Pre-Charged Hybrid Batteries

When I started looking into solar energy and batteries, I came across a new kind of rechargeable battery that I hadn't heard of. The new battery is being called a pre-charged or hybrid battery. They're basically a new form of NIMH rechargeable batteries that retain their charge for a longer period of time. Standard alkaline batteries come fully charged when bought and retain their charges for years. The advantage of this is that one can put alkaline batteries in a device and have some assurance that they will work for about the length of time that they would if they were brand new. Standard NIMH batteries lose about 1% of their charge every day whether they are being used or not. That means that they're close to empty if somebody wants to use them after a few months. The new hybrids are supposed to retain 90% of their energy after six months and 85% of their charge after a year. A review at Amazon for the Eneloop brand, said that the above statistic is for storage at 20 degrees C (68F) and that the real result at room temperature is about a 25% loss after six months. That's still better than the next to nothing charge that standard NIMHs would handle.

The obvious advantage of these batteries is that they can be used like regular batteries and kept around the house till needed. Old NIMH batteries would have little charge left in them. I've heard from more than one person that they hate rechargeables because they're useless when they use them in their camera--without understanding the rapid discharge rate. Their experience with regular alkaline batteries leaves them feeling that rechargeables don't have as much power. The reality is that they actually hold more energy than alkaline batteries. They had to be charged before use to take advantage of that power. The new hybrids will remain usable well after regular NIMH batteries are close to empty. Being rechargeable, the new batteries can be reused over and over, saving both money and the environment by minimizing the number of batteries being thrown away (though many electronics stores will recycle batteries).

A pack of four can be bought for $9 or $10 at Thomas Distributing. I've ordered from the company a number of times and never had a problem. The shipping and handling can sometimes drive the price of the batteries over what can be bought elsewhere, so pay attention to that when figuring out costs. I found a pack of 6 Duracell Pre-Charged AA batteries at the BJs warehouse club for $16 and picked up two packs to give me three sets of four AAs for my camera.

Finally, some good news about the solar panel

I have learned one lesson about buying a solar panel. Don't do it in the wintertime. Most of the last couple weekends were marred by cloudy days and snow. It's hard to comfortably do experiments when the ground is covered with snow. On workdays, I don't have time to try it before going to work. After work, it's getting dark, so there's nothing for the panel to produce energy with. About all I've been able to do is briefly try the panel out at lunchtime at work.

There were at least a few days of decent sunlight at lunch and I hooked the panel up to a battery charger for AA/AAA batteries, set for a slow charge, and it lit up. I at least now know that I can charge batteries off the sun.

I finally decided to buy a multimeter so that I can at least measure what the panel is doing. I’m happy to see that it's generating some energy. I took it out today and the panel was delivering 450 mA and that's a little better than half of what it is rated as being capable of delivering. I only get a quarter of that energy with the panel sitting in sunlight coming from a porch window, so glass is obviously eliminating some of the solar energy. I might have expected that in a new house, but mine is half a century old. On a cloudy day, the panel is only outputting around 70-80 mA. It was surprising to see how great a difference it was even though it wasn't dark. It's not as if there was only a fifth of the available light according to my eyes.

It's nice to at least see that the panel is delivering power and it's actually an amount that something can be done with it.