In one of my retro fits I’ve been surfing the web looking at toys from my childhood (that is to say, when I was actually a child. I refuse to grow up!:p) I seem to recall that when I was a kid (I was born in 1960) batteries tended to leak and corrode much, much more than they do now. If you left batteries in a toy for more than a few weeks, they ruined the toy by leaking/corroding.
Does anyone else remember this? What exactly did they do to improve that? And what exactly did they do that batteries last so much longer than they used to? Even the non-alkalines last longer than those of the past. Those old red label Everreadies were good for about 12 minutes.
Better sealing materials between the case and the cap account for the better anti-leak properties. Some cells, batteries really consist of two or more cells in series or parallel combinations, used to promise to replace your device if it was damaged by leakage. I think it was RayOVac that had this printed on each cell.
I once ruined a portable radio when the “B” battery leaked. It was a three TUBE radio that had an “A” battery/cell that lit the tube filiments and a “B” battery that provided the plate voltage.
You may find this hard to believe, but I remember when standard flashlight batteries were a multi-layer paper tube with metal caps. Not only did they leak, but if you mashed them hard, you could rupture the paper casing.
This evolved into something called “heavy duty” batteries, which had an actual metal casing. They didn’t hold their charge any better, but at least they didn’t leak as much. Those batteries are the forerunners of today’s “standard” or “heavy duty” (not alkaline) everyday batteries.
Now that you mention it, I believe I remember them.
Now, how do they get more power into the same size batteries?
It seems every couple of years Duracell and energizer come out with batteries have more power. How? What are they added to it that could make it last longer. Plutonium?
I think I’m getting old, because I remember when items powered by C cell and 9 volt batteries used to be very common. 9 volt cells used to be common for transistor radios; now similar appliances use two AA cells. I don’t think I’ve bought any consumer electronics in nearly 15 or 20 years that runs on C or 9 volt batteries.
Yup, it was Ray-O-Vac, and they made good on their promise, too. Many, many (too many…) years ago, I had a not-cheap toy, the Major Matt Mason Space Crawler. I left the Ray-O-Vacs in it, and they leaked and removed the Crawler’s ability to crawl. I was heart-broken, so my mother wrote a nice letter to the Ray-O-Vac people, and they sent me a brand new Space Crawler.
If you leave todays batteries in long enough they will leak as well and corode the terminals. I have a flashlight that I’ve only had for a couple of years, where the contacts got all fouled up from leaking energizers.
Battery technologies have come a long way, as have toys. I’m not sure that the old toy (if you still had it) would run a lot longer with a new battery than with one made the old way, but a lot of devices have become much more efficient or started using different technologies. For example: Remember calculators and digital watches with LED displays? They were in large part supplanted by much more efficient LCD displays.