Rechargeables in the Real World

[Cody JW]

I am having some trouble finding a brick and mortar retailer for eneloops or the La Crosse charger. My in laws do not have internet and will buy these for me as a gift if I can find someplace that can do a phone order or local ( Indianapolis) retailer. Costco has the eneloops but I am not a member and they are 20 miles away so it makes no sense for me to join.I tried Thomas but they are out of the charger until Jan. I also tried Meritline.com and they do not do phone orders. I find it hard to believe that it is not any easier to buy this stuff. Any ideas ??

[self-deleted_user]

eneloops you can get at Meijer or walmart or target if you look careful.

Find the Duracell Precharged that have WHITE endcap, and if you look on the back it says "made in japan". Those are rebranded eneloops. Dont' get them if they are made in china/have black on the ends, those are not eneloops. And it has to be the durcell precharged ones.

I just bought them this way myself ;) They were cheaper too. $8 for 4 cells.

[NZcaver]

I use the Rayovac Platinum low self-discharge NiMHs, also available at Wal Mart and other local stores. I recall hearing these are made at the same factory as Eneloops (rebranded) but I haven't been able to confirm this. These batteries and their Rayovac Hybrid predecessors have been my staple source of AA battery power for about 4 years. They have performed superbly in conjunction with my Lacrosse BC-900. If you look online, you should be able to find a discount coupon (through Facebook I think).

Why don't you ask the relatives to give you $60 for the charger and then order it yourself from Amazon?

[Caver John]

A store...? What's that?

[NZcaver]

A store...? What's that?

Somewhere you go to check out the items you're about to purchase online.

[Cody JW]

Am I correct in assuming the chargers that come with these batteries are junk ?? I can find the batteries but the La Crosse charger, not so easy. It may be a great charger and I am sure it is. Apparently they put all their thought process into the charger and none into marketing. Lots of people will buy something if they can see it and touch it. If it is that much better than its peers than one would think they could convince brick and mortar retailers to carry it. Simple business 101. Their website lists a few but the ones in my area say they do not carry it. I guess it is alkalines for me, I have a bunch. Custom Duo says alkalines will last longer but not be as bright.

[Cody JW]

I called some online retailers and they said they cannot do phone orders. We would buy from an online retailer if they would do a phone order. I find it hard to believe that they have a "sales" staff and someone to answer the phone but cannot take a phone order. Thomas will , but they are out . I have never seen one product where you have to jump through so many hoops to give someone your money, I thought this was a "down " economy, I guess not.

[NZcaver]

Can you do a credit card online? Or maybe one of those single-use cards? Unfortunately that's the world we live in.

Think about specialized caving gear like Sten/Scurion headlamps, packs, suits, etc. Can't usually find those at local brick and mortar stores either, unless you find a nylon and string vendor store at your regional caving event.

And yes, the chargers that come with the pre-charged batteries are basically crap. The batteries that come with the Lacrosse chargers aren't total crap, but they are not the more useful low self discharge type.

[Cody JW]

I just figured that some thing like a battery charger was not "specialized " like caving gear.And could appeal to enough users to justify being sold at a major retailer or any retailer for that matter. I understand why cave suits and caving specific eq. is not sold by local retail outlets. I am sure most enloops are not used by cavers. I also noticed that enloop has a 1500 or a newer type. It it advisable to get that or should I look for something specific in their line ??

[self-deleted_user]

I asked Marduke (and he'll probably get around to commenting here) about the new 1500 ene loops, and basically "not worth it" for our uses. I forget all the reasons this was months ago I asked, sorry.

As for the charger, I got a Duracell charger because I didn't want to fork out the money for hte LaCross one and it charges individual not in parallel and does a good job...it was $17 and came with 4 x AA Duracell rebranded rayovac hybrids (the ones NZ mentioned) which aren't as good as the eneloops but better than other rechargables. And I have tested this too - I have the rebranded rayovacs and the eneloops and rebranded eneloops. Both eneloop varients last lots longer than the rayovac. I did 25 hours in Roppel recently, and had to change batteries ONCE. After caving for about 8 hours I had to put in a new set of eneloops to my Apex. Did not have to change them again the whole trip (about 7 hrs of the trip was at camp and I didn't have my light on).

The Duracell charger model I have is CEF23, I don't think they make the US plug version anymore but the Australian (CEF23AU) apparently comes with a plug adapter.

Hope that helps...

