What's a Good Price for Eneloops?

bonezAU on 06/03/2016 - 20:33

I've missed out on all of the previous Eneloop DSE deals because I didn't have a need for batteries, however we have our first child on the way (2 months to go) and so far the bits and pieces we have gathered all require batteries. I'm told by a friend of mine that once a child enters the house, "no matter what you do, you will never, EVER, have enough batteries".

So - just wanting to know what sort of price would actually be a bargain. Is it worth buying one of the family starter packs that come with a charger and a mix of batteries, or is it better to buy all the bits separately?

I would appreciate if anyone could post links to any current deals or give me a rough idea what I should be paying as an OzBargainer. I think it will be much better now to start slowly collecting bits and pieces so I don't have to fork out bulk cash later on. It's better on the budget this way :)

Cheers

Electrical & Electronics Battery Panasonic Rechargeable Battery

Comments

  • MilkDrinker on 06/03/2016 - 21:32

    I would say anything below $4 a battery would be a bargain, you see lots of upvotes for $14 for a 4 pack.

  • peteru on 06/03/2016 - 22:56
    +2

    "no matter what you do, you will never, EVER, have enough batteries"

    That is bollocks. That would only apply if you use crappy batteries or have a really dodgy charger (like the nasty chargers that ship with Eneloop family packs)

    If you are going to go down the path of rechargeable batteries (as opposed to just chucking out binloads of disposable alkalines or lithiums), the first thing you need is a good battery charger / analyser. Forget 95% of the chargers on the market - all they will do is reduce the service life of your batteries. The second thing you need is decent set of batteries, such as Eneloops.

    Eneloops are a good battery to use because they have a low self-discharge rate. That means you can charge your battery and leave it in the drawer until you need it. Many other rechargeables will self-discharge in only a couple of days / weeks. That means that if you charge an ordinary rechargeable battery on Monday and install it in a toy on Saturday, it may only last for one day whereas the Eneloop (or low self-discharge Varta) would have lasted the whole weekend.

    I've been using a SkyRC NC2500 charger (a bargain would be in the $95-$110 range from an Australian retailer), which I consider to be currently the best charger available for a typical consumer using AAA and AA rechargeables. There are other simpler, but still decent chargers, such as Maha Powerex C-9000 and in a pinch the LaCrosse (although LaCrosse chargers have issues that will reduce the service life of your batteries)

    Finally, the trick is to learn how to use your batteries effectively. When you purchase a rechargeable battery, you should put it in the analyser and run it through the break in cycle. This will cycle the battery and in the process you will discover how much actual charge the battery can hold. Some batteries may have a labelled capacity of 2000mAh, but once you run a pack of 4 through the analyser you might find that one holds 2050mAh, one 1980mAh and the remaining two 1925mAh and 1930mAh. Once you know these figures, you can label your batteries and use matching sets. For example, if you have a device that uses 2 batteries, you would choose the 1925mAh and 1930mAh to go as a pair, because they have similar capacity. If you end up using batteries with mismatched capacities (for example a 2050mAh with a 1750mAh), one battery will discharge before the other and after that the stronger battery will try to force current through the weaker one, but with reverse polarity. That will further damage the weak battery and make it even more useless (or kill it), thus reducing the lifespan of your entire battery collection. A normal charger can never give you enough information to do this right. That is why I recommend a decent battery analyser / charger as the most important piece of equipment.

    I have batteries that I purchased in Japan back in 1996. Because I use these batteries correctly in matched sets and put them into a good battery charger / analyser they are still going strong. I have brought back to life batteries from other peoples kids toys, where they were ready to chuck them. I "refreshed" their batteries with my charger, analysed them and labelled them so that the correct batteries could be used together as a set. Had I used the batteries with the typical consumer charger (such as those bundled with Eneloops) those batteries would have ended up in the bin a long time ago.

    • peteru on 06/03/2016 - 23:03
      +1

      BTW: SkyRC now have a new charger model, MC3000 which looks very good. I'd probably go for that if I was buying today.

      • subywagon on 06/03/2016 - 23:09

        Thanks for the info! I didn't realise there was so much to consider! I'm in a similar situation as the OP. Now all the enloop sales seem to be a thing of the past, my current lot of rechargeable batteries now won't hold charge after 5+ years of use :P

        • peteru on 07/03/2016 - 00:25
          +1

          Chances are that with a decent battery charger / analyser you will be able to revive a good chunk of your batteries. If you start using your batteries correctly, you will get many more years out of them. There may be a few batteries that you will just have to chuck out, but at least the analyser will help you figure out which ones are beyond salvation.

