[ARC5] [Milsurplus] Duracell Coppertop batteries

[William Cromwell]

Hi,

I have started moving to nickle-metal hydride cells in my equipment. 
They give better performance than the older  nicad cells. I have never 
cells of either chemistry leak. Just a few days ago I changed the bulb 
in the Mag Lite I keep in my car to a newer LED. I turned on the Mag 
Lite and it lit up nice n bright and immediately dimmed. I discovered 
that one of the four cells had discharged to *zero* and so was being 
reverse charged by the other three. That failure happened while I was 
watching. It would have soon started leaking no doubt. I would have been 
badly disappointed since that is the flashlight I carried into 
firefighting incidents when I was on the fire service! My other Mag Lite 
has been using the Ni-MH cells for quite some time. I will replace the 
brand new D cells in my old faithful light with a set of Ni-MH cells.

By the way, the LEDs give noticeably more light for much less current. 
Just don't buy the cheapies.

73,

Bill KU8H

bark less - wag more

On 1/7/23 17:47, Hubert Miller wrote:
> Well, my experience is that carbon - zinc sometimes WILL leak, but 
> sometimes it takes decades! They all eventually swell and then maybe a 
> minority will leak. But the thing is, the leakage is more viscuous and 
> so, much slower spreading out, so damage i think more likely to be 
> contained. Your point is a very good one i think for batteries for 
> only occasionally used test equipment and i am going to put this idea 
> into practice.
> Hue Miller
>
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
>
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