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| Ban of non-rechargeable batteries |
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| james_s:
I also did some experiments with recharging alkalines with similar results. I recall I was able to achieve reasonable success if I only ran them down to around 90% before topping them off but ultimately it was more hassle than it was worth. I remember the rechargeable alkaline cells that were claimed to be good for about 25 cycles but between the higher cost of the cells and the expensive special charger they required it never seemed economical. As for shelf life, I don't need them to last decades, but it would be nice if leakage prior to the "best by" date was an extremely rare occurrence rather than practically the norm. Back in the 80s-90s I don't remember ever having that happen, Duracells were good quality back then too. |
| Raj:
I've made my own 10 button Tv remote 8 months ago and replaced it's battery 9v battery with an 18650 after 2 months of use. I have not recharged it since. So a fully charged 18650 lasts 3 times longer than zinc 9v. pretty satisfactory. --- Quote from: brabus on June 30, 2020, 01:15:01 pm ---Every year we throw billions of empty batteries in landfills. Many ideas have been discussed over the years, many projects have been drafted (e.g.: AA cells with Micro-USB charging feature), yet still every remote of the planet keeps eating standard AA/AAA cells. 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 --- I would sin-tax em if i were a dictator, while forcing companies to make their devices not only with replaceable battery, but forcing them to share a battery type among each other. Imagine, if you could put apple's 4000mAh battery into samsung or vice versa. Who gives a s#*t about phone thicknesses. But the main problem isn't the dispose-ability of battery, but the fact it's quite expensive to collect and separate batteries when there are so many people who know jack-s#*t about em --- Quote from: janoc on June 30, 2020, 07:15:03 pm --- --- Quote from: M0HZH on June 30, 2020, 04:32:16 pm --- 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. --- End quote --- You are trolling, right? Because you have picked exactly the one use case where rechargeable batteries are a poor choice because of poor self-discharge behavior and low current requirements. And built your entire argument on that :palm: AA cells are used in tons of other things than clocks and TV remotes - many toys (e.g. Legos, Furbys, ...), some cheap cameras, wireless game controllers (e.g. Xbox, Oculus Quest, Wii ...), some home appliances use them (various mini vaccuum cleaners, electric potato peelers, etc.). If you have kids and they have a game console that uses a game controller powered by AA cells, you will realize the advantage of having recheargeables on hand pretty quickly. E.g. my Quest goes through a set of batteries in the controllers every few days when I am using it regularly. And no, an integrated lithium battery wouldn't be better - AA cell you can swap and continue playing, with a non-replaceable battery you are SOL until it recharges, so Oculus (and Nintendo before them) knew exactly why they decided to use AAs instead. --- End quote --- Kid's stuff are mostly AA powered cause I think, China doesn't have much skill with using li-polys... I've seen far too many "ipod nano" clones rc toys, specially those made by silverlite (pretty popular where I live) with ballooned batteries. And when they die, you need to know soldering to replace em. Thus very few people buy em and go for AA model instead. --- Quote from: edy on June 30, 2020, 08:22:00 pm ---My Tecsun shortwave radio (PL-310ET) takes 3 AA batteries. You can choose between 2 different modes... either to put in regular batteries or set it to NiMH batteries. When you set it to NiMH batteries, it lets you charge them inside the radio through the mini USB port! Great solution to use standard AA size NiMH (and not some custom internal battery pack). This way I can easily swap them out with a new set of charged batteries if needed, or plug it in the wall to charge them in the radio (while the radio is still on even)! I wish more devices were designed like that! --- End quote --- Same for fuji cameras, which can work on voltages of anywhere between 3.8-6v. This allows you to power them directly from power bank. Too bad that the company wants to sell you an adapter (a plastic with 2 metal nubs connected to a wire) for allowing you to do so. I said f it to it and i'll be making one out of delrin and bronze Same goes for their rr-80 remote. I saw it's schematic online and made myself a wired copy and I already have a wireless one in the making. About wall clocks having AA, I'm slowly replacing them with my own PoE IoT (local network) clocks cause the standard quarts clocks are too inaccurate for my taste (they go off by 5 minutes every month, donno why so much deviation. --- Quote from: M0HZH on June 30, 2020, 09:22:00 pm --- Remotes are by far the most common use for AA / AAA cells. Other common uses also have the same profile, low power long life: clocks, thermostats, doorbells, sensors, wireless mice / keyboards etc. The recent game controllers from Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo are rechargeable now, digital cameras have made the switch long time ago and all the other stuff is a small market comparatively. The only area where it might be more economical to use rechargeables is