So, like most parents these days my monthly expenditure goes: 1. Housing, 2. Food and utilities and 3. Batteries for kids toys.
Anyway, my question is this: When i buy new toys these days they often come with batteries included “for demonstration purposes only”. Sometimes these last a while, other times they seem to be practically dead from the start.
My (ahem, i mean my son’s) latest toy had batteries included like this. It was an RC car which didn’t have a ‘press here to try’ hole in the box or anything like that and i can’t imagine it had been on the shelves for that long. So how come the batteries were almost dead when i first opened it? Do manufacturers buy almost dead batteries specifically for this purpose? If so why? Are these maybe past their shelf life batteries that they get on the cheap? And as it wasn’t a ‘press to try’ type package why did they even bother including the almost dead batteries in the first place?
I don’t remember it being like that when i was a kid. Seemed to me that the phrase ‘batteries not included’ was pretty much the norm in my day. When did this change and why?
Bonus question: What’s the deal with these standard (i.e. alkaline) battery rechargers? Do they work well? And how (in none too technical terms) can non-recharable batteries be recharged?
WAG the toy companies might buy up batteries the battery companies had rejected from their production lines for any number of reasons or batteries that had exceeded their date codes. At home depot when the reps found old batteries on our shelfs they refended us the cost and took them away. So the demonstration batteries could have any level of charges to them. Just ask yourself when buying a toy with them ‘are you feeling lucky?’
For another view,( think “batteries included” is an overseas phenomenon, when the US actually had an electronics manufacturing base they almost never included batteries. I have found that the alkaline battery or batteries included in most consumer gear are pretty good - the set included in a VCR/DVD or Television remote seem to last pretty well, much longer at least than the eventual replacements - and consider the item may have sat on a shelf for some time.
They work to a very limited extent. Each time you recharge an alkaline battery, its capacity is severely diminished, and after a few recharges, they are pretty well useless and must be replaced. Any chemistry is reversible to some extent, but if not specifically designed to be recharged the recharging current can cause unintended reactions as well, including the breakdown of electrolytes and the electrolysis of water. Overall, while these alkaline rechargers might get you out of a temporary jam, regular rechargeable formulations, although more expensive, are ultimately more economical in the ling run.
When we got a swing for the baby, it had something to that effect on the package. Upon opening the battery case, the manufacturer had taken 4 AA batteries and put them in a molded plastic type thing so they would fit in the battery case which was supposed to take 4 D batteries. The idea was that the batteries would have enough juice to power up the lights and music while in the store, but not enough to get the swing going (it wasn’t assembled anyways).
That is very true. The batteries that come with your electronics remote controls just last forever and once they go, even coppertops last less than nothing when compared. I had an issue with my TiVo and they had to replace it 4 times. Every time I kept the batteries and the S-Video cables.
