This smart charger allows you to charge a combination of AAA and AA NiMH batteries at once, even if installed at different times.
Keep your essential Eneloop NiMH AA and AAA batteries charged up and ready to go with this Panasonic Eneloop Pro Quick Charger. They are better batteries even without an on-board tester.Panasonic Eneloop Pro 4-Position Quick Charger with 4 x 950mAh NiMH Low Self Discharge AAA Batteries Advanced Battery Charging Technology But if you are going to go that route, you might just as well put the money into rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. You can purchase a tester if you are a heavy alkaline user. It cannot tell you how many hours of charge you have left. Also note that the bounce test is not highly scientific. There is some debate as to why this is, but it boils down to density. The more a battery bounces, the less charge it has remaining. For example, have you heard about dropping a battery on a hard surface and seeing if it bounces? There are other ways to test battery level. If you’re still an alkaline user, don’t lament the loss of the on-board tester. Lithium-ion batteries are better batteries because they are rechargeable. The remaining 990+ charge cycles do not cost users a penny. Even though Pale Blue Earth batteries cost 4 to 5 times as much at the cash register, they pay for themselves within half-a-dozen recharge cycles. Best of all, they are more cost-effective over the long term.įor example, a typical Pale Blue Earth USB smart battery can be charged up to a thousand times. They offer comparable performance to alkaline batteries, making them better than NiCad and NiMH batteries for some uses. Those better batteries were born with the lithium-ion revolution. Manufacturers didn’t want a mere novelty they wanted to build better batteries.
In the end, on-board testers were more of a novelty than anything else. It didn’t reduce their self-discharge rate or improve shelf life. Having an on-board tester did not make batteries last any longer.
So, why did the on-board battery tester not last? It didn’t result in a better battery. The greater the remaining charge, the more heat generated during discharge. A chemical reaction inside the case produces hydrogen gas and heat. The idea works because discharging an alkaline battery results in something known as off gassing. The heat would change the color of the paint, making it apparent how much electrical charge remained.
When on, a small amount of electricity would flow into the meter and generate heat. To overcome this problem, battery manufacturers installed a small switch. However, you wouldn’t want the meter operational at all times as it would drain the battery. It changes back as the battery is discharged. When you charge an alkaline battery for the first time, the paint changes color. It utilizes a piece of foil and a heat sensitive paint. How It WorkedĪn on-board battery tester is pretty straightforward. A technology that promised to sell more Duracell and Energizer batteries went by the wayside. One thing led to another and, before long, the two companies were involved in a patent suit along with Eastman Kodak Company and a team of small-time inventors led by James Burroughs and Alan O’Kain.īurroughs and O’Kain eventually prevailed, but producing the batteries was no longer worthwhile by the time the legal dust settle. The war led to some rather unique innovations, including the on-board battery tester.ĭuracell and Energizer both introduced on-board testers on the same day in 1995. It was an ‘all hands on deck’ sort of thing.
With consumer electronics taking off, battery makers were furiously competing to power everything from portable cassette players to transistor radios. Back in the 1980s and 90s, there was a war among the world’s largest battery manufacturers.