I have the exact same digital multimeter that’s pictured at the bottom of this photo:
I’m sure I’ve had it for 20 years. I’m just about sure I’ve had it for 25.
And I’ve never changed the battery.
It sat in a small tool kit for the last ten years … a kit that used to live in an old car of mine, and that I left at my brother’s house and forgot about.
My wife was visiting my brother and his family over the weekend, and – having inexplicably suddenly remembered the tool kit – I asked him to send it back with her.
As I rooted around the kit I saw my old multimeter. On a lark, I turned it on.
I honestly don’t understand how this thing – almost surely powered by a watch battery – could possibly still be going, let alone not totally eaten through by battery acid.
[NB: it is not solar powered]
Any similar stories of epic and unexpected battery life ?
I have a Simpson Sound Level meter that I acquired at a work rummage sale in like 1987 that was still working last time I checked about two years ago. I’ll have to dig it out and see if it still works and check on the type of battery.
Just seeing this thread title made me think of my multimeter, which is also the grey one pictured at the bottom of that photo. I did have to replace the batteries a year or two ago, though that means they had made it more than 25 years, as I bought it when I was in college.
During the 25+ years on the original batteries, the multimeter didn’t get daily use, but might be used heavily during a project, and then put away and not used for a few months.
I had a toy glowworm from when I was a little kid. You know, the kind that’s a stuffed animal that you squeeze and light up. I found it in my closet 10 years or more after its last battery change, and it still would light up!
Sure, it didn’t use the power in those batteries the whole time, but usually batteries leak charge. And they were just typical copprertop (Duracell) batteries, nothing special.
I think that’s exactly the point I was making. Many times, these are simply drugstore batteries that – at least theoretically – should see a wee bit of leakage.
Couple that with their rather limited capacity (mAH), I think these decade(s)+ long shelf lives are pretty amazing.
If I don’t use the TV remote in the spare bedroom for a couple months, the “AA” or “AAA” alkalines are dead as door nails.
Yeah, I’m bad, but ultimately this has to do with how they’re used. I might use the DMM a hundred times in a development session, and only one of these is the last use. And I never know that in advance. So unless I specifically remember to turn it off when I walk away for the night, it’s staying on.
As far as the question goes, the limiting factor on my HP-48GX battery life was always the alkaline cells leaking. I don’t think I ever replaced them because they were simply depleted.
I have a touch lamp that I got in 1997 when I graduated. Put a incandescent light bulb in it and used it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT from 1997 to today.
I never put a new bulb in it, until a couple years ago when I touched it with a wet hand and shorted both the touch sensor and the bulb. I replaced both and hope it gives me another 20 years!
Yes. I’ve told the staff at work not to buy any more of the cheap supermarket 6V batteries. Not only do they not make it to the use-by date, they don’t even last until the first time they are put into a flashlight – maybe around 10 months.
I’ve got lithium button cells that have lasted around 10 years but that’s it - my 25 yr old computers have typically had 2 replacements.
Nothing like the OP, but my 2012 Subaru still has the stock OEM battery. Will it make it through it’s 9th winter? I had a similar question the last couple winters. Edit to add: North Idaho - fairly cold winters. And yes, they call it “North Idaho” around here.
The original battery in my 2007 Ford F-150 lasted 13 years and a couple of months, through 11 Maine winters and 2 in Rochester, N.Y. In that time I drove over 105,000 miles. The replacement is exactly the same model and I hope it lasts as long.
I have a Sears Craftsmen multimeter like the one in the top middle that I’ve never changed the battery in, it too is at least 20 years old.
I got 14 years of battery life in my 2006 Honda Shadow motorcycle, it was a Yuasa. I just pre-emptively changed it this year because I figured it was time.
I regularly get 7+ years out of car batteries. I stick with Motorcraft, Optima, or NAPA.
I have a 64GB 3rd generation iPod Touch that still holds a charge and will run for hours, it is tiny by today’s smartphone standards but I still use it as a music player while I’m mowing. I charge it every few months.
A while back, let’s say around 2009, I had an old 1985 Mercedes sedan. I took it to an event somewhere about 60 miles from home. Driving back, at night, the fan belt goes. No alternator, running on battery power alone. I’m about 55 miles from home, so I figure to drive as far as she’ll take me, then call AAA.
Wouldn’t you know, I made it all the way to my block before the headlights started to dim. Pulled into the driveway with a victorious feeling.
My last watch was a cheap Casio digital. I had it for about ten years, before finally running out of replacement bands to attach to it.
The watch I had before that was a different brand that I don’t remember. I wore it until the battery wore out.
The watch before that one was another Casio, of a similar model to the most recent one. It, too, went through many bands over the decade or so I was wearing it.
Both of those Casio watches are sitting on my desk right now, both still working. If someone could make a band like they make batteries, you’d only ever need one.
I have 4 rechargeable AA batteries that I bought with my first Kodak digital camera in 2001. After 3 cameras, they transitioned into daily life and use around the house and about 5 years ago, I started using the 4 in my cycling lights (granted only LED, but usually Energizers or Duracells fresh from the package last 1.5-2 months) and they go for one month between charges. However, these things have been recharged literally hundreds if not thousands of times. They are branded as “SuperPower” and their chemistry is unknown but I don’t think they have lost any power in their 19 years of use and many, many power cycles. Truly amazing batteries!
Although I can’t personally offer any testimony, it seems the HP-15c calculator (and others from HP’s “voyager” series) were known for their very long battery life. People have claimed 30 years of service from the silver oxide button cells that powered these devices.
I’ve rarely had battery retain their physical integrity for that long, let alone a charge.
I got a Radio Shack brand multimeter when I was in college, in the early 2000s. It’s still somewhere in the bottom of my tool box. It hasn’t been turned on it years, but I bet if I tried it it would turn on. Like beowulff pointed out, it has been off for the vast majority of the nearly 20 years I’ve had it.
I’m sure I’ve never replaced the battery in it either, because one thing I remember about it is that it uses some odd sized 3V battery rather than the standard alkaline batteries that you can buy anywhere. You could buy them at Radio Shack, of course, but now that they’re gone I have no idea where I’d get a replacement for it. (Yeah, they’re probably available online somewhere).
I also have an old Radio Shack multimeter that I wish still had battery life, because even the specialized battery stores don’t carry the Radio Shack-only batteries that it took.