Oh here found this nice image
If you note the top two are the precharged low discharge duracell ones - the left one is black top and the rebranded rayovac, the right top one is the eneloop rebranded. Hope that helps =)

[Marduke]

Try Thomas Distributing. I would be surprised if they do not take phone orders.

[Cody JW]

Try Thomas Distributing. I would be surprised if they do not take phone orders.

I tried Thomas, they said they are currently out. They will take phone orders. They were who I first thought of.

[bif]

Custom Duo says alkalines will last longer but not be as bright.

Batteries are a bit of a can of worms, so I hope you don't mind me hopping in and qualifying this Jeff.

The thing with alkalines is that they will invariably sag under load, so if a lamp is regulated to pull say 700mA from the batteries, then (depending on the quality of these primary cells) it is quite possible that they won't be capable of delivering the required current for very long, and the lamp will be quickly become less bright on the higher settings. The some what ironic upside to this is that they (alkalines) 'will last longer', and by this I mean, will last longer (provide more duration) than they overwise would have if they had been able to sustain the full power set by the regulation circuitry of lamp. The lamp would be less bright than if it was running at its regulated level (using, for example, good nimh cells that could happily pull the required current). So, alkalines won't necessarily last longer than nimh rechargeable cells. That would depend on the quality of the cells used. It's an almost impossible comparrison to make, as there are trillions of different batteries, and while nimh are conveniently rated in mAh, alkalines don't have a tangeable measure of capacity/ performance stamped on them. Over here, the better alkalines are generally rated in what percentage longer they can run a non existent childs toy, as compared to the next best selling battery

As for Nimh rechargeables, Eneloops tend to be used as a bench mark (because it's generally easier than trying to explain to someone why not to buy the highest capacity nimh cells they can find), but there are other good low self discharge nimh cells available. As for chargers, a good one is important. Cheap chargers can often be pretty dodgy and kill your cells early (typically by overcharging). Something not too fast, that doesn't massively over heat the cells is a plan.

[self-deleted_user]

Firstoff...HI BIF!!!!!!!!! I totally didn't know you were on this forum

Secondly...what other good low self discharges are there? I've only heard of the rayovacs and eneloops (and rebranded of those) and of those two I do prefer eneloops as they do way better in my Apex (although now I have that fancy duo from you ;) but I still need to mod it...it took me 3 hrs to do the apex waterproofing mod so I want a big chunk of time so I don't screw it up! Do not underestimate my ability to ruin electronic/mechanical stuff. I can mess with tiny biology weirdness easily and flawlessly, stuff I can actually see...ha!) I was planning on just using eneloops in the Duo as well.

[bif]

Hi Amy

You'd sort of be asking the wrong person really. I would think Marduke and a few others can provide much better guidance on such things. Personally I tend to stick with Eneloops, or the 7dayshop.com own brand 2100mAh ones. I'll probably give a set of the new 2500mAh Eneloops a whirl when I'm feeling flush. I recenty got a set of 8 x 2000 mAH special edition Eneloops in 8 sparkling colours (including purple !!!!). Sad I know, but worth looking out for.

http://www.eneloop.info/products/batter ... tones.html

The 7dayshop is a UK thing, so sadly this isn't an option for you guys, as they sell a super good value 8 way charger. I've lifted the following from the UK caving forum from a post by Jarvist who is pretty good on batteries etc. It might be useful as I imagine these chargers come out of a factory in China, so are probably available in the same form but with slightly different branding on your side of the pond. He also mentions Maha Chargers. Hope this is useful to you guys.

And for a charger, this 8-way one (+ comes with a cigarette-lighter car lead) for £10:

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product ... _id=101271

..... cheap chargers can be pretty dodgy + kill your cells early (typically by overcharging), but the above charger is actually pretty reliable, not too fast, and doesn't massively over heat the cells. We (Imperial College CC) use it exclusively on expedition running off a solar-charged car battery, probably for around 100 charge cycles over three summers.
It also has a 'refresh' cycle (the big blue button) which some people recommend for every 10th charge of NiMh batteries.

If you want to go the next step up you really need to be going to a Maha MH-C800S (8-way, £50) or Maha MH-C9000 (4-way, £50, but with exciting geeky analysis abilities). There's also a chinese rip-off of the MH-C9000 which you can find on Amazon for around £25, which is probably the budget option if you enjoy geeking out. The Maha C800S comes with an extremely irritating proprietary power lead, so can't be used in a car, and has a very weakly constructed american-plug mains adapter.