Fuck Duracell - Battery leakage megathread

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Batteries


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What's worse was i had to sort through all of them during a power outage because all the batteries in the lanterns and torches were all dead despite not being used. So I was in the dark trying to see what ones were still good and I was getting acid on my hands. And I had to use rubbing alcohol to clean the contacts since the acid also leaked and dried on them.
Did you taste the battery acid? I heard it tastes like battery acid.
 
A few months back, I bought a 1981 abacus-calculator thing new old stock off Ebay and the 40 year old AA battery it came with still holds a charge.
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If it's something like a remote or anything else that works fine with 1.2v cells get cheap Amazon rechargeables. Best cheap alkalines right now are the expensive tier at harbor freight, the ones that look like off-color Duracells and are like 12 bucks for 16. I think they're Thunderbolt?

Also, fuck Duracell specifically for leaking all over the inside of my Pokémon mini in the month they were in there after I dug it out to test and sell. That fucker would have pulled 150 on ebay but it definitely won't now.
 
I hate that 9V batteries are now priced the same as 6 AA's.

I get that a 9V is just 6 tiny 1.5V batteries bundled together, but still. Getting my smoke alarm to work again costs too hecking much.
Don't even get me started on the ones where you can't replace the battery... Planned obsolescence is bullshit.
 
I've run through 100+ of these (AA/AAA) in the last three or four years..
Why are you wasting money on Alkaleaks when NiMH batteries exist now?
The jap made Eneloops will hold a charge for 10 years. They never leak even when dead and can be used for 2100 to 3000 cycles. And you can get them at a good price from Ikea under their house brand in the USA. Look for made in Japan "LADDA" batteries. Those are repackaged Eneloop's.
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If you don't want to spend Eneloop money or live in a shithole nation that gets the crappy Chinese version of eneloops then look for Tenergy. I use them for my D-cell and 9 volt equipment and they are reliable. The one time I had a defective battery they shipped a replacement with out any issues.
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Why are you wasting money on Alkaleaks when NiMH batteries exist now?
The jap made Eneloops will hold a charge for 10 years. They never leak even when dead and can be used for 2100 to 3000 cycles. And you can get them at a good price from Ikea under their house brand in the USA. Look for made in Japan "LADDA" batteries. Those are repackaged Eneloop's.
View attachment 3224871
I vouch for the AA and AAA Eneloop! This is a very strong investment. For the same price as 72 Duracells, I got 24 Eneloops which have stood in for thousands of alkaline disposables over the past 8 years.

Some are starting to degrade below acceptance threshold but most of them are still meeting or exceeding the requirement. I will be purchasing more Eneloop in the near future, a happy customer.

What pushed me into rechargeables was the horror of witnessing an alkaline AA begin to hiss and leak while sitting undisturbed on the counter. I had always thought they only did this if you left them inside a device or mixed up battery types, or maybe exposed them to extreme temps, but apparently it can also happen "just because" and at any moment. Well, never again.
 
I vouch for the AA and AAA Eneloop! This is a very strong investment. For the same price as 72 Duracells, I got 24 Eneloops which have stood in for thousands of alkaline disposables over the past 8 years.

Some are starting to degrade below acceptance threshold but most of them are still meeting or exceeding the requirement. I will be purchasing more Eneloop in the near future, a happy customer.

What pushed me into rechargeables was the horror of witnessing an alkaline AA begin to hiss and leak while sitting undisturbed on the counter. I had always thought they only did this if you left them inside a device or mixed up battery types, or maybe exposed them to extreme temps, but apparently it can also happen "just because" and at any moment. Well, never again.
"Fool me once, shame on, shame on you" seems to be a pretty popular quote with Texans but then again, they usually aren't that hard to fool.
 
You still use the 9V smoke alarms?

Most Smoke Alarms these days are either hardwired or come with a "10 year" battery built into the thing.
I have one of those 10 year battery ones.
It's around five times smaller than the 9v battery one I replaced and you're supposed to replace them about every 10 years anyway.
 
Behold: A Chinese hell show.

powercell_1.jpg powercell_2.jpg

These Powercell Super batteries appear to have 06-2015 expiry (or manufacture?) but I received them only two years ago, packed in with something else from China.

This ruination began a few weeks after the arrival.
 
The only batteries I've 100% never had leak on me are the weird fucking ones that show up as"test mode" batteries on some electronic shit or the generic brand wegmans ones, weirdly. Some expensive ass duracells I got as a gift from someone a few years ago fucking exploded and leaked all over in the box before i even took em out. Fuck duracell. Only thing they got going for them now is their iconic battery colors.

Behold: A Chinese hell show.

View attachment 3230510View attachment 3230511

These Powercell Super batteries appear to have 06-2015 expiry (or manufacture?) but I received them only two years ago, packed in with something else from China.

This ruination began a few weeks after the arrival.

Jesus fuck remind me to never buy batteries direct from china.
 
I had a couple Made in USA AA Rayovac batteries that were in an LCD timer, I didn't know the thing even had batteries. They were expired in 2018, and it was late 2021, they were completely fine, I even checked the voltage on them and it was still in operating range. I don't have many battery operated things, maybe a slightly used remote or calculator, so now I just shove those energizer lithium batteries into everything, because I don't want to be bothered cleaning leaking battery guts out of things. They supposedly have a 20 year shelf life, and won't leak.
 
Lithium is the best for items you want ready just in case, because of their unparalleled low self-discharge rate, there's also nothing in them that can leak. Be aware though that their voltage curve at end of life is different. While more "normal" batteries just steadily drop their voltage under load (giving enough time for various "low battery" warnings) lithium batteries' voltage level is normal until it just drops off a cliff at the end. This can potentially be dangerous in e.g. smoke detectors where you rely on the battery warning to tell you that the battery needs to be replaced because that window of warning will be much shorter.

Lithiums are also considerably lighter. Sometimes that has value.
 
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