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I'd second many people's comments. NiMH batteries are very very nice these days, and have far more capacity then they used to. http://thomasdistributing.com/ is good, and if you want cheap batteries, http://batteryspace.com/ is good, but their ratings are 400 mAh or so above their actual capacity. Sanyo or PowerEx is certainly good if you have the money, and 2500 mAh Energizers are a good locally available option. The real key is to get a good charger. I just got one of the new Maha MH-C9000 chargers (http://www.thomas-distributing.com/maha-mh-c9000- battery-charger.php) and it has the ability to do break-in charges, discharge, refreshing, etc. You can also just put batteries in it and it will charge them with a safe rate.

For applications like remotes, or other devices you want sitting around for a long time and ready to use, there are new NiMH batteries that have much lower self discharge rates. Eneloop batteries by Sanyo (http://www.eneloop.info/) have performed the best, and they can be picked up locally at Ritz camera locations as well as ordered online for a little less. They only lose a little of their charge over a years time. For more information about rechargable batteries, try the batteries forum over at candlepowerforums. (http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay. php?s=04cb1ed93243098d9b7795bae32555cb&f=9)

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/new-products.ht m 6000 mAH C cells and 11,000 mAH D Cells. I've used earlier versions of the Powerx C & D cells and they work great.

Haven't tried these, but I do use the MAHA AAs and have found them to be excellent.
http://www.thomas-distributing.com/dbatteries.php

I can't agree more. Couple those high-capacity NiMH MAHA cells with a good MAHA charger and it's a match made in heaven. I have been using some 2500 maH MAHA cells in some wireless Clear-Com and radios and wireless mics for a year now and have saved $500 in battery costs. At home, I use them in my digital camera, iPod speakers and portable radios. MAHA kick ass. I recommend their new 8-bay AA/AAA charger: http://www.thomas-distributing.com/maha-mh-c801d-b attery-charger.htm

Ooh, good call on the Cadex! I'm cheap, so I'm settling for the LaCrosse BC-900 battery analyzer, which has completely changed the way I think about my batteries. Using rechargeables without one of these is like driving without a gas gauge or speedometer.

I dropped my dad's Raytek IR thermometer a year back, and replaced it with a Tempgun PE-2 for half the price. I picked up a PE-1 for myself at the same time, and it's addictive. Being non-contact, I use it in the kitchen all the time, but the more important aspect is that it reads instantly. Hard drive warm? Point and know. CPU heatsink temperature difference between center and edge? Point, point, and know. I'm much too impatient for contact-based thermometers, and the IR thing is a boon.

You can build an adjustable DC load testing bank with any random set of giant transistors. Sometimes you'll find driver boards in surplus outfits that're just begging to be modded thusly.

One more thing no lab should be without is a good camera, or two or three. I carry a 5MP Canon for everyday shooting, but there's an old USB Vicam (aka 3Com HomeConnect Camera, aka Digi IONetworks Watchport/V) on the bench that comes in surprisingly handy. It was five bucks at a fleamarket so I don't hesitate to do things like record arcs and sparks with it, and it'll focus right down to its nose if you spin the lens really far out. Comes in handy for silly electronics closeups that're sort of difficult to see with the unaided eye. I should have a microscope for these things, but the camera's small and versatile.

Instead of having a single proprietary 1800 mAh battery in the PSP, you can have two of these standard type batteries that each have greater capacity than Sony's (and for less money). I'm not sure why you would perfer the other. What is the counter-argument?

A buncha "D" cells. Yes, a buncha "D" cells. What do you think are in some of those nifty sealed battery packs, anyway, these days?

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/cta-d-rechargea ble-batteries.php

has rechargables, Ni-MH "D" cells rated at 12 amp-hours; yes, 12,000 milliamp-hours each, if you hafta be Green. However, the Real Deal, eTanium(TM) is rated at 21.5 AH each:

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/x95.pdf

and even your buy-them-at-three-AM-from-7-11 variety alkalines develop 20.5 AH

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/e95.pdf

Buy once, run down, throw them away. Cheap, cheap, cheap. You don't need a gauge; your spendy laptop has one.

Add two of these
http://tinyurl.com/4m6my

a little soldering, the right length of cord & the right-sized connector tip
http://tinyurl.com/5x4om

an Bob's Yer Uncle.

