Ode to the AA Battery

The Xbox 360 was the most gamer friendly console (play your open music during games?!?) but one feature i loved was the battery packs. Your controller died? Just swap a pack - two seconds. And the packs could be rechargeable or AA so you could have a bunch of rechargeable AA for a fair price and never get bogged down waiting for anything to charge.

Designers have a choice in lithium-ion though. 18650 is is pretty large cell but there's 14500 which is AA sized or 10440 which is AAA sized. They make versions with the usual battery "nub" rather than the flat faces for spot welding, and built-in protection circuitry to prevent over-discharging. You probably would want to use ones of a different size than normal 1.5v cells though. A personal favorite of mine is RCR123A/16340.

Even many of the pouch cells come in "standard"-ish sizes. An 803860 is nominally 8.0mm x 38mm x 60mm, but I am seeing more custom sizes recently.

Meanwhile, alkaline batteries can go to hell. You might as well plan on one leaking in the battery compartment. My favorite non-rechargable 1.5V AAs are Li-FeS2, which never leak and have spectacularly low self discharge (especially good for multi-year ultra-low-power projects), but are dammed expensive.

The best thing about Eneloops do not seem to leak. I can just leave them in rarely used electronic devices without worrying. They might discharge, but so far this has never been a problem.

I miss the old Rayovac batteries. They had a 10 year no leak guaranty, and it was real. I did get some to leak - I found a box of gear that I know hadn't been opened in 13 years, and even then it was a small leak that wouldn't be hard to clean up.

But Energizer bought the company and changed the formula.

My Xbox 360 controllers are still in use. Meanwhile, I've resigned myself to never using any PlayStation controllers for more than three or four years.

AA and AAA batteries are great. I wish using them weren't considered a negative by many hardware reviewers.

I invested a few hundred dollars into Eneloops, but they kept disappearing. Turns out my kids were throwing them away, thinking they were disposable (cry).

I’ve since trained them and rebuilt my stockpile but that was painful, at what was then $2 a cell. (Now $3-4.)

> run at a nominal 1.2V instead of the 1.5V of alkaline batteries.

I've suddenly figured out why so many toys don't work with rechargeable batteries

My offshoot rant is that it should be easier hold devices at a longevity charge.

I want some gadget that keeps my essential gear in a long-term maintenance mode. Oscillate it 20-80% or keep it at 50%, whatever is optimal.

Every time I've looked into building something like this it seems like there's no standard reporting of charge level over the wire. I would waste a genie wish on this to have it in the USB spec and widely adopted.

This seems like more of a rant about non-replaceable batteries (of any type.)

When I buy things like flashlights/headlamps and other battery knickknacks, I ensure it uses a 18650 or some other standard lithium formfactor.

Am I courting disaster by reviving won't-charge pouch cells by just manually running a bit of current through them until they're nonzero volts and then a normal charger will do the rest? So far, in the maybe half dozen times I've tried it (rectangular battery blocks for old digital cameras, the pouch cell inside a long-disused Kobo Reader) it's worked. They charge right up, they don't swell, and they still have decent capacity.

I'm running at the hairy edge and only high quality safety engineering is protecting me here? Or these cells can take a lot more abuse than they're given credit for?

> It would be faster to leave the batteries in my tools, but over 40 years of sacrificing devices to alkaline cell leakage, it's my habit not to. So far I've never had leakage problems with the eneloops, but old habits die hard.

I've gotten burned by that too, but I just try to remember to take out the batteries before I put something into storage.

BTW, I think the old-style "heavy duty" batteries and lithium AAs don't have a leakage problem. Though lithium AAs are now ridiculously expensive. I think they went from $1 a cell to $2 in cell in a Sam's Club 18-cell bulk back over a couple of years.

Alongside their AA-powered keyboard, Apple sold a little two-cell charger with two AA NiMH batteries, which is still what I use to charge my Eneloops.

Can’t exactly relate to the post. I never had a device die on me like that. All my devices with Li-ion batteries are “daily drivers”.

I do tend to keep charge between 20-80% where possible, and fortunately haven’t seen significant battery degradation.

I’m on a 4 year old iPhone and even that easily gets me through the day still on 80% charge.

My only AA device is my HHKB keyboard and I wish it had a USB-C rechargeable battery instead.

Whats the energy/volume comparison between standard AA batteries and li-ion batteries?

Speaking of which, I really hate those chargers that force you to use two batteries instead of one. I get that it is cheaper to design it that way, but come on.

100%, I am a huge fan of actual detachable batteries and I also store most electronics with them removed. I generally consider any rechargeable battery a risky thing to store. (Some explode.)

One thing I really love is power tool systems though: I have some Ryobi tools that are over 20 years old and they work with batteries sold in stores today. (The battery tech has changed but as long as your charger is for your battery tech, the tools are all good.) I rarely use a given tool enough to justify replacing batteries in it every 2-4 years, but I use one of my Ryobi tools or the other frequently enough to justify keeping a couple good batteries available at any given time.

I have a modern drill and impact driver because I use them a lot. But the handful of couple decade old saws are plenty adequate for the very rare occasions I need a jigsaw, circular saw, or sawzall.

I did something similar with my old 286 system. The CMOS battery failed and I rigged up a replacement using velcro and 4 AA batteries. Worked great.

Sadly I had to toss that system when I moved to a smaller apartment :(

Looking back, tossing it was a huge mistake.