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Company Extends Alkaline Battery Life With Voltage Booster
New submitter ttsai writes: Batteroo is a Silicon Valley company preparing to release its Batteriser product in September. The Batteriser is a small sleeve that fits around alkaline batteries to boost the voltage to 1.5V. This means that batteries that would otherwise be thrown into the trash when the voltage dips to 1.3V or 1.4V could be used until the unboosted voltage reaches 0.6V, extending the useful life of a battery 8x, according to the company. This product has the potential to reduce the number of batteries in landfills as well as increasing the time between replacing batteries. The expected price of the sleeve is $10 for a pack of 4 sleeves.
Most toys are going to work down to 1 V anyway, at which point the alkaline battery is for all practical purposes exhausted. Although nominally primary cells, alkalines can be recharged if it's done gently. That will provide more life than a booster.
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"Carbon-zinc and alkaline (MnO2) batteries will go to complete discharge without any danger."
Bullshit. Carbon-Zinc batteries use the Zinc can as the cathode. Guess what that means?
As you continue to discharge the battery, the case falls apart because it is eating itself. You get a leak.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You cannot damage a single NiMH (or NiCd, for that matter) cell by simply draining it down to 0v. Well, you will have to use a "stupid" charger to wake it up afterwards, but the cell will be otherwise ok. Then again, you rarely use a single cell. Generally, you connect 2-4 of them in series. When you discharge them, they will hit the 0v in slightly different moments. The first one that gets to 0 will continue getting a discharge current and will actually go below zero (reverse polarity) with all the nasty things the reverse polarity does (electrolyte depletion, gas build-up and venting).