I just wanted to take a minute to appreciate interchangable batteries

I know these are currently out of fashion but I’m still thankful they exist.

Let’s remind ourselves of devices that use(d) these standardized batteries:

  • Toys
  • Digital cameras
  • Torches
  • Gadgets like fans
  • Wireless keyboards
  • TV remotes

Thanks to having a standardized system of batteries,

  • You can use the same battery across several devices. This is a no brainer but it’s very practical.
  • Batteries can charge quicker thanks to being put in a dedicated charger and not being limited by USB cables. (But yes I concede that USB has been updated for faster charging over the years)
  • Devices don’t have down time when their battery is charging. To charge, the battery is removed from the device and can immediately be replaced with a fresh one.
  • You’ll never have to trash a device due to an expired battery. Just buy a replacement. And building on this…
  • Any improvements in future battery technology can be retro-fitted into your existing devices. And there is a high incentive for future improvement, because…
  • An accessible (due to easy replacement) and large (due to many devices) battery market is very attractive to competition.

If you look at the pros I listed, they all happen to be things that would be very useful for electric cars. So I think it would aid the adoption of electric cars if their batteries were standardized too.

TopHat,

Since I got those from Ikea, I just want devices to go back to those types of batteries instead of internal battery packs. Still got to appreciate the Xbox controllers sticking to that principle (for now).

SubArcticTundra,

Exactly. The trend of switching to built in batteries + USB is dumb.

TopHat,

Don’t get me wrong - I think an included battery that’s rechargeable through USB is fantastic. Less customer inconvenience. But they should either go with a standard that’s easily reproducible or go with regular rechargeable batteries.

avidamoeba,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Li-Ion solved this problem.

TopHat,

If it was so easy to replace them, with each Li-Ion battery being different for every type of device.

MisterD,

I wish power tool companies would get off the proprietary batteries and adopt the CAS standard www.cordless-alliance-system.com

MonkderZweite,

That’ why i actively look for battery instead of akku in some wireless devices. They are the closest to universal akku size we’ve got. Now they only need to be flater. And charging over USB-C would be nice too.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Does “akku” mean a built-in battery? Google tells me it’s German or Finnish?

gigachad,

It is a German word (short for Akkumulator), but we call batteries that you can replace Akku too.

MonkderZweite,

We here don’t, but maybe thats different in other german speaking parts.

gigachad,

Yes, I was speaking for Germany. No idea what an Eidgenosse would say

MonkderZweite,

Whoops. Yes, Akkumulator = rechargable, Batterie = one-use

monotrox,

The single battery cells in electric cars are pretty much already standardized in size, just the assemblies and cooling systems are not.

shagie,

(Linking for the pictures - not the site)

…alibaba.com/…/14_4v_new_auto_cell_ni_mh_6500mah_…

If you look at the battery pack, you’ll see that its a large number of C cells bound together into rods and then into a “brick” of a battery that then looks like:

sciencephoto.com/…/honda-insight-battery-pack

You’ll see a similar setup for a Prius (note this is updated from the older ‘prismatic’ modules): electronhybridsolution.com/…/toyota-prius-v-2012-…

Liz,

That’s true for kinda sorta everything? Battery manufacturers don’t want to have to deal with creating a bunch of custom battery runs, so they end up standardizing and higher level manufacturers buy from there. This is especially true in situations where space isn’t at an absolute premium (like it is in a phone). Open up the battery pack for your cordless drill and you’ll find very standard batteries inside there, probably hooked up in series to get to the desired voltage.

jeanofthedead,
@jeanofthedead@kbin.social avatar

I wouldn't say they're out of fashion - a lot of smart home devices are moving away from disposable cell batteries and over to rechargeable batteries.

oldfart,

To built-in lipo batteries that go bad after a few years and you have to trash your device or tinker?

jeanofthedead,
@jeanofthedead@kbin.social avatar

No - rechargeable AA/AAA batteries.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Do you mean built-in rechargeable batteries? Because that’s way worse than removable batteries.

Zigbee smart home devices last a very long time on cell batteries (CR2050 or something similar) that I’m not really worried about those. I’ve got door sensors that have been going for over 2 years on the same batteries.

jeanofthedead,
@jeanofthedead@kbin.social avatar

No - look at the IKEA smartphone line (TRÅDFRI and the like). They have stopped producing Zigbee devices that require CR2032 batteries and have released larger units that take AAA/AA rechargeable batteries.

SubArcticTundra,

That’s good to hear, I had a feeling it was all moving in the direction of glued in battery + usb

account_93,

My mouse uses batteries too, Just swap out once it dies on me.

user224,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

My wireless mouse is running on the same 2 AAAs for over a year already. I have no idea how. They still show 1.2V. I expected like a week or two.

monotrox,

The logitech g305 runs on a single rechargable AA for half a year and is probably the only reason I even considered a wireless mouse

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I use a Logitech Marathon M705 mouse that lasts 3 years on two AA batteries, according to Logitech. I’ve got Eneloops in it that I’ve been using for around 10 years now, and I’ve had to charge them maybe 4 times in total?

