battery charges and rechargeable AAs -hope vision 1

[dazza500]

£29.99 and absolutely no issues to date.

[samsbike]

Hi,
Lidl has the long life "AAA" & "AA" plus others, rechargables, 2100 mh AA. £2.99 for 4.

thanks but i thought these were not great.

[edocaster]

thanks but i thought these were not great.

My understanding is that all low self-discharge (LSD) batteries come from a handful of factories, and all so far seem to have pretty good reputations.

[meic]

Are the Lidl ones Low Self Discharge?

I have bought qiuite a few Tronic NiMH batteries from Lidl and they are optimistic in their mAh ratings and they are prone to failure. I would only use them with a charger that watches each cell individually so that you can catch the bad ones.

[Sweep]

With regard to catching bad cells I use a Maplins fast charger for my Maplin rechargables in the Hope Vision 1.

It does sometimes more recently indicate that one or two of the cells are bad.

I get the impression that I am maybe supposed to then ditch these but if I swap the cells around in the charger I then find that if I initiate the "discharge and then charge" cycle again it tells me they are OK and gets on with it.

Is the charger - or me - defective?

By the way I think possibly newer models of the Vision 1 than mine and the above poster's havd addressed the sudden light cut-out issue with some sort of warning light. And also reduced the power consumption for a given light level, effectively giving a longer battery life.

It's an excellent light despite the quirks of the older ones like mine - recommended.

[Ray]

Are the Lidl ones Low Self Discharge?

I have seen some LSD rechargeables in Aldi recently.

Ray

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

Hi,
Lidl has the long life "AAA" & "AA" plus others, rechargables, 2100 mh AA. £2.99 for 4.

thanks but i thought these were not great.

I too have had lidl rechargeables in trhe past and they were so so, cant comment that they were all bad, depends on their actual usage etc.

The lidl current ones are 75 % charge after 12 months and come ready to use so they are the low discharge ones, like uniross Hybrio types etc. But cheaper.

[meic]

One of the things with Lidl is that the actual products will be different from one batch to the next.

The cynic in me thinks that the first release are better quality than the subsequent ones.
Sometimes it is good stuff, sometimes it is junk often with exactly the same label just different releases.

The track pumps get great reviews from people who bought the first batch and poor reviews on subsequent releases.

My Tronic batteries perform quite well but not for as many recharges as the Sanyos or Uniross.
The new LSD ones could be worth a try (though i already have too many) and the first edition may be better than what follow, just may be.

[JohnW]

I have a Hope-Vision-1 light and I'm delighted with the MkI version.

On the strength of the Mk1 version I resolved to buy another, and I found from the Hope website that there is now a Mk2 version, supposedly offering 35% more light than the Mk1.

I have bought the Mk2and I am very disappointed with it. I may be missing something here, but my Mk2 is less bright and less effective on my local dark and unlit Greenway than my Mk1.

If I'd bought a Mk2 first, I'd have been pleased with it and made no comment - in itself it's ok, but to me, it's not as good as the Mk1 and I feel I've been misled by the advert.

Has anyone else got both and made comparisons?

I may have been unfortunate to get a duff one, and I'm in correspondence with Hope.

As to the batteries - I've used Eneloops for three or four years - ever since I got the Hope-Vision-1 - and I find no problem with them - they burn for about 3-hours in the Mk1 on full power - round about what the Hope leaflet says.

I have recently bought some Lidl pre-charged batteries (about 6 months ago) and I find them just as good. The Eneloops have seen me through two winters and so far I've not noticed any problems.

It's true that the Vision1 Mk1 just dies when the batteries are exhausted and the nature and design of the light is such that, on a well-lit road, you won't notice; it's when you turn off onto an unlit side road that you notice; very disconcerting if you are off-roading downhill on a forest path (which I don't do). The Mk2 version switches automatically onto flashing mode when the battery has too little charge left for full power light. A little fibre-optic judiciously placed would be better - but the Hope-Vision-1 Mk1 is the best light I've ever had. This however comes with the caveat that I only use lights which take standard batteries.

[JohnW]

One of the things with Lidl is that the actual products will be different from one batch to the next.

The cynic in me thinks that the first release are better quality than the subsequent ones................

Yes - I've noticed that.

[Tonyf33]

LIDL - Batteries - ARE PANTS
I won't ever waste my money on such carp again, truly the worst batteries I've had the misfortune to buy.
Once bitten and all that.

[JohnW]

LIDL - Batteries - ARE PANTS
I won't ever waste my money on such carp again, truly the worst batteries I've had the misfortune to buy.
Once bitten and all that.

...............well - I'd go along with that in respect of the 'ordinary' "Tronic" rechargeables, particularly more recently, but the pre-charged "Hybrio" type are giving me good service so far - as good as my "Eneloops". There could be a lot in what meic says (above).

What particularly are the features that make you say so?

[edocaster]

It's probably a good thing that LSD cells have had a good run from most manufacturers so far, as it's not easy to test their claims without waiting months...

[samsbike]

I cant find anything on the lidl website, although Aldi have some but at £4.49 I am better off getting the 7dayshop ones at £4.99. although delivery is extra.

[meic]

It's probably a good thing that LSD cells have had a good run from most manufacturers so far, as it's not easy to test their claims without waiting months...

The shelf life is certainly welcome but for me it was the low temperature performance.
I was doing a lot of night riding and my Ixon IQ kept failing me. I then tried another set of batteries it was OK for a while and then failed again. I tested all the batteries in my charger, they met their capacities well.
A few rides later the light will only hold high power for a short while and then on to dip where it gave a full lifetime that new batteries would give on dip.
I had months of this and lots of nights riding miles after miles on "sidelights". Eventually I sent the light off to Germany for repairs. It came back repaired* and a few rides later dumped me in the dark again. I then thought I had reached the point of utter despair.
I had however made the link between temperature and failure but this was still happening at temperatures like 6 degrees Celsius. I had a (much delayed) brainwave and tried batteries from the fridge and found the cause of my problem. A bit of research said that LSD batteries have better power at low temperatures and I tried them from the fridge and they worked.

In the majority of cases the ordinary batteries will be just fine, I had no problems at first.
On other nights when the frost is around you, you can lose most of your electrics to the cold and that is really not what you want on such a night.

*It turns out there was another problem with the light at the same time and that has started on the replacement light too now but at least I can now tell it apart from the battery issue.