Saturday, October 25, 2008

Taking care of your rechargeable batteries

I am amazed by the modern rechargeable nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery. I once have a set of freshly recharged battery but when I wanted to use them 2 weeks later, the power was gone!! So, I read up about this battery and summarise it here so that everyone can use it properly without surprises ... haha... maybe more surprises!
  1. Do not completely discharge NiMH battery. Otherwise it may cause permanent damage. This means that you must not store this type of battery! So, don't leave your camera, handphone or whatever without use for a prolong period.
  2. NiMH battery has high self-discharge rate. On the first day, the discharge is 5-10%. Then 0.5-1% everyday after that.
  3. You can recharge as often as you wish. Unlike NiCd battery, it does not have "memories"
  4. You must use NiMH charger otherwise permanent damage will occure! This is due to the different charging characteristic of the battery.
  5. You must recharge all the cells and use them together. Don't mix cells, eg, some used and some freshly recharged. It can cause permanent damage.
Ok, I think the above are just summary. To read more goto wikipedia.

1 comment:

Kong said...

You really should try Sanyo's Eneloop rechargeable battery. Nothing else can compare with it. The fact that you can buy it off the shelf Fully Charged should tell you something. I can charge it and left it in my digital camera for months and still wouldn't lost any charge. It's that good. With others, it will last a week or 2 instead.
http://www.eneloop.info/

Another thing is the charger. I bought several in Malaysia and they all charge the batteries to very high temperature. Some are so high that it's almost impossible to hold onto it for long period of time. And heat is a killer to batteries. So I ordered one of those intelligent charger from USA and the batteries are only lurk warm to the touch.