I’ve got an older model. They cheaped out on newer revisions, making the plastic thinner and replacing the metal scroll wheel with a plastic one.

MonkderZweite,

All month, because rapoo energy management sucks.

AI_toothbrush,

Just saying modern devices could also have interchangable batteries. There are standard lipo pouch sizes and standard lithium cilinder sizes.

happyhippo,

Invest in a solid charger (30-40€ will do). You’ll keep it for years, it’ll charge an odd number of batteries as well (unlike some cheap ones that only charge in pairs) and it charges just the right amount, then stops. Some even have battery test/discharge function, and charge more than just AA/AAA.

Then invest in a bunch of rechargeables, possibly Eneloops or something good from Amazon.

Now profit for years to come. The planet will thank you as well.

Honestly single use consumer batteries should be banned.

user224,
@user224@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The Liitokala charges seem nice. I’ve got Lii-PD4 for €13 on AliExpress. Unfortunately I didn’t have any extra money to spare for one with discharge capacity testing, otherwise I’d get the Lii-500.

https://lemmy.sdf.org/pictrs/image/67f5ea53-44d1-4854-b2ac-c681e7fceba7.png

Just be careful not to accidentally press a button on it right after inserting the battery, while the percentage is still blinking, otherwise you may happen to accidentally override the charging voltage and e.g. give the battery 4.35V instead of 4.2V. boom.

kent_eh,

The 18650 should have become the ubiquitous replacement in most applications, but nooo, the manufacturers had to go all proprietary and enforce even more planned obsolescence

stevedidwhat_infosec,

18650s can be pretty explosive if not properly handled though compared to traditional Lithium based rechargeables though, no?

nyan, (edited )

There’s more than one lilthium battery chemistry. LiFePO4 is pretty safe even when mistreated. Lithium-cobalt chemistries are the ones that tend to catch on fire, make their pouches inflate like balloons, and so on. I’ve seen 18650s labelled specifically as LiFePO4, so safe ones do exist.

stevedidwhat_infosec,

Sweet, I wasn’t sure of the polymer carpets or the lithium nickel ones were more or less explody and murdery

nyan,

Well, the rechargeable batteries that are least likely to blow up in your face are the ones with the old-style NiMH (nickel metal hydride) chemistry that they use in rechargeable AAs and such. They have lower energy density than the lithium chemistries, so there’s less there to explode. They’re pretty inert unless you stuff them into a charger that doesn’t work properly—a busted charger can set just about any battery on fire. (Why is the NiMH chemistry still used for AAs? Because the normal voltage of a single NiMH cell falls nicely in the middle of the voltage discharge curve of a single alkaline cell. Lithium chemistries don’t have that property.)

oldfart,

If they’re safe enough for teenagers with ecigs, they’re safe enough for general use I’d say

stevedidwhat_infosec,

Adult devices != children’s toys for obvious reasons

jaschen,

The downside is the volt is not 1.5volts. Its closer to 1.2volts. This is fine if you’re using 2 batteries for things like the TV remote. But when you’re using things that require more than 4 batteries, then you might get into some weirdness. I have a remote for my DSLR that sends infrared to the softbox. Every 10 shots, it would miss the shot. It turned out to be the batteries. It needed all 6Volts vs 4.8Volts.

wim,

These days there’s also Lithium ion AA batteries, with different voltages. You can get them downvolted to anything from 1.5 to 1.8V.

The ones over 1.5V are commonly used in applications with electronic motors, since it allows you to effectively overdrive the toy or whatever it is you’re powering.

stevedidwhat_infosec,

Life hax right here

nikt,

Alkaline batteries lose voltage as they drain, so 1.5V is at full charge but it drops down to about 1.2V very quickly and then stays at 1.0V - 1.2V for most of the alkaline battery’s operating life.

NiMH batteries tend to consistently stay at their nominal voltage (1.2V) through their entire charge.

So in other words, if you have devices that really expect exactly 1.5V per battery, they would only work with alkalines at the very top of their charge. Nowadays most non-garbage circuits should be designed to work just fine with anything above 1V per battery.

Fidelity9373,

Every battery has a voltage curve though; even alkaline batteries will drop off the 1.5v region after some time. Comparatively, ni-mh rechargeables will hold 1.2v more consistently and for longer than an alkaline, where it's voltage drops pretty quickly as the battery dies.

stevedidwhat_infosec,

This

RickRussell_CA,

Nickel Zinc rechargeable, peak 1.8V with 1.6V nominal.

Or newish LiIon cells that operate right at 1.5V.

snowfalldreamland, (edited )

Tipp for people wanting to get into rechargeable AA and AAAs: get IKEA Ladda batteries and their charger. They are cheap and japanese made. Some people argue that they are just relabeled Panasonic eneloops!