Don't add more than you need, and jump across the contacts if you only need seven cells to make the optimal voltage, instead of going over your laptop's rated voltage by more than a volt. The voltage regulator would just have to step down the power, which makes extra heat in your laptop, which slows down your processor, and accelerates battery drain.

Seven of the el cheapo "D" cells plus a jumper wire give me 20.5 AH for $10, plus $2 in parts and the connector I scrounged off a blown power supply. That's 10.7 times the capacity of the standard battery (2 hour run time) on my Fujitsu Lifebook. Geez, fly to Oz on those suckers. Then, I can go to a 7-11 there, buy another set of "D" cells, and have juice for the flight home.

If you're neither handy nor handsome, Mouser
http://tinyurl.com/6wq7g
has every power connector in the Twelve Colonies,
http://scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast
everything the Lords of Kobol ever designed. Or, pay $10 to The Shack for the aforementioned iGo tip, cuz, well, iGo tips are right there in the store, where the rest of your parts are.

Too bulky? You can downsize it to "C" cells, or even "AA" cells, as seven "AA" batteries exceed the capacity of my spendy, storebought factory battery pack by 50%.

But, then, I'm a ham, one of the crash test dummies of the electronics world, and we do these things so you don't have to.

Problem?

Because I got sick of throwing batteries away

Solution.

I have a large MP3 collection all sorted into directories by Genre/Artist/AlbumName/Tracks. I just want to move up and down the directories and select a starting point to play at and just go.

MJ has had the "make a playlist out of query parameters" feature for years, but takes it further: you can define custom fields in the database and search on them (though to be fair, iTunes already includes the things I used those custom fields for.) More importantly, its notion of (non-dynamic) playlists is much more flexible -- you can use a song's presence on a static playlist as a query parameter for a smartlist. I've come to think of playlists as a way of attaching attributes to songs. It's a much more flexible, nuanced way to represent things like genre, where multiple values can easily apply to a song.

For high-drain devices, use Ni-MH Batteries ( Nickel Mental-Hospital? hmm.. )

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.H TM

IIRC they show the watts, mAh's, and minutes ( digicam-type load ) for a LOT of cells, including the anemic 'alkaline' cells.

The Nexcells are the most cost-effective, it seems, though I gather the Maha 100-minute charger is with Maha batteries amazing, I also gather that a given charger can be gentle with one kind of cells and destroy another, apparently similar kind.

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/batteries.htm

This baby will take any battery pack, not just single cells. It uses negative delta-V, zero delta-V and an external temperature probe to boot. It's astoundingly fast.

I've used it to revive packs that I thought were hopeless. Since it shows the total charge, you can actually monitor the health of your pack over time.

On top of all that, it does LiIon. I stopped using the charger that came with my digital camera, because this sucker is faster and doesn't passivate the pack.

Don't buy a cheap charger. The MAHA charger listed above is good. Even better MAHA charger...

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/mhc401fs.htm

I like this one better because it has 4 completely independent charge circuits instead of 2. So you don't have to charge in pairs, each cell gets its own individual charge. This is great for me since I use some devices (pager, minidisc recorder) than only use 1 cell at a time. It also has a slow/fast charge switch so you can charge them really fast (100 min) if you absolutely have to; otherwise, just use the slow charge (takes about 5 hours). My NiMH batteries (about 20 of them) work better than they ever have.

First off:
Go to Steve's Digicams and check the ratings for batteries; they have done extensive testing using a custom test jig that simulates actual use.

Now my comments:
I use two different varieties, for different purposes.

NiMH - The *best* for high drain devices, and stuff that you will use for a short period of time then shelf. Digital cameras, FRS radios, gameboys in our house all use these.

Pros: Great power delivery, great capacity. Actually lasts several times longer than alkaline in some devices such as digital cameras. Can be recharged hundreds of times, especially if charged in a high quality charger. Landfillable (though you should still recycle them).

Cons: Self-discharges; charge them up, put them on the shelf, a month later they're half dead. Only deliver 1.2V so some (very few, actually) devices think they're nearly dead when you put them in. However, they stay at 1.2v until they're about totally dead.

Rechargable alkaline (Ray-O-Vac Renewals) - I use these in low drain devices, and things that must sit around for a long time before being used. Palm pilot, remote controls, flashlights get these.

Pros: puts out full 1.5v, some devices like these better. Long charged shelf life; can be charged and still retain most of the charge months later.

Cons: proprietary system, somewhat expensive. You must buy Ray-O-Vac's charger, and it's not a very good charger. Can only be charged tens of times. As toxic as alkalines; should be taken to recycling.

