Is battery leakage suddenly more common?

There are various copies of Radio Shack catalogs online.

1989: Index on Pg 92. NiCd batteries and chargers start on Pg 141 and alkalines on Page 143. I didn't find anything that looked like an alkaline charger. Probably too early. 1993: Index on Pg 170. Battery chargers on Pg 88. There are some NiCd chargers, but no alkaline chargers. 1996: Index on Pg 218. Battery chargers on Pg 176, 212-213, 216. NiCd chargers, but no alkaline chargers. 2000: Index on Pg 396. Chargers now have their own section under "Chargers" listed by type. Nothing that says "universal" or "alkaline". 2004-2005: Index on Pg 210. Same as 2000 with NiMH added.

Unless I missed something, there are no alkaline or universal chargers in the catalogs.

Nice find. If the name includes amazing, super, magic, miracle, amazing, ultra, ultimate or other superlatives, it's usually junk. Such junk eventually fades away, only to be resurrected from the dead every few years. These days, I'm finding numerous scams on YouTube advertising. Here's one example from the 1950's that keeps re-appearing: "How to Convert an Electrical Outlet to an Antenna"

More of the same: These days, it's not TV antennas and alkaline battery chargers. It's magic technologies to fast charge your phone, make your EV go farther, or revive your storage batteries from the dead. They're not really sold to consumers directly, but rather as an investment scam, creative financing, or early adopters discount pricing. I guess this is now called progress.

When innocent folks pick them up at Goodwill, ARC, and Salvation Army second-hand stores. :-)

Jonesy

I found this link that prominently says "alkaline" and the charger was made by Buddy-L. I nicknamed them "battery buddy" 30 + years ago (about 1990). Click on this link and you will see. Thanks for everything. After the conversation and my faulty memory, I thought I would do some digging. So, the link is right here. Click below.

I really appreciate the great conversation. This is so useful, I am archiving it for my records as I have truly learned an immense amount here. Thank you so much! I love your sense of humor too. Really great!

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Charles Lucas

On 7/25/2022 10:16 PM, Charles Lucas wrote: <snip>

That link is to sell an old Buddy-L . The link does NOT support the idea that alkaline batteries are a good candidate for recharging. They are NOT. Under some limited conditions you can get a few recharges with them, as Jeff already told you. Examples of good rechargeable chemistries include NiMh, NiCd, PBS04 and various Lithiums. These can be recharged hundreds of times.

Here's a link that you might wish to read:

You might consider experimenting with alkaline batteries on your own, so that you can know from your own experience how they work as rechargeables.

Thanks, Ed

<snipped remainder>

I remember when that charger was introduced, Popular Science (or Mechanics, can't recall) did a review on it and they generally liked it, but when reading the copy, it seemed like a waste of time based on their collected data. The best results were achieved when the cells were "recharged" when they were still usable. Fine, but most of us need to recharge when we notice our battery powered devices failing. At most, they might have doubled the total run time of the alkaline by recharging several times as long as the cell wasn't mostly spent before the first recharge.

Everyone at some point has put a small charge across an alkaline cell and bought a bit more time until new cells could be acquired. I've put 9V batteries on my power supply during lunch time and gotten almost a month more use in a low drain application like a Fluke DMM. I don't see the Buddy L charger as doing any more than what I as doing.