Disregard rechargeable for this query.
We see two sorts of AA and AAA batteries labeled something like ‘high drain’ and low drain’. What applications use which drainage?
Amazon has their own brand at about half price of some name brands. How does one predict the relative values?
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high drain i think would be things that chew through batteries fast
motorized devices, camera flash units etc.
low drain? maybe like stereo remote or a wall thermostat or something?
Is Amazon’s basic performance alkaline worth half the price of a name brand?
It should be understood that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) letter code designations for closed cell batteries basically govern the form factor but to not specifically govern performance. There are a separate set of standards which loosely cover battery performance. There are actually several distinct types of 1.5V cylinderical consumer cells in open packaging (i.e. not sold in a prepackaged power pack) including the old and rarely-seen zinc-carbon, zinc-chloride, alkaline “heavy duty”, and lithium-iron, each of which have different capacities and discharge-voltage profiles. In terms of use, understand that digital electronic devices such as digitical cameras, LED flashlights, GPS units, et cetera, need a consistent level of voltage to function properly, whereas analog electronic devices such as incandescent lamp flashlights, smoke alarms, et cetera, will operate with reduced voltage as long as there is enough current still provided. High current draw applications in constant or repeated use such as cameras or flashlights require a battery which will provide a consistent level of voltage throughout the discharge cycle, hence the need for a battery with not only greater milliamp-hour capacity but also a flatter discharge profile, while batteries in intermittent use such as for television remotes or smoke detectors can get away with both much less capacity and more variability in voltage output. Although the o.p. asks about non-rechargable batteries, the same is true for modern rechargeables where lower capacity and higher capacity/low self-discharge nickel metal hydride batteries can be found (corresponding to higher and lower number of life cycles respectively). It should be noted that the cost breakdown for rechargable NiMH batteries is far more favorable than even alkaline cells even factoring in the cost of a charger, and there is little reason to use disposable cells in any device that will see more than infrequent use, notwithstanding that modern NiMH cells will retain their capacity much better than alkaline cells and comparable to lithium ion cells.
The performance of a battery can be very roughly estimated from its advertised capability and some knowledge of the electrolyte used in it, but the performance will heavily depend on the quality of constituants and consistency of processing and manufacture. There is no good way to assess the quality of a battery without actually running a performance test like [URL=http://www.batteryshowdown.com/results-lo.html] this one. Note also that different lines of batteries from the same brand can perform very differently, and it is quite possible for changes in constituant quality or manufacturing processes to alter the performance dramatically as can be seen in this testing.
BTW, I’ve actually had this happen with an industrial aerospace grade lithium-ion batttery we were using where the notional capacity rating went up but the discharge profile was less favorable for our application, and the battery did not meet the original specification; it turned out that the manufacturer had shifted production from one producer in a certain Asian nation to another in a different Asian nation which had essentially rebranded the new cells from an existing line rather than establishing a new manufacturing line to spec; these ‘counterfeit’ cells started causing problems across the aerospace industry until this was discovered, which highlights the problems with using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) hardware provided without pedigree.
Stranger
The main reason I’ve switched over to rechargeables beyond the re-use factor is simply the leakage issue. Rechargeables rarely leak and standard batteries leak like crazy if left in devices.
Although that has something to do with the nature of the construction of NiMH rechargables versus carbon-zine and alkaline batteries (where the casings forms part of the electrode) this seems to have become a more prominent problem in the last decade or so where even the major brands (Duracell, Energizer, Ray-o-Vac) have had a notable increase in leakage problems. The old NiCad cells also used to have a lot of leakage problems and generally weren’t very economical unless you used and recharged them regularly, plus they had the environmental impact of using cadmium.
There are a lot of good reasons to switch over to NiMH rechargables and only a few to stick with alkaline batteries, such as if you have a device that requires a voltage that NiMH can’t provide.
Stranger
According to what I’ve seen, and Evan Drake’s link, the words “heavy duty” usually describe zinc-chloride rather than (the actual heavier-duty) alkaline batteries.
“High drain” devices are like digital cameras, radio control vehicles, etc. which have motors or higher-powered electronics which draw more current than “low drain” devices like a TV remote control.
High-drain devices are murder on alkaline batteries. reason being is the total energy capacity of an alkaline cell goes down the faster you try to draw current from it. it may have 2800 mAh of capacity in a low-drain situation like a remote which is only drawing a milliamp or two at most. Throw them in something which draws a few hundred milliamps and the cell might only be able to deliver 1000 mAh of capacity before being exhausted.
cells for “high drain” applications have different chemistries (e.g. the “advanced lithium” ones you see on the rack) or can be rechargeable. nickel rechargables- whether NiCad or NiMH- can tolerate pretty high current draw w/o near as much capacity reduction.
NiCads also had the problem of having about 1/3 to 1/4 of the capacity (in mAh) of alkalines, so they didn’t last nearly as long in low current draw usage. However in high current draw applications they were much closer.
high drain ,eg alkaline , cells/batteries are more expensive and are required for high drain use… such as a camera.
The cheap ones , the zinc chloride chemistry ones, can produce just as many joules, or Amp Hours, but only in low drain use.
So using high drain in your single AA wall clock is just a waste of money… Since it lasts 6 months or more, the usage is certainly low drain. The cheapest low drain one will work just as well for that use.