Best place to buy battery-tester, and best kind to get

[johnpost]

you have to match the batteries to the device. as mentioned rechargeables have a lower voltage. some devices will allow selection of battery; disposable or rechargeable.

i have an mp3 player (older) that runs 15 minutes on a rechargeable and bunches of hours on a disposable.

i have cameras that don’t run as long on rechargeables.

remote controls last longer on disposables.

i’ve got a pile of rechargeables and that’s all i use in flashlights/headlamps and motorized things.

try both in your devices and see what performs best. rechargeables will save you a ton of money.

[Came_in_like_a_Wrecking_Ball]

@Magiver

Look for the highest mAh rating as that is that amount of stored energy.

Of all the threads I’ve started, this one probably has the highest meh rating (battery talk is boring).

@GusNSpot

When I was suing things a lot, I went the rechargeable route.

Yeah, those lawsuits sure do use up a lot of energy.

[AaronX]

1. If you’re buying a charger, for goodness’ sake buy a fast charger. I personally can’t stand waiting 8-12 hours to charge a battery. 2 hours is fast enough. Secondly, buy one that can charge batteries individually. The cheapest chargers can only charge batteries in pairs. I suppose you could put in a charged battery to pair with an empty battery you want to charge, but that’s troublesome.

2. Specific to the Xbox 360’s controller. Microsoft specifically discourages (cautions? disapproves?) of using your own Ni-MH batteries, possibly because they want you to buy their battery pack. You still can use AA Ni-MH batteries, but notice how tight a fit the batteries are in the battery pack? They might get stuck. If you’re only using them for your controllers, you can get rechargeable battery packs (other than those made by MS) for them.

[Reply]

@Magiver

buy a kit that includes the charger and the batteries you need. Look for the highest mAh rating as that is that amount of stored energy.

To be pedantic, an amp-hour is not a measure of energy but of charge. You’d use watt-hours to measure energy.

Semantics aside, this matters because the Ah rating doesn’t take battery voltage into account. For example, if you compare a 2000 mAh alkaline to a 2000 mAh Ni-MH rechargeable, you might get the idea that they both have the same capacity (energy). But they don’t, because alkalines typically operate at 1.5V and Ni-MH 1.2V.

1.5V * 2000 mAh = 3 Wh
1.2V * 2000 mAh = 2.4 Wh (20% less)

This means if you’re switching from alkalines, you’d need a 2500 mAh Ni-MH to match the battery life of the alkaline.

[Came_in_like_a_Wrecking_Ball]

@Magiver

buy a kit that includes the charger and the batteries you need. Look for the highest mAh rating as that is that amount of stored energy. Example

I’m not recommending these particularly but you get the idea of what is out there.

Holy shit I just got gadget advice from Magiver.

[Reply]

(Sorry, it’s late and the below might sound sort of argumentative, but it wasn’t meant as such. Just wanted to point some issues that weren’t mentioned.)

@AaronX

1. If you’re buying a charger, for goodness’ sake buy a fast charger. I personally can’t stand waiting 8-12 hours to charge a battery. 2 hours is fast enough. Secondly, buy one that can charge batteries individually. The cheapest chargers can only charge batteries in pairs. I suppose you could put in a charged battery to pair with an empty battery you want to charge, but that’s troublesome.

Fast chargers can degrade battery chemistry, shortening their overall lifespan. 360 controller batteries typically last dozens of hours of play so there’s no reason to use fast chargers for them unless you ran out and just desperately need to play. If you regularly keep some charged ones on hand, you can slowly charge the exhausted ones overnight.

2. Specific to the Xbox 360’s controller. Microsoft specifically discourages (cautions? disapproves?) of using your own Ni-MH batteries, possibly because they want you to buy their battery pack. You still can use AA Ni-MH batteries, but notice how tight a fit the batteries are in the battery pack? They might get stuck. If you’re only using them for your controllers, you can get rechargeable battery packs (other than those made by MS) for them.

If they get stuck you can just shake them out (happens all the time). The Microsoft packs use similar batteries inside and charge a lot more for them, and it’s unclear whether they’re low-discharge Ni-MHs like the eneloops are, and you need a special charging cable and/or charging station for them, making hot-swapping difficult. So many times a friend’s pack has run out and his controller was useless without a USB cord, whereas I just swapped in another set of AAs.

Microsoft also packages the 360 controller for Windows gaming (with a PC USB wireless adapter) and those come with the AA battery pack. I’ve used them for hundreds of hours played and no problems so far.