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eneloop battery is not a proper AA battery. Proper alkaline battery does 1.7V when charged, while eneloop does max. 1.5V (usually 1.45V and deteriorate over tim

eneloop battery is not a proper AA battery. Proper alkaline battery does 1.7V when charged, while eneloop does max. 1.5V (usually 1.45V and deteriorate over time). Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. this chart https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGraph_Burned.jpg https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGr... shows max 1.6 but I witnessed 1.7 on full alkaline and 1.45V on eneloop

tzs 3y ago
> Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. Take a closer look at the graph you linked to. Those devices will also stop working very shortly on alkaline batteries. The voltage as a function of discharge capacity curve for alkaline falls below Eneloop about 1/3 of the way in. That means that if the device can work at alkaline voltage after it has used about 1/3 of the alkaline capacity it will also work as long or longer with an Eneloop of the same total capacity. The alkaline curve voltages falls below max Eneloop voltage after about 10% discharge. That means a device that actually needs a voltage above Eneloop voltage was poorly designed. It is either going to be ridiculously wasteful on alkaline batteries (unless the user realizes that when the device conks out due to low batter the batteries actually still have 90% capacity remaining and uses those batteries in some other device designed by a competent engineer instead of throwing them out as dead) or should have been using something other than AA batteries such as CR123A that will be above 1.4 V throughout most of its discharge curve. The only problem you should see in a well designed device that was designed for AA but for which the designers did not take into account rechargeable vs primary is that the battery indicator might not be as accurate on rechargeable. That's because simple batter indicators use the voltage to estimate where they are on discharge curve. If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down. It's a bit worse than that in my experience. Devices with low-battery warnings seem to basically show the warnings perpetually, never on truly fresh batteries but reasonably soon afterwards. In actuality, the batteries will last for months past that point. If the curve was like you describe, I'd expect to see low battery warnings less, not more, frequently with rechargeables than disposables. Still not worth switching away from rechargeable, although I wish I could silence the warnings.

tzs 3y ago

> Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. Take a closer look at the graph you linked to. Those devices will also stop working very shortly on alkaline batteries. The voltage as a function of discharge capacity curve for alkaline falls below Eneloop about 1/3 of the way in. That means that if the device can work at alkaline voltage after it has used about 1/3 of the alkaline capacity it will also work as long or longer with an Eneloop of the same total capacity. The alkaline curve voltages falls below max Eneloop voltage after about 10% discharge. That means a device that actually needs a voltage above Eneloop voltage was poorly designed. It is either going to be ridiculously wasteful on alkaline batteries (unless the user realizes that when the device conks out due to low batter the batteries actually still have 90% capacity remaining and uses those batteries in some other device designed by a competent engineer instead of throwing them out as dead) or should have been using something other than AA batteries such as CR123A that will be above 1.4 V throughout most of its discharge curve. The only problem you should see in a well designed device that was designed for AA but for which the designers did not take into account rechargeable vs primary is that the battery indicator might not be as accurate on rechargeable. That's because simple batter indicators use the voltage to estimate where they are on discharge curve. If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down. It's a bit worse than that in my experience. Devices with low-battery warnings seem to basically show the warnings perpetually, never on truly fresh batteries but reasonably soon afterwards. In actuality, the batteries will last for months past that point. If the curve was like you describe, I'd expect to see low battery warnings less, not more, frequently with rechargeables than disposables. Still not worth switching away from rechargeable, although I wish I could silence the warnings.