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Capacity of various Duracell AA cells?

A

Alex Coleman

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's hard work untangling Duracell's pruct range and the relative
performance.

I don't think Duracell are great value but they can be got anywhere
and I want to know the relative merits of their popular alkaline
batteries.

---------

What is the rated capacity in mAh of an alkaline Duracell AA cell in
the following product ranges which I recall from (perhaps faulty?)
memory:

Duracell (ordinary)
Duracell Plus
Duracell M3

---------

The Duracell web site has a technical page but it refers only to:
(1) Ultra Digital
(2) Coppertop
http://www.duracell.com/oem/productdata/default.asp

Is Ultra Digital the same as Ultra or the same as M3?
Is Coppertop the same as Plus or the same as "ordinary"?
 
D

Dave Fawthrop

Jan 1, 1970
0
|It's hard work untangling Duracell's pruct range and the relative
|performance.
|
|I don't think Duracell are great value but they can be got anywhere
|and I want to know the relative merits of their popular alkaline
|batteries.
|
|---------
|
|What is the rated capacity in mAh of an alkaline Duracell AA cell in
|the following product ranges which I recall from (perhaps faulty?)
|memory:
|
| Duracell (ordinary)
| Duracell Plus
| Duracell M3
|
|---------
|
|The Duracell web site has a technical page but it refers only to:
| (1) Ultra Digital
| (2) Coppertop
|http://www.duracell.com/oem/productdata/default.asp
|
|Is Ultra Digital the same as Ultra or the same as M3?
|Is Coppertop the same as Plus or the same as "ordinary"?

|yours confused

Confusion is Duracell's marketing ploy which you have fallen for :-(

Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on each
battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
available.

NiMh batteries are sold by Ampere Hour Capacity, why not Alkalines.
 
V

VisionSet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dave Fawthrop said:
|It's hard work untangling Duracell's pruct range and the relative
|performance.
|
|I don't think Duracell are great value but they can be got anywhere
|and I want to know the relative merits of their popular alkaline
|batteries.
|
|---------
|
|What is the rated capacity in mAh of an alkaline Duracell AA cell in
|the following product ranges which I recall from (perhaps faulty?)
|memory:
|
| Duracell (ordinary)
| Duracell Plus
| Duracell M3
|
|---------
|
|The Duracell web site has a technical page but it refers only to:
| (1) Ultra Digital
| (2) Coppertop
|http://www.duracell.com/oem/productdata/default.asp
|
|Is Ultra Digital the same as Ultra or the same as M3?
|Is Coppertop the same as Plus or the same as "ordinary"?

|yours confused

Confusion is Duracell's marketing ploy which you have fallen for :-(

Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on each
battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
available.

They can't, there is no one figure.
Capacity of alkaline cells varies depending on the load exerted on them.
The relationship between current drawn and useful voltage delivered is not
linear. However, the specs are available:

http://www.duracell.com/Procell/pdf/1500_US_CT.pdf
 
D

Dave Plowman (News)

Jan 1, 1970
0
Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on
each battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the
cheapest available.

One place I work at spends many thousands a year on alkaline cells for
radio mics, etc.

Duracell *Procell* seems to be consistently the best value when bought in
bulk. Shops will often charge up to four times the price of a Procell for
a gold top but they certainly don't last appreciably longer.

Thing to be vary of is cells sold at car boot sales, etc. They may be
forgeries or well past their sell by date. And often poor value.
 
B

Bob Eager

Jan 1, 1970
0
Duracell *Procell* seems to be consistently the best value when bought in
bulk. Shops will often charge up to four times the price of a Procell for
a gold top but they certainly don't last appreciably longer.

Thing to be vary of is cells sold at car boot sales, etc. They may be
forgeries or well past their sell by date. And often poor value.

Anyone any thoughts on Energisers? I bought a load to use when cooped up
in a hospital room, and I used them so heavily I lost track of how long
they lasted.

But CPC have a good offer on them right now...
 
D

Dave Fawthrop

Jan 1, 1970
0
|
||>
|> |It's hard work untangling Duracell's pruct range and the relative
|> |performance.
|> |
|> |I don't think Duracell are great value but they can be got anywhere
|> |and I want to know the relative merits of their popular alkaline
|> |batteries.
|> |
|> |---------
|> |
|> |What is the rated capacity in mAh of an alkaline Duracell AA cell in
|> |the following product ranges which I recall from (perhaps faulty?)
|> |memory:
|> |
|> | Duracell (ordinary)
|> | Duracell Plus
|> | Duracell M3
|> |
|> |---------
|> |
|> |The Duracell web site has a technical page but it refers only to:
|> | (1) Ultra Digital
|> | (2) Coppertop
|> |http://www.duracell.com/oem/productdata/default.asp
|> |
|> |Is Ultra Digital the same as Ultra or the same as M3?
|> |Is Coppertop the same as Plus or the same as "ordinary"?
|>
|> |yours confused
|>
|> Confusion is Duracell's marketing ploy which you have fallen for :-(
|>
|> Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on
|each
|> battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
|> available.
|
|They can't, there is no one figure.
|Capacity of alkaline cells varies depending on the load exerted on them.
|The relationship between current drawn and useful voltage delivered is not
|linear. However, the specs are available:
|
|http://www.duracell.com/Procell/pdf/1500_US_CT.pdf

Just a marketing excuse. It would be a simple matter to give a single
figure based on a single load ?cycle? and a single voltage endpoint. That
would give enough information even for someone like me who understands the
real specs were I to put my mind to it.
 
R

raden

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Dave Plowman (News)" said:
One place I work at spends many thousands a year on alkaline cells for
radio mics, etc.

Duracell *Procell* seems to be consistently the best value when bought in
bulk. Shops will often charge up to four times the price of a Procell for
a gold top but they certainly don't last appreciably longer.

Thing to be vary of is cells sold at car boot sales, etc. They may be
forgeries or well past their sell by date. And often poor value.
So how do GP super Alkaline compare ?

I buy them in boxes of 40 from CPC

more megawatt hours / buck IMHO
 
P

Pat Farrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dave said:
Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on
each battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the
cheapest available.

AmpHour (or WattHour) is not really a constant number.
And sometimes it isn't even very important.
For example, the common CR watch cell batteries
have impressive milliwatt hour ratings, but only
at instantaneous current loads below 100 microamps.
So if you try to draw a milliamp, you won't see anything
like the rated capacity.
 
G

Guy King

Jan 1, 1970
0
The message <[email protected]>
from Dave Fawthrop said:
Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on each
battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
available.

Their argument against doing this is that the effective Ah rate of each
cell differs at different discharge rates and that comparing like with
like wouldn't be possible.

I suspect having two figures, C1 and C10 rates, for example, might be a
way round it but there's pleny who'll say it's too confusing.
 
G

Guy King

Jan 1, 1970
0
The message <[email protected]>
But doesn't the Ah rate of nicads vary in the same way?

Yes, but the NiMh market has gone the way of revealing it (though not
always with great accuracy). If a couple of primary cell makers would
start printing the figures on their cells it wouldn't be long before the
others followed.

IIRC there is a "gentlemen's agreement[1]" between