General > General Technical Chat

Ban of non-rechargeable batteries

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David Hess:
Alkaline cells have good performance for their price, their materials are relatively non-toxic, and they have better availability than similarly sized primary and secondary cells of other chemistries.

M0HZH:

--- Quote from: Bud on June 30, 2020, 03:46:28 pm ---This is a huge industry and a source of revenue to the governments. Cant be easily banned i'd think.

--- End quote ---

I think this is completely unfounded. It is much more expensive even in the long term to use rechargeables than disposables.

Quick math:

8x AA Rechargeable + charger = £22.22 (£2.775 per cell)
100x AA Disposable = £21.99 (£0.21 per cell)

This means a rechargeable cell costs roughly 13 times more than a disposable.

In the most common use for AA batteries (remote controls), batteries last 1-2 years; to get your money's worth out of a rechargeable set you'd have to use the same set for about 20 years. There are no rechargeables with a lifetime of 20 years of continuous duty, even the TV's average life cycle is 7.5 years, the charger will probably break or get lost many times by then. And you also have to live with not using the TV remote for 8-12 hours because the batteries are charging, every few months, for 20 years.

Cyberdragon:

--- Quote from: KrudyZ on June 30, 2020, 03:54:37 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cyberdragon on June 30, 2020, 03:41:35 pm ---Yes, I know you should not store NiCd cells discharged, but I don't have a charger short of my bench supply, so I just chuck them when they get to 0.0V (they are cheap crap anyway).

--- End quote ---

That is of course the real environmental concern. Buying cheap crap, containing toxic materials and chucking them after a short service life. That's how we turn the earth into a giant landfill...

--- End quote ---

At least with the replaceable types you can fix them by changing the battery rather than throwing the whole thing away (not that the lights last much longer without corroding anyway). But it's what makes those thing cheap, simple, and compact, hence why they are so common. They could make them with better batteries that didn't fail, but then they wouldn't be cheap crap anymore.

They do sell replacement "solar" batteries which are a bit better (closer to regular old fashioned NiCds), but agian...the whole thing will rust away eventually anyway. If they made the seal on the panel better so it wouldn't leak after awhile, then things would stop getting corroded as fast and it would be better on the batteries as well so they could have full charge cycles without fighting corroding contacts.

In fact, I have a recently deceased patient right here, just changed the battery recently (with a charged one from the box), but it still died. Let's see what part of this POS bit the dust. :-/O

Ah, insect ingress...get out of there! No? Ok then...*bug spray...water*. Pests removed.

Now the battery (I saw a flash of light, so possible just bug crap on the contacts). :-DMM

Of course, battery at 500mV and falling now, negative spring corroded...time for filing. :--

EDIT: The springs appear to be made of cheap steel (ok for inside only stuff, but not outside) which is also part of the problem.

JPortici:

--- Quote from: brabus on June 30, 2020, 01:15:01 pm ---In your opinion, why is this obsolete piece of technology so difficult to eradicate? Is the problem on the technical side or more on the political side?

Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.

--- End quote ---

There are safety low power devices that rely on the battery being non-rechargable. Non recharghable batteries have a more gradual discharge curve and can handle extreme temperatures better.
For example, avalanche reserach beacons strongly recommend alkaline batteries

edy:
I have a solution.... Instead of batteries in remote controls and other low-energy "on demand only" use devices, just put in a hand-crank generator and a supercap. Give the wheel a few turns to charge the supercap and you will probably have enough power to send a few commands to the TV for the next few hours. No batteries needed, ever!  :-DD



Or you could use a Faraday Flashlight ("Shake a Gen") concept to charge up a supercap. Just shake your remote and never use batteries again:



Seriously, remotes today shouldn't need batteries. They are so low power, this would do the trick. Also it would make them easier to find as they would be larger. No more lost remotes! :-DD

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