Don’t forget
Charging many wet cell type batteries produces gasses which can explode. Keep that in mind if you charge indoors.
Tom
exploding gases
Only a problem if exposed to flame or spark before they can dissipate. I once witness a fellow’s car battery (which was charging) blow up when he leaned over it with a cancer stick in his face. No spark, no flame, no worries. Make sure you unplug the power source on the charger before disconnecting the battery.
Lithium batteries
They do work better in cold. And they last longer besides. You may find that the price difference isn’t all that great when you do the math.
In the past, lithiums had some notoriety for making a fizzy mess if they became wet. I don’t know if that’s still true, but I would make sure my battery compartment has a good seal.
Some questions…
What kind of camera do you have?
What kind of batteries are you using?
Not all NiMH are the same, some are 1850maH and others are 2450maH. Older Energizers are the 1850, mixing capacities will reduce available capacity.
specs
The new camera is a Canon powershot A560 with 4x optical zoom, 7.1 mp. It uses 2 AA batts.
The old camera is a Konica/Minolta Dimage Z10 with 8X optical zoom, 3.2 mp. It uses 4 AA batts.
The batteries are an offbrand, Dahann (with two dot accent marks over each one of the A’s) that I bought over ebay from somebody in Taiwan. They’re rated 2500 mAh. I’ve got 25 of them and I use them in several different gadgets, and they seem to work fine in the other gadgets. However, I don’t know if they achieve the 2500 mAh advertised - is there some way to measure that? I have a multi-meter.
The Canon obviously expects a stronger battery. At normal temps, with fully charged batts, it starts out showing the battery at 3/4 strength (not 100%). Then, it will only take a few shots before it begins to warn of “low battery” and goes into power saving mode, where the screen stays mostly blank. However, it will usually stay in that mode for a long time (like 2-4 hours of off-and-on operation) and take 100-200 pictures before it will refuse to operate.
fire
I guess I’ll buy a couple of the 2950 mAh disposables to give them a try. I’d rather find rechargeables, though, because at $1.50 each the disposables are WAY more expensive than my 6-7 cent cost per use of the Dahann rechargeables, and I like to take a bunch of pictures.
Anybody know why the lithiums perform better in the cold?
Aren’t lithiums more subject to catching fire while recharging? I seem to remember that those laptop fires a few years ago were blamed on lithium batteries. Also, one of the sites I found that sells lithium rechargeable AA batts recommends charging them inside a fireproof container. Does anybody know what makes them liable to catch fire?
Heat?
Only thing I ever heard about lithium batteries catching fire (not lithium/ion rechargeable) was that if they short out (as in improper storage), they deliver current fast enough to make enough heat to start a fire. This was specifically in reference to the cr123 camera batteries, but I don’t know if it applies also to the AA and AAA sizes.
Lithiums are NOT rechargeable.
Litihium ions are rechargeable.
The Energizer e2 Lithium disposeable batteries are not rechargeable and I’m not aware of any danger of fire with them when used as directed.
My understanding, which is by no means complete or expert, since I don’t use lithium ion reghargeables, is that they have on occasion cought fire, exploded or “vented”. The candlepowerforums people are much more expert on this than I am. CR123 lithium ion batteries vary greatly in safety and reliability from brand to brand and also vary as to whether they are “protected” cells or not protected.
Nernst Equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_equation
briefly delta G zero = delta H minus (Temperatue*entropychange)
exploding laptops, phones
This has been an occurrence that’s been documented within recent years, Lithium ion batteries being the culprit. Not saying they’re bad, but quality manufacture is important.
It’s Ebay junk batteries!
I’ve got the new Canon PowerShot A1000, which also uses 2 AA batteries. The Energizer 2450’s last a long time, much longer than my older Kodak DC5000 which uses 4 AA bateries.
cost vs value
Yeah, I looked at the A1000 (successor to the A580), and the top-of-the-line A2000 also. As with most electronic gadgets, there seemed better value in the model a couple steps down from the top. 7 mp is already overkill for me, so it didn’t bother me to pass on the 10 mp, and most of the other features are the same. At almost half the price of the A1000, the A560 looked like a bargain.
I follow a similar philosophy on batteries, more so even since they can wind up costing more than the camera itself over time. I’m perfectly willing to buy off-brand. Even if the performance is inferior, they can be a better deal, dollar for dollar. However, I do try to measure their performance relative to name brand stuff. Prior to this camera, I didn’t really have any reason to complain, but now I guess I should pick up a couple Energizers on my next battery purchase to see how they compare to the off-brand stuff.
confused
"They do work better in cold. And they last longer besides. You may find that the price difference isn’t all that great when you do the math."
Okay, I’m confused now. Does this statement apply only to the disposable lithium batteries, or also to the rechargeable lithium-ion batts? I think we’ve established that the price difference is HUGE for any disposable battery compared to a rechargeable, but now I learn that there is no such thing as a rechargeable “lithium-only” battery.
