices. Lithium cells are 3,7V nominal and they will kill devices that accept AA batteries.
Problem is, they look the same, so you have to be careful about it if you use both alkaline and lithium cells of the same form factor.
Goodbye battery, welcome BÅTTÖRI (Score:2)
It's all about naming that makes them product sell.
It's a wonder that they didn't use a Danish name to rebrand this filthy product.
Doesn't make sense for a lot of usage scenarios (Score:2)
I don't think this makes sense for many common use cases. While rechargeable batteries are great for many things that use a lot of power, they make little sense for other scenarios. In particular, scenarios where batteries are seldom replaced because of low power usage or infrequent use.
Some examples: E.g. my remote controls have batteries, but I don't replace the batteries every year. And I can't use rechargeable batteries for devices that I use very rarely, but which need to have power when I use them -
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And the self discharge? (Score:3)
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It's not significant in modern low self-discharge batteries. Standard Eneloops are advertised to hold 70% of their charge after 10 years. I'd estimate that I change batteries in my clocks yearly, and remotes every few years, so the amount lost is dwarfed by the amount used even in extremely low usage devices like these.
LiPO, LiOn, NiMh, etc. (Score:2)
There are a lot of rechargeable battery technologies, and saving on the single-use alkaline batteries is a good goal. However, settling on NiMh as a standard is a poor idea. NiMH is limited in charge cycles, and has a 20% lower energy density.
I realize it's a lot easier to have ONE corporate goal of ONE battery type. However, setting the battery type based on usage will result in more savings. Yes, some prices will go up, but since nobody competes with Ikea (crappy Swedish furniture with incomprehensibl
Bad idea (Score:2)
IKEA batteries and lightbulbs were crap IMHO anyway.
But where rechargable batteries make sense (phones, electric toothbrush, cordless electric lawnmower) there are usually specific form factors and a charger build in so that you just need to plug theminto a power supply.
Alkalines make great sense for low power, long standby stuff like remotes, wall clocks, smoke detectors, wireless keyboard/mouse.
This is not the age of Walkman and Gameboy when I was a heavy user of rechargeble AA batteries that required a
Avoid zinc chloride batteries (Score:2)
I do not know if they are still on sale much, but the old zinc chloride batteries are cheaper than alkaline, so one might be tempted to use them in a non-demanding application. Don't bother, this is a false economy in nearly all cases. Someone did some some tests on this years ago (can't find the web page), and found many reasons to prefer alkaline over zinc carbon.
1) Your money buys more capacity when you buy alkaline less frequently than the weaker zinc chloride.
2) Modern alkaline cells have far better sh
Yummy tummy (Score:3)
NIMH batteries do not work well in all situations (Score:4, Informative)
There are numerous applications where low cost alkaline batteries are preferred and almost required
- Applications that are very low-drain spread out over a long period. Think remote controls and clocks.
- Applications where batteries frequently sit for long periods without use, then need to be able to power high use for a short burt, then sit idle again for an extended period - children's toys.
- Applications where you have to power a functional low-cost item. If I am selling a widget on local classifieds for $5, I am not going to throw in a $2 battery with it.
- Outdoor applications in cold climates. NiMH batteries simply do not last in the Canadian winter.
How about CR2032? (Score:2)
How about the coin cells? Are they saying goodbye to those too?
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Try reading the whole summary.
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You must be new here.
I only buy non-rechargeable batteries (Score:2)
Without proper infrastructure for the safe recycling of the wide varieties of rechargeable cells, the only option are relatively safe alkaline cells. Modern alkaline cells do not contain toxic metals and chemically degrade into relatively innocuous compounds when buried in a landfill.
My state (California) does not permit me to discard alkalines in household garbage, but also does not offer any option for disposal that doesn't involve driving 15 miles to the worst part of town, parking outside a facility tha