with toys. Even if the number of users is low (1 in 10 households ?) the use is quite intense for a few years, so it's probably more cost effective to use rechargeables. --- End quote --- Too bad. most of those console remotes are with hard to replace batteries, unlike 8bitdo. --- Quote from: Circlotron on June 30, 2020, 09:43:55 pm ---We’ve got a wireless keyboard near the tv pc and it has solar cells on it. Been going okay for maybe ten years. Never have to put it by the window, just leave it sitting in the middle of the room. Might take a bit of extra space, but a remote could also have them. --- End quote --- 10 years? at first I thought did such a thing exist back then, then I realized time moved on and I stayed behind :p. But my 5 year old rapoo mouse is pretty fine for me...even though I had to change the wheel encoder and a button nub (not the whole button, since it wore off from friction of wheel rubbing it) inside of the mouse. I charge their NiMh every 3 months |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: edy on July 01, 2020, 06:10:59 pm ---Not sure if anyone brought up NiCd batteries yet... they also have benefits in certain applications. While many people think Lithium variants have supplanted everything, NiCd are still used in a lot of devices. They are quite resilient, usually sit on a trickle-charger 24-7 and ready for use when needed. I have NiCd's in devices over 20 years old that I still use, fairly forgiving and have their applications. Many home appliances like shavers, toothbrushes, cordless phones, drills, vacuums, etc... use these. Also one of my old Tamiya 1980's era remote control cars uses a 7.2v NiCd pack, still performing after over 30 years. Unfortunately many appliances use non-standard NiCd battery sizes or create serially-connected "packs" of batteries soldered together and wrapped in some plastic (or hidden inside the device) with some custom wire connector. One of the cells in the middle of the pack may get bad, or need individual reconditioning. If you could separate the pack, or if the device allowed you to insert individual cells you could likely find the culprit, recondition or replace the bad cell and keep using it for much longer. I think we all understand that different battery technologies exist and persist because each has different applications for which they are most optimal. There is no "ideal" rechargeable yet that fits every single situation, hence the need for both one-use and rechargeable energy sources. Banning is not an option, but educating users and controlling the waste stream is the key. I personally test out all my batteries (especially from the high-drain devices) at the end of their useful life and will typically re-purpose them into lower-drain devices (like remotes) that typically sit on standby. Usually the battery voltage in a high-drain device will tank quickly and not be able to stay above the operating voltage (of a toy car, for example). But put it into a remote or keyboard that uses very little current draw, and the voltage coming out of the "dead" battery is still good enough to last a long time. --- End quote --- NiCd has been nearly entirely replaced by NiMH for those applications. (They make special ones designed for trickle charging.) And in many cases, even lithium ion. The EU Battery Directive prohibits NiCd in pretty much everything except alarm and medical batteries, so they’re not used in shavers, etc any more. |
| SiliconWizard:
Just a thought, but I don't think banning non-rechargeable (primary) batteries would be a good idea at all, nor would it lead to something better for the environment. I'm almost convinced it would be the opposite. I think points why have already been made. - Primary batteries, at least the common alkaline ones, now that mercury has been banned in most countries I know of, are a lot safer for the environment than rechargeable batteries. - They also are easier, and consume less power, to manufacture. - Unless very severely abused, they have no tendency to inflate or worse, explode. - Their shelf life is usually much longer. Corollary is, if you can find some that have been stored, even for a rather long time, they are immediately operational. Can be a life saver. Related fact is that rechargeable batteries are likely to be discharged at the very moment you need them. Especially true for less often used items. - (Another related point is that recharging batteries IS an annoying dependency. It may be ok for a couple items (your phone for instance), but imagine you now have to recharge all of your electric items on a regular basis. You're becoming slave of your own gear somehow.) - Related to the above, it's unclear whether the overall net outcome (in terms of environment) is better for rechargeable batteries. May be in some cases, but in the grand scheme of things, I absolutely don't know (and I'm not the only one.) Likely very much depends on the application, but replacing all primary batteries by rechargeable batteries for all applications would likely be a problem in terms of environment, and we probably don't even have the resources for that. |
| coppercone2:
try building projects that work on disposable batteries instead of having to put charge circuits in everything, its refreshing. a new EE is like expected to struggle with fucking switching power supplies and shit now.. just enjoy linear reg + AA batteries and stop worrying about nonsense |
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