Also still around are NiCad. Don't bother. Lower capacity than NiMH, not much cheaper, all the cons, not all of the pros, plus they're toxic (cadmium) and should DEFINITELY be recycled rather than landfilled.

To make rechargable alkalines last longest, you should recharge them when they're no more than half full when possible; top them off when you get the chance. Running them totally dead really kicks their ass; I've had them last only 10 charges when doing that.

The vast majority of my use is NiMH. Not all are the same, and many mAh ratings lie. Best source of really good chargers and batteries is Thomas Distributing. The Maha charger they have, with both 110v and 12v charging options, is awesome.

I can't imagine why more people don't use rechargables. I'm a pretty disorganized person, but I'm able to keep a plastic box full of charged batteries, ready for use in the house. It kind of makes me sick to see the huge bulk packs of AA cells in the store, on the endcaps in every department, moving like hell, while the rechargables are hidden on the bottom rack in the back of the photo department.

What's really sickening is when I go to the recycling center; they fill four 30 gallon trash cans with alkalines every week. Consider that this is mid-sized town (Ann Arbor, MI), and that probably, at best, 5% of the batteries make it there (AA is a pretty green town, but even so 5% is almost certainly high). This means there are probably millions of tons of batteries hitting the landfills every year.

(disclaimer; I have no affiliation with sites mentioned in this post, I'm just a happy customer)

Thomas Distributing

I have the Maha C204F charger and I love it. It has been *very* gentle to my batteries. I have had the best luck with the 1800mAh Powerex batteries, but I see they have the 2200mAh available now as well.

I can't recommend NiMH batteries highly enough for high-drain devices like digital cameras; they last longer than alkaline in such applications. But for low-drain devices like remotes, I disagree with some of the posters' suggestions to use them. They self-discharge at a much greater rate than alkaline and are unsuitable for such applications (unless you like finding dead batteries in your remote every few weeks... been there, done that).

Please note that it's getting much easier to recycle the non-rechargable batteries now; I save mine up and take them to the local transfer station where they gladly accept them for recycling. Probably not as common in areas with lower population densities, tho.

Cheers,

- Leo

I recommend a smart charger like the Maha C204F from Thomas Distributing. They have all sorts of batteries at great prices (not affiliated just a happy customer).

This charger also has a conditioner feature that will help bring those older batteries back to life (the ones that you were using the dumb charger on before!).

Batteries that I've charged with this charger last 3x as long in high drain applications like in my GPS unit.

Let's assume that you're replacing the phone for reasons other than the amount of talk time that the current battery is providing you with. As others have pointed out, if talk time is the only problem then replace the darn batteries and move on... :-)

If you're buying a new phone, look for one that uses standard size AA rechargable batteries, instead of a proprietary battery pack. A phone that can handle NiMH batteriers is somewhat preferable to ones that can only use NiCAD batteries, but since NiMH batteries cost more I'm not sure that they are really worth the extra cost.

There are several advantages with standard size AA rechargable batteries. One is that you can purchase replacement batteries from any good electronics shop. Another is that if talk time consinues to be a problem then you can always buy a second set of batteries and an inexpensive stand alone reconditioning charger, and swap batteries back and forth between the phone and the charger. Note that the charger should have a reconditioning circuit (cheap ones don't).

There are several good inexpensive chargers on the market. I use a MAHA brand charger, which I purchased from Thomas Distributing. I have used it to recharge both NiCAD and NiMH batteries with good results.

/Don

the maha mh-c204f. you can read about it at thomas distributing.

i have this charger, and use it with ni-cds and ni-mhs, and it works great. really saves money. i use nimhs in my discman and my palm, and soon in my minidisc player. i highly recommend both the charger and thomas dist.

complex

the maha mh-c204f. you can read about it at thomas distributing.

i have this charger, and use it with ni-cds and ni-mhs, and it works great. really saves money. i use nimhs in my discman and my palm, and soon in my minidisc player. i highly recommend both the charger and thomas dist.

complex

Disposable batteries are terrible for the environment, but people seem to be buying more all the time. With the motors in this bug, it'll eat batteries like roach food.

I'd like to see a story on Slashdot about using rechargables instead - and how can we spread the meme to get others to use them? I like the NiMH batteries I get from Thomas Distributing - I've used two sets I bought for my digital camera for over two years and over 14,000 pictures - and they recharge in two hours!