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It's confirmed. Wayne is firmly in the Batteroo camp.
Nothing on his Facebook about this device that he and his assistant tested with and without batteroo's...
Well, at least there's a technical explanation on how it works. Buckets, water...
BATTEROO – is it likely to work?
I haven’t had much time to test my ones properly yet but one thing is for sure – it does increase the voltage in used batteries by up to 35% based on the ones I have tested so far. Even the biggest sceptics have to agree on this point.
I have also been very sceptical – it seems to go against the normal principles of how batteries work – there is only so much energy in an individual battery – when it’s gone, it’s gone!
So that got me thinking, how could it actually work to benefit normal people who use batteries in their everyday lives? I reckon there are a couple of ways that it could make a meaningful difference.
The issue is trying to explain it correctly in a non-technical way. I’m going to try and do that now in a similar way that I explain car batteries to my customers.
A battery is like a bucket of water.
Say you had an empty bucket and you insert 2 taps in it – one about a 1/4 of the way down the side and one near the bottom and then fill it up with water. When you turn the top tap on the bucket will start emptying until it stops at that level. If you want to use up all the remaining water you will need to open the bottom tap.
The other point to realise is that the more you open the taps up, the faster the water will flow and the quicker the bucket will empty. The pressure increases.
This is a very basic explanation but it will help to understand my theory of how the Batteroo could benefit the average person using batteries.
So using the bucket scenario above, how could this apply to the Batteroo?
Example1:
Some manufacturers put a voltage cut off in their products. When the battery gets down to a certain voltage the product just switches off. This is generally to protect the internal electronics keep it working as designed. Things like digital cameras or remote controls – they either work or they don’t.
In this case, just like the top tap of the bucket, there is still more power left in the battery but the product can’t use it. Using the Batteroo would be like opening the bottom tap to start using the left over water but in this case it’s the power in the battery.
In reality, the theory is that the Batteroo boosts the battery voltage to be above the cut off level so the product can use whatever power is left without switching off.
So you could use it on the existing old batteries when the item suddenly switches off and boost it back to life. You could also put it on at the start when installing new batteries and it will keep going for longer until the item actually uses up all the available power.
For these types of products you should also be able to use any old batteries you have lying around and provided they are not too far discharged the Batteroo will boost them back above the cut off voltage and get them working again.
How much extra life would you get in these situations? It would really depend on the individual products themselves but given the Batteroo is reusable, over time they should pay for themselves many times over.
Example2:
There are other products that will just use all the available power regardless of what the voltage is – they just go straight to the bottom tap and start draining. How long they last depends on how far open the tap is. For example, a remote controlled car. If you drive it around slowly it will last a lot longer than if you go flat out all the time.
These products are a bit different, so I’ll try to explain using 2 different scenarios.
You’ve got a normal flashlight (not the LED type). You put a new battery in it and turn it on for a long time. Soon after switching it on it will start to dull but you won’t notice it at first. Then you start to notice it getting duller but it’s still bright enough for you. At some point you decide it’s not bright enough anymore so you change the battery to a new one. You know it could have lasted quite a bit longer but you like it brighter. In this case you could put Batteroo on the old battery and get some more brightness for a bit longer. The other way to do it would be to put the Batteroo on at the start and the torch would be much brighter for a longer period of time but the battery won’t last as long as the dull torch without the Batteroo.
So with a flashlight, it’s not really important to make the battery last longer but rather trying to keep it as bright as possible for as long as possible.
Say you’re going camping and you have a nice big air mattress you need to blow up. All you have is a small battery operated pump to do the job. You switch it on and it goes for an hour to get the mattress up to the firmness you like. By this time the pump is starting to get a bit slow and tired and you’ve had enough of hanging around waiting for it to finish.
Your friend has the same mattress and pump but they decide to put some Batteroos on the batteries first. Their pump goes a lot faster and smoother and pumps the mattress up in half the time of yours. In reality, both pumps probably used the same amount of power to do the job but yours lasted longer. You don’t care because your friend is relaxing and having a beer half an hour before you are.
Once again, what’s more important, how much life you can drag out of the battery or how efficiently it runs for the time you need it to work?
I have a big old wall clock that runs fine for a while on a new battery but then starts losing time. I know the battery is still good but the mechanism just needs that bit extra to keep going at the right speed. They really should have designed it to use 2 batteries instead. So I keep throwing out batteries and replacing them. I know it can probably run for much longer but what’s the point if the time is always wrong?
I’m going to put a Batteroo on it next time and see what happens.
So that’s my theories of how the Batteroos could work successfully. I don’t think I’ll be too far off the mark.
Now I just have to start using them and see how it all goes.
Actually, I have another theory but it would need to be thoroughly tested before it could be substantiated.
In some products the batteries become very deeply discharged. Sometimes it’s your fault for forgetting to take them out or other times they still work at a very low voltage. The end result is the batteries leak inside the battery compartment. I don’t know how many times I‘ve gone to change batteries only to find they’ve leaked and there’s acid everywhere. Quite often by the time you find it, the corrosion has set in and you’re up for a new one.
Based on how the Batteroos are designed to work, I reckon there’s a good chance it may go a long way to solving this issue?
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
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