Does this really work? Can this really work?
C’mon, you guys, I can’t have stumped the Dope with this one! This device claims to be able to recharge regular alkaline batteries. If it actually works, you’d think there would be one in every house.
Dunno, but Dick Clarke advertised something similar for years. I do know that when I was a kid, we’d stick batteries in an ordinary battery charger and it seemed to recharge the batteries. (You couldn’t leave them in there too long, however, as they’d get hot and start to leak.)
We used to have a similar alkaline charger at home. It seemed to charge batteries for an amount of time proportionate to how run-down they were. Other than that I can’t say how effective it was at extending their lifespan.
It did not make anything go boom.
My dad tells me that you can put regular alkaline batteries into a regular nickel-cadmium recharger, but that it’s not recommended because of safety issues.
This I doubt. I purchased a Rayovac Renewal battery charger a couple of years ago, and use it pretty frequently. Renewal batteries are honest-to-goodness rechargable alkaline batteries; on their website, these batteries are simply called Rechargable Alkalines now. They were easy to find a few years ago, but I can’t seem to find them at all anymore. I don’t think that many people care.
You can buy special ‘rechargable alkaline’ batteries; I read somewhere (=I can’t be bothered to find a cite) that the only real difference between these is the casing, which in the case of the rechargables is designed to reduce the risk of bursting during charging.
The Rayovac Renewal batteries are still around. Radio Shack used to sell them, and I think the only ready-available retail source now is KMart.
Anyway, check out Rayovac’s site at http://www.rayovac.com/ or the link directly to their Renewal page at http://www.rayovac.com/products/recharge/rec_alk.shtml. You can buy them online at http://store.sundancesolar.com/ … I’ve never dealt with them, but a quick search revealed their site.
I’ve been using them for quite a while. They can’t be recharged as many times as NiCd or NiMH batteries–some will fail after only a couple dozen charges, generally by leaking during a charge, but sometimes by just not taking a charge anymore. They seem to have about the capacity of mid-range alkalines and have acceptable performance in cold weather (i.e. LED blinker light in winter.) They are sold fully charged and have a very long charged shelf-life (unlike NiCd which should be stored discharged, or NiMH which tend to lose their charge over a few months.)
I noticed that you can’t discharge them all the way or they fail faster, so they’re much better for devices that won’t let them do so–most digital electronics shuts down when the batteries are low. Other rechargeables are better in incandescent flashlights, but the alkalines are great in LED lights (i.e. safety blinkers.)