    • SKiZO on 09/03/2016 - 11:50
      -1

      Thankyou for being on speed.

    • bonezAU on 09/03/2016 - 12:03

      Thanks for this info, very useful. I ended up buying a SkyRC NC3000 as peteru mentioned below.

      For an additional $8.99 USD I got a 4 pack of Eneloop AA's made in Japan.
      Looking forward to it arriving.

    • bonezAU on 14/03/2016 - 20:51

      Thanks for this valuable information peteru, I came back to this thread to re-read it. Received my MC3000 today and have just been playing and learning how to use it. Have put some brand new AA Eneloop Pro's on the break-in cycle and am waiting for that to finish now. Will be interesting to see what the different capacities show as once it's complete, and will find a way to label them in pairs as you suggested.

      • peteru on 15/03/2016 - 03:53

        No worries. Enjoy the new toys. It's not a bad idea to run the break-in cycle on your batteries every 20-30 charges. Each individual battery will age at a different rate and as a result, the battery capacity will change over time. It is a good idea to "recalibrate" your capacity labels every now and then to make sure that you are still using batteries of similar capacity as a set.

        The MC3000 looks like a very nice upgrade to the NC2500 - I just currently don't have an excuse to upgrade, since the NC2500 does everything I need it to do. ;-)

        • bonezAU on 15/03/2016 - 11:19

          Thanks for the tip, will run it through every 20-30 as suggested. It takes a long time, I put them in last night at about 7pm and it was up to about 3950mAh when I left for work this morning.

          Seems like a very good charger/analyser so far, was watching some YT videos last night to get a bit more of a feel for it.

          Have had a play with the Android app, it's a bit crap but better than nothing. The Windows software is also fairly ordinary but it does get the job done.

          One question you may be able to answer that I couldn't find online is, once the break in cycle is finished will the unit display all of the battery capacities? I suspect it will finish some time during the day today but only the wife is home and she won't know what to look for. Do you think i'll still be able to review all of that information when I get home from work?

        • peteru on 15/03/2016 - 13:40

          @bonezAU:

          The break-in cycle follows the ISO/IEC standard procedure. A 16 hour charge at a low constant rate, followed by a one hour rest, followed by discharge (this is where the battery capacity is measured), followed again by a 16 hour charge at a constant low rate.

          At the end of the break-in cycle, the charger (at least NC2500) will remember the total discharge capacity for each battery. So will the Android app. This is the useful number.

          As long as you don't take the batteries out of the charger before you read out those numbers, you should be fine. The Android app will give you a voltage vs time graph so you can see the charge, rest, discharge and charge cycles taking place.

          The NC2500 does not come bundled with any PC software, only the iOS and Android apps seem to be available. The app is not the greatest creation, but it works well enough to take full control of the charger.

          The charger also has a "Refresh & Analyze" mode - if you only have a small collection of batteries that are in constant use, it may be a better option than the break-in cycle for the "regular checkup every 20-30 charge cycles"

          Have a read of the manual, it's likely to have a lot of useful info.

        • bonezAU on 15/03/2016 - 16:03

          @peteru:

          Thanks, that explains it much better then. I saw some mentions of 16, 29 and 39 hours during my brief google's last night but will leave them running through until it's finished.

          Likewise the app for the 3000 isn't brilliant but it does give you some stats that you couldn't get just from the LCD from what I understand.

          Will check out the refresh and analyze mode too. The manual has lots so will keep reading. I also noticed there's a few cheeky references in the manual too, particularly around the FAQ and troubleshooting pages that made me chuckle…

      • grog on 20/03/2016 - 00:46

        Hey bonezAU.

        I see in this mornings west ..19th.. that you got married again?

        Big photo of you smiling and all that stuff….

  • StewBalls on 07/03/2016 - 09:40
    +1

    Bear in mind, you'll also need a shitload of alkalines with kids toys, you'd be surprised how frequently a $5 toy goes out the door with $20 worth of Eneloops in it, never to be seen again!!!

    Of course you'll question the wife/inlaws, but all you'll get is blank looks…trust me, libera te tutemet ex inferis!

    • peteru on 07/03/2016 - 14:55
      +1

      Oh yes. The "Batteries were flat, so I chucked them and put good ones in." response. Where "good ones" come in a 20 pack of cheap and nasty Chinese batteries for $5.

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