| | Location: Home » TVs and HDTVs » AAA » Lenmar Battery, CHARGEABLES, AAA, 4 Pack, 1.5V 650mAh ALKALINE | October 12, 2008 |
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| Lenmar Battery, CHARGEABLES, AAA, 4 Pack, 1.5V 650mAh ALKALINE | 
 enlarge | Brand: Lenmar
Category: CE
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $6.36 (On sale from $6.68)
You Save: $3.63 (36%)
New (6) from $6.36
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Color: Green
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 0.5 x 0.5 x 2
Warranty: 2 years warranty
MPN: CA034
Model: CA034
UPC: 029521344004
EAN: 0029521344004
ASIN: B00009RUGB
Availability: Usually ships in 4-5 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Rechargeable Alkaline comes back from the dead? September 4, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
First thing first: The Lenmar CHARGEABLES are Rechargeable Alkaline Manganese (RAM) cells, so they cannot be recharged using an ordinary NiMH charger. You need a charger specially designed for rechargeable alkaline cells, or one like the Rayovac Universal Battery Charger which can handle both NiMH and RAM cells.
As far as I can tell, those Lenmar "CHARGEABLES" are reincarnations of the Rayovac "Renewal" rechargeable alkaline cells. Rayovac marketed the Renewal batteries and charger system about 10-15 years ago. But due to various limitations (as explained later) it turned out a big failure, and Rayovac consequentially discontinued the whole Renewal product line.
At first glance, the concept of rechargeable alkaline cell sounds great, since it combines advantages from both ordinary alkaline cell (long shelf life, 1.5V terminal voltage) and rechargeable cell (multi-use). Unfortunately, it also inherited the biggest limitation of alkaline cell: high internal resistance. This makes it very inefficient when used in high-drain appliances such as digital camera or flash light. So it is only suitable for low-drain appliances such as wireless mouse, remote control, or smoke detector.
Another serious limitation is energy density. A new Lenmar CHARGEABLES AAA cell starts out with 650mAh, which is only half the capacity of a single-use alkaline AAA cell (typically around 1200mAh). Worse yet, its capacity drops further with each deep-discharge cycle. Based on technical data for Rayovac Renewal, the capacity of a RAM cell drops to 50% its original value after just 25 deep-discharge cycles. In comparison, a typical NiMH cell can go through about 500 deep-discharge cycles before its capacity drops to 90% of original value. (This is under controlled test conditions, so in real life your mileage may vary)
Some marketing material claims that RAM cell can be recharged 'hundreds of times'. But this is completely misleading, because it can only be achieved if you shallow-discharge (discharge no more than 25% of capacity) the cell everytime. That means you have to remove the cell and recharge it very frequently, before the low-battery indicator ever comes up.
To give an example, let's say your wireless mouse can run on a regular alkaline cell for 3 months. After switching to a rechargeable alkaline cell (which has much lower capacity), it can only run for 1.5 months. But that would count as one deep-discharge cycle. To ensure that you stay within shallow-discharge cycle (25%), you'll have to recharge the cell once every 10 days!
In my opinion, it is just not worth the trouble to 'baby-sit' those rechargeable alkaline cells, especially since you can easily buy low-self-discharge NiMH cells (such as Sanyo Eneloop or Rayovac Hybrid) instead.
 They've worked perfectly for my application July 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just use them in blinky bike lights, and they hold their charge for a long time, unlike other rechargeables. You can put them into something that you rarely use, and when you come back to it, they will have held their charge, unlike other rechargeables, which tend to lose about 3% of their charge per day.
However, they don't seem to work well in high-current-demanding applications, like an old analog camera to operate the flash.
So recognize that these batteries have their purpose, but they won't work well everywhere.
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