better batteries

is it me or are some batteries better than others?? It seems my digital mavica works better with alkaline batteries than the regualr heavy duty batteries. does this happen to anyone else?

thanks boom boom bap

is it me or are some batteries better than others?? It seems my digital mavica works better with alkaline batteries than the regualr heavy duty batteries. does this happen to anyone else?

thanks boom boom bap

Alkaline cells tend to have much lower internal resistance than regular (zinc carbon) cells, even though the actual energy rating may not be much different. This lower resistance allows the cells to put out large current pulses without the instantaneous voltage sagging so far. Makes a big difference for loads like cameras that use current in big gulps.

Alkaline batteries have dramatically higher capacity than so called "heavy duty" batteries. Typically alkaline cells will have somewhere from 2.5 to 4 times the rated capacity of a similarly sized heavy duty cell. In a practical application such as a digital camera, the drain rate is quite high and thanks the to alkaline cell's much lower internal resistance, the actual useful run time will be more (perhaps significantly) than 2.5 to 4 times superior.

In high drain rate devices such as digital cameras though, a set of NiMH batteries will typically provide significantly longer runtime than even the alkaline cells. A typical AA alkaline cell (ex: Energizer) has a claimed capacity rating of 2850mAh (but down to 0.8V/cell, much too low for most equipment to continue functioning), but typical NiMH AA cells often have around 2000mAh ratings (but drained only to around 1.0V per cell, which most equipment still functions at). NiMH cells have much lower internal resistance than the alkaline cells, and so the useful life in high drain rate applications such as a digital camera will be noticeably superior. Run time may be say around twice per charge or so compared to that of using alkaline cells. The moral of the story is use NiMH cells in your digital camera.

See also the very recent thread in sci.electronics.design titled "help on batteries" by Pvt.Radar.

twenty

AAs,

I've

The best I have found, so far, are these 2300 mAH AA cells:

AAs,

Micro Center had a big bin full of those (with 4-2000mAH NiMH) for US$4.73. How can they do that? The four batteries alone were worth more than $4.73. I wish now that I had bought more of them.

I've

I'd like to see all batteries marked this way. It would sure make things easier.

The best in terms of capacity I've seen so far is 2500mAh for AA cells (Energizer and iPowerUS), and 1000mAh for AAA cells (Accupower).