That's the throw-away society mentality. Many people like me do not buy into that concept. You'd be surprised about the legacy stuff out here that is in top shape. A few radios from the 50's, a heavy piano from the time Edison electric light hadn't been invented yet, etc.
Even in my lab you'll find tools such as this:
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Other than cell phones and laptops where you don't get a choice I usually never buy a product if there is a similar one available that lives with AA cells.
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Regards, Joerg
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It measures the performance for each battery. After several years of the normal use, good NiMHs are down to about 70% of the initial capacity. Sometimes there are the bad batches of NiMHs, too.
Unfortunately the regulations don't allow for the generic standalone LiIon rechargeables because of the fire hazard. You can have LiIons only as a battery pack with the proper protection.
Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
Insert a fully charged NiMH battery and it will be damaged.
And you obviously didn't read my question thoroughly, and likely you don't know how to solve the task I described.
There are great applications for NiMH, especially since low self discharge is available. But Li* offers a lot of advantages over them. _I understand_ very good why they are used.
Oliver
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Oliver Betz, Munich
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That happens at church all the time. Someone wants to insert a freshly charged battery into his or her wireless microphone, gets distracted, leaves it on the table. Someone else sees it there on the table, assumes it was a depleted one and plugs it into the Ansmann charger. No problem. At least not in about three years, else I would have seen lots of damaged batteries because I am the guy who installed this.
Well, all I can say is that we solved it by buying two uC-controlled charge stations. What more than three years of flawless service could we possibly want?
LiIon is great but not everywhere. They are expensive and there is no ubiquitous availability. Once upon a time Compaq had the idea of standardizing laptop packs to some extent and make sure they were at least sold at major airports but that effort seems to have fizzled.
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The "full" detection doesn't work with dU/dt detection, so I wonder which charger you use. The Ansmann chargers _I_ know can't handle full batteries reliably.
Or maybe you simply don't notice that the batteries get hotter than usual when they are inserted fully charged.
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You _still_ didn't read correctly. I wrote "with different amounts of available power": Try to charge NiMH reliably with low available power. Trickle charge also isn't good for most NiMH batteris (and you are still missing the range between "trickle" and "fast").
You also didn't comment the temperature range.
Maybe you confused the "cast-iron" (SCNR) NiCd with NiMH. NiCd was pretty tolerant and wide temperature range cells are still available for special applications.
Oliver
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Oliver Betz, Munich
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I'd have to dig that out but AFAIR it is the "Energy 16" model. We have two of those in use.
That is one thing I tested when we received the chargers. Inserted a battery that was full for a 2nd time. Nothing got very hot. This was with 9V 250mAh cells, also from Ansmann.
All we really care about at church is that this concept works reliably. And it does. The pastor would have had a chat with me if the mikes would quit in the middle of a worship service. Before we had these chargers that was a constant problem but I haven't heard a single complaint in the whole three years we are on Ansmann chargers/batteries. I guess this company knows a thing or two about rechargeables. My only (small) gripe would be that the LEDs in there begin to fade away.
One common trick is to accumulate (capacitor), then issue low duty cycle bursts are higher currents.
Well, batteries in general do not like high temperatures. AFAIK the Ansmann charger does not measure the ambient temperature but I might be wrong (it would be easy).
NiCd is very much preferable for some applications, especially phones on trickle charge. They have been outlawed in many places but here in the US we can still buy them at the supermarkets. Usually not as single AA cells though, more as battery packs for phones and then they always want >$7 per pack, up to as much as $15. Could almost get a new phone for that :-)
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I think you'd be surprised to see how much 'legacy' electronics I have in my home. However I don't consider myself to be representative for the majority of people. And whether I like it or not that is what most products are aimed at, for understandable reasons.
Neither do I, but most people really don't give a damn.
Talking about legacy and not throwing anything away this is the wood splitter from a friend I used a while ago. Built around the front axle of a 1930's DeSoto, a discarded Caterpillar piston, a 1942 army engine and all kinds of other junked parts. Even the gas tank gasket was cut from an old shoe and somewhere on this rig was a soldered-shut Altoids can. You'll get a kick out of this "wild thang":
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Started faithfully every single time, by draping a piece of rope around a pulley and closing the eyes in order not to get his with stuff.
*KAPOW!* ... chugga ... chugga ... poof ... vroooom. Rust pieces exploded out the exhaust muffler which by the way consisted of standard water pipes welded together.
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It had been recommended by a battery manufacturer but this has been a long time ago.
Yes, true. OTOH I'd rather have a phone that works with 3h talk time for three years than one that offers 5h but quits after a few months because the NiMH does not like the usage/charge pattern.
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In medical electronics or other safety-critical applications we usually have to adhere to what the manufacturers recommend. For example, the other topic (pulse charge) was explained here but currently this link doesn't work:
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Only a brief outline but at least this link works, page 18:
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