Lithium ion and lithium batteries are
different from each other.
As far as I know, there are no AA 1.5v rechargeable lithium ion battery replacements. My understanding is that the lithium ion AA size reghargeable batteries are around 3.0v, not 1.5v.
The Energizer e2 lithium disposable AA batteries perform much better in cold temperatures than either alkaline AA or rechargeable NiMh or NiCd AA batteries.
The best deal I’ve found on Enegizer e2 lithium batteries is at Sam’s Club, 12 cells for $19.74 http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=113646 .
The Energizer e2 lithium batteries do start out at a slightly higher voltage - about 1.6v to 1.7v - than the average alkaline AA at 1.5v - or NiMh or NiCd rechargeabele at 1.2v, so some equipment may not tolerate the higher initial voltage of the Energizer e2 lithium batteries. Some flashlights would be over driven by the higher initial voltage of the lithium batteries and some recommend lithium batteries because of their ability to deliver their energy faster because of lower internal resistance than alkalines and their performance doesn’t degrade as much due to overheating under heavy load as occurrs with alkalines. Rechargeables are also able to deliver a heavy load quickly because of relatively low internal resistance when compared to alkaline batteries, but they don’t tolerate cold as well as the lithium batteries.
I hope that I helped clear things up, rather than confusing you more.
Lithium batteries
If it will be cold, the expensive lithium batteries are worth the price. Their cold-conditions performance is drastically superior.
disposable
That is what I was referrig to.
Last I checked, liths were running about 2 1/2 times the price of alkys at wallyworld. In my use, I have found them to last about twice as long - but that may vary according to the individual and the individual equipment in use.
That is why I said you “may” find the difference in price to be not so much.
Shop Hard for Price.
My A1000 was $130 (after $50 rebate) at Office Depot. Less than Ebay or any internet site. I’ve been using the Energizers NiMH for a long time. I’ve had 1 or 2 defective ones from time to time (wouldn’t take a full charge). I got a 4-pack for $7 at Walgreens (on sale for $8 and a $1 coupon). Shipping is the killer on any mail order items.
good price on 1000
That’s a good price on the A1000. The best I saw when I was shopping just before xmas was in the low 140s. Still, I got the A560 for $79 including tax and shipping and no rebate to fool with. That’s cheap enough that I can carry it my pocket while canoeing, as long as no challenging rapids are expected. I expect I’ll eventually capsize and ruin it, but as long as I can keep that down to once every 2 years or so, then $50 per year buys me instant access to photography while canoeing.
Powre-Loss Reasoning
That’s good thinking about how the starting temperature affects how much power it takes to boil a certain amount of water, but I suspect it is more complicated than that. One thing that comes to mind is that the rate of heat loss to the surroundings will be faster when the air is colder too, so on a cold day, more heat simply “gets lost” per per minute during the time it takes to make the water boil. So, it is taking longer to boil the water, AND you are losing more heat to the surroundings during every minute of that time, so the power-use compared to the temperature increase of the water won’t be a linear relationship.
That said, I have no doubt the battery’s power output IS reduced at 20 degrees, but living in the “semi-north” country, I’ve never seen a car battery show any noticeable signs of power loss until it got quite a bit colder than that, and that’s what had me wondering.
Alkaline Rechargeable batteries?
I have several sets of alkaline rechargeable batteries. Not disposable, rechargeable. Very rare to find and often even the stores that sell them try to convince them I’m confused and they do not exist -
The advantage they offer is that they do not loose charge during storage (much like the lithium rechargeables too). Storage life charged is rated at 7 years. Have no memory - charge as ofte, more often the better (per the instructions). And more importantly, they come in 1.5V instead of the 1.2 V on the NiCd and other rechargeables. This last one may be important for some picky electronics devices that think a fully charged 1.2V NiCd or NiMh battery is half-dead…
Of course, you need a special charger for these that gives about 1.7V charging voltage that would damage other rechargeables.
A set of 4 costs under $7! So they are a good deal better than disposables as you can charge them hundreds of times. WholeFoods of all places sells them. A set of 4 AA and 4AAA along with the charger costs only $16.
Only one drawback - the mAh rating is typically a little less than the best Ni batteries.
Might be worth a try to see how they work in cold - no idea.
I use them in clocks, remotes, pencil sharpeners and other such devices that require little use and where my NiCd rechargeables simply loose their charge over time from just staying in the remote rather than from use. I think they would be great in VHF radios too if yo udo not want to recharge them too often b/w uses if you do not actually use the VHF often…
Rayovac is the only onther manufacturer that I’ve seen make these batteries (got a set of them along with a cheap charger that works on all rechargeables from RadioShack many years ago and they are still good).