Edit: Oh also if you used rechargeable batteries in the past and you remember them sucking that’s probably true. But the battery chemistry is better now and it’s possible that your batteries degraded quickly because of “dumb” chargers. Modern chargers like the gray 4 battery Ikea charger detect how and for how long to charge and thus will not ruin the batteries.

quicksand,

Thanks for the info! It’s incredible how much the quality of batteries and chargers vary. It’s good to know a cheap easy place to get them

jaschen,

Its unlikely Panasonic eneloops. Project Farm does a great test for all the batteries and the IKEA showed no characteristics to the Panasonics. youtu.be/0A1GvQ40j0Q

stealth_cookies,

The two cells tested in that video are different. The Ladda 2450 mAh is equivalent to the black wrapped Eneloop Pro, but the video only tests the standard white Eneloops which have less capacity but a better cycle life rating. This is honestly one of the most disappointing videos I’ve seen from Project Farm, he didn’t test most of what makes a cell better/worse.

Whether or not they are identical cells, from what I’ve read there is only one factory in Japan that makes NiMH cells, so the Eneloops and the Ladda come from the same factory and are therefore likely to be very similar.

jaschen,

Ahhh, I didn’t know that about the Eneloops Pro. Thanks.

Slitted,

LADDA are my go-to as well. I recommended going with the wall charges and not the USB-A charger, since the latter juices them up very slowly (compared to the wall outlet or the storage+charge box).

Damage,

I’ve had horrible performances with IKEA rechargeables. The Energizers pictured above have been much better, even AmazonBasics lasted longer for me.

snowfalldreamland,

Huh they work great for me. Which Ladda did you get? I think there was some brown or like yellow ones or something that were made in china and weren’t quite as good I think. Also the LADDA 1900 will have a longer lifetime than the LADDA 2450s. In the same way that Eneloop Pro have fewer recharge cycles than the normal Eneloops.

Chapi_Chan,

If we’re gonna keep putting batteries on stuff we’d better put these

ConsciousCode,

I use rechargeable interchangeable batteries wherever I can, but I recently ran into some issues with an ultra-cheap BDC “massage” pillow. The OCP in the batteries was getting triggered and the motor would stop and start spinning for 10 seconds at a time. Tried to add small value resistors and capacitors to it but nothing worked and I had to get a pack of alkaline. Only now do I remember I have a bunch of spare 18650s and USB battery charging boards that I could’ve retrofitted!

corm,

Next time add a capacitor instead of a resistor for this

SubArcticTundra,

In series or parallel? How would it help?

corm,

In parallel. The capacitor smooths out the power and keeps it from spiking and shutting down over and over.

A resistor (in series) would help too but might restrict power too much to work well.

No harm in adding a capacitor.

On almost all my projects the weird behavior has been solved by throwing a cap in it

LollerCorleone,
@LollerCorleone@kbin.social avatar

I still use them for my TV and AC remotes, flashlights and wall clocks.

I never realised that many people don't need to use it anymore.

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

People don’t use them? Rechargeables are so easy and alkaline are so expensive! Rechargeables are about the same price now as alkaline but you get to continually recharge them forever! Why aren’t people doing that???

jmcs,

The alkaline batteries have higher energy density, so they can be significantly less annoying on devices that use more power, like flashlights. I don’t understand why anyone would use them for things like remotes or wireless keyboards since the batteries will last a long time either way on low power devices.

lloram239,

why anyone would use them for things like remotes or wireless keyboards

Alkalines leak a lot and they seem to be worse these days than they used to. From personal experience, there is about 1:10 chance you’ll be scrubbing battery contacts after using Alkaline. And if you forget to remove the battery when the device goes into storage, there is about a 100% chance it will be a crusty mess once you look at the device again, it can take years, but it’s pretty much unavoidable.

NiMH don’t leak, or at least much less frequently with much less catastrophic results. Also with modern low-self-discharge ones (Eneloop, Ikea LADDA) they last years, so they are very usable in TV remotes and the like.

There are a couple of rare devices that really want 1.5V to function properly (e.g. WMR Controller), in those cases 1.5V LiPo batteries can make a good rechargable alternative, but they are substantially more expensive than plain NiMH.

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

I use rechargeables for basic things, keyboards, mice, remotes, and I swap them out maybe every couple of months. I wouldn’t call that annoying. For critical things though I do use alkaline, and that’s for emergencies. Flashlight has a set of rechargeable D’s ready to go but I also keep alkaline ones right next to it in case the power is out for longer. Smoke/CO detectors use alkaline because they can go for so long before needing to be replaced

SubArcticTundra,

I feel like in many places they’re getting replaced with a built in battery and a USB port

UndefinedIsNotAFunction,

My wife gave me a bunch with a charger for Christmas like 2 years back. They’re all still in rotation for controllers around the house!

UnhappyCamper,
@UnhappyCamper@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, to me this seems like such a strange post. I can easily pick up batteries at most stores I go to and use them in various stuff in my home. Never thought about them phasing out right now, but when I think about it I guess it's true, I see a lot of gadgets that just charge with USB plugs now.

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