General > General Technical Chat
I Hate Batteries
engrguy42:
Has anyone stepped back to consider how annoying and stupid they are?
My multimeter was starting to act a bit goofy. Turn it on, and sometimes it comes on for a sec then goes off. Other times it's fine. I'm thinking "Hmm...battery??". But no battery indicator. And no way of verifying whether it has 10 minutes or 10 months of charge left.
So I find another pair of AAA's (of course the freakin' thing needs AAA's, not the crap-ton of AA's I have...so I had to steal from another device, after spending 1/2 hour looking around for a device that uses AAA's). And I try them and it's even worse. Apparently those batteries were dead. Who knew??
So I scrounge some more and fine 2 more AAA's, and, VOILA !!! They seem to work. Of course it's always a crap shoot to guess the state of the battery. And they never give you warning, they just die. And it's never the size that you have a supply of. Oh, I hope they're AA's...nope, its a 9V...or shoot, it's 6 AAA's...or a couple of D cells...and so on.
And no, I'm not going to go out and buy multiple battery analyzer devices for all the different types of batteries I encounter. Or different chargers for them all. I just pulled a couple of unmarked, 4v lead acid batteries from a device, and who the hell knows what analyzers or chargers will work. And then you have to get into the science of CV and CC charging for different types? No freakin' way. I'll just toss them.
Oh, but I can't because the battery drop off place is closed due to COVID. |O
And when you go to the store they don't give you the intelligent choice (rechargeables), but instead give you racks full of packs of 64 freakin' AAA's that you'll never use, and it costs an arm and a leg. So you need to keep a stock of 6 different battery types, most of which you'll never use. Until you need it and don't have it. Just to annoy you.
And then when you tear down a piece of equipment you're gonna use for parts, and find some specialized batteries you might be able to use you then have to figure out how the hell to charge that particular type of battery without it blowing up the house. And how to solder wires on them without blowing up the house.
I hate batteries.
jogri:
There is a simple fix to that:
1) Have all your batteries that you don't currently use in one place, together with a volt meter for the AA & 9V variants. If you need one, just grab it and check the voltage.
2) Get a universal charger for rechargable batteries. I can recommend a charger from iSDT, they are cheap and cover everything from lead acids to li-ions. Just build yourself a few XT60 cables with different attachements (bare wires, AA/AAA mounts etc) and you are good to go. If you don't fancy doing that attach a machine screw to the end of the cable and use neodymium magnets to attach the cable to the battery terminals. Or just use your bench power supply, it will most definitely support CC and CV charging.
And i rarely see anything other than AA, AAA, 18650 and maybe 9V blocks. Just keep a bunch of those in stock and use Amazon prime if you run into a weird format.
magic:
So you hate rubbish DMMs which fail to report undervoltage before it affects their operation?
Sorry man, even my old $10 UNI-T gets this right with a latched low battery indicator which triggers at some 2/3 nominal voltage, well before the meter starts to act up 8)
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: magic on April 07, 2020, 06:36:32 am ---So you hate rubbish DMMs which fail to report undervoltage before it affects their operation?
Sorry man, even my old $10 UNI-T gets this right with a latched low battery indicator which triggers at some 2/3 nominal voltage, well before the meter starts to act up 8)
--- End quote ---
You must have the improved version, as the first time I ran into just this problem, it was with an old UNI-T.(when it wasn't that old).
The dumb thing measured low on the resistance range, & some "gurus" were trying to troubleshoot a device where some other dumb people had fitted a resistor which was too high in value.---A perfect storm!
The resistor was supposed to be 15k, & the UNI-T said it was 14k, so the "gurus" passed the resistor as OK, & went off with all sorts of silly theories about the fault.
"Blind Freddie" (with the help of a penlight) could see the colour code read 27k.
My Fluke 77 read it as around 22k (it had a few other higher value resistors hanging off it in the circuit).
T3sl4co1l:
I have a set of rechargeable AA, AAA and 18650 laying around. The A series are low self-discharge NiMH. Which, hmm, they've probably been sitting around long enough I need to top them up again, come to think of it; I don't use them very often after my old camera died. Anyway, and the 18650s are Li ion of course, which I mainly use in projects like flashlights.
Just swap out a set and go. Put the used ones on the charger, then put them back in the pile. $20 will buy you enough for several meters and a decade or more of use. Don't get the cheap, "high capacity" cells: they self-discharge painfully quick (possibly faster than your meter uses them while on!), and wear out quickly. Plus if they're cheap enough, they'll lie about their capacity to begin with. Don't get an overly cheap charger either: it'll cook the cells rather than stopping when full. (Can also slum it with a bench supply, if you so choose; monitor them carefully, NiMH has an odd charging curve.)
Tim
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