Simple battery question

[Dave W]

Decided I ought to fit a light to my road bike now the evenings are drawing in. I have one of those small strobe type lights that takes two AA batteries, I think they've been in there a couple of years. Can anyone recommend which batteries would be best for that application. Alkaline maybe?

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Duracell shelf life is very good on the standard alkaline.
But if your green then I use LSD rechargeables. (low self discharge) which means that they are good for 6 months without fading, duracell of course will have several years shelf life but you would be checking / replacing batts more often than that.
Tip when you place batts in lamp cut a piece of paper and put the date you loaded batts that visable from outside the lamp, through the lens, or write date on batts themselves with indelable ink.

Winter time means that the batts with run down in use but for summer emergencys I always carry lamps every ride.
So date thing is more relevent................
But then I always carry spares in winter / overnight rides and some.

[SteveHunter]

I use rechargeable batteries in all my lights. Sanyo Eneloop are I think the best rechargables you can get.

[c53204]

Another Vote for the latest generation (4th) Eneloops. Been the best for a while now.

[MikeF]

Hi,
Duracell shelf life is very good on the standard alkaline.
But if your green then I use LSD rechargeables. (low self discharge) which means that they are good for 6 months without fading, duracell of course will have several years shelf life but you would be checking / replacing batts more often than that.
Tip when you place batts in lamp cut a piece of paper and put the date you loaded batts that visable from outside the lamp, through the lens, or write date on batts themselves with indelable ink.

Winter time means that the batts with run down in use but for summer emergencys I always carry lamps every ride.
So date thing is more relevent................
But then I always carry spares in winter / overnight rides and some.

Or use a hub generator and lights to save all that faffing around??

[MikeF]

I use rechargeable batteries in all my lights. Sanyo Eneloop are I think the best rechargables you can get.

+1

[sreten]

Hi,

£1 / 99p store alkalines do the job.

rgds, sreten.

[MikeF]

Hi,

£1 / 99p store alkalines do the job.

rgds, sreten.

But then there is the cost, and effort of recycling them.

[Mick F]

Dave W doesn't say whether he has other battery appliances or he rides much at night.

I've got us here at home to be totally NiMH rechargeables, and I've bought ten AA Eneloops plus an intelligent charger. The cost to do this isn't cheap to say the least. The other NiMH batteries I have (non-Eneloop) are dropping like flies with two gone bust only last week, I bought them cheap, so I'm buying twice! I'll be buying more Eneloops soon.

We have clocks, torches, wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, four bike lights, and my Garmin all running off NiMH. Once you've paid the outlay, rechargeables pay for themselves, but it's the outlay that costs.

If Dave W only wants batteries for his bike lights and he doesn't do many miles in darkness, he's best going to Lidl's and buying their Alkaline batteries. Cheap as chips and good stuff too.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I have been using rechargeables for over 30 years.
Initial out lay is say £10 for four batts and charger off ebay.
Duracell off ebay are half highstreet shops.
LSD are best as their shelf life is better than the normal nimh and only say an extra 25 % extra to buy.
As the chargers seem to last well (I still have my tandy charger bought in the eighties ) how long will it be before you get your money back
A year maybe , the batts do go duff but I recon I have had some of my old nimh ones for more than five years.

The LIdl batts NOT their LSD's that have sold there once thats alkaline are a bit too cheap to last I.M.O. and so not suitable for safety lights.
Also their Normal nimh wernt all that good I found.
But they did sell LSD's about six months ago and since then gone back to normal nimh
Overall once you go down the rechargeables you never go back with the exception of say smoke alarms where batt makes are stated
I used to stock a lot of duracell alkaline as normal nimh hade a one month shelf life.
And tv dubries were a pain to keep swapping every now and again (normal nimh......but with the LSD types I now stock less duracell alkalines.
For say use in camera's etc you need high capacity that only recharables can deliver.
Make sure that your device will work OK with rechargeables in the specs as nom volts is less, also beware I think that low temp performance can be rather poor with LSD's
If its a pain to keep swapping batts like TV dubries and low used stuff not cameras etc then alkaline are probably better for time saving but recharables are here to stay and get better .

[Si]

Hi,

£1 / 99p store alkalines do the job.

rgds, sreten.

But then there is the cost, and effort of recycling them.

Not to mention the fact that half of them can be almost flat right from the get-go!

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

Hi,

£1 / 99p store alkalines do the job.

rgds, sreten.

But then there is the cost, and effort of recycling them.

Not to mention the fact that half of them can be almost flat right from the get-go!

+1

[gaz]

.. beware I think that low temp performance can be rather poor with LSD's

It depends a little on what you class as a low temperature but Eneloop LSDs claim to outperform both standard NiMH and Alkalines at 0°C. Anecdotal remarks on the forum suggest the claim is true and applies to other LSDs.

[BE1]

I use VAPEX LSD AA and AAA cells in my front and rear lights. I get them from these people.

http://www.componentshop.co.uk/batteries/standard-rechargeable/aa

I am very happy with their service and with the batteries

[alant82]

I've been using Sanyo Eneloops and Uniross Hybrio rechargeables for various things (bike lights, clocks, kids toys, etc) for the past couple of years and no problems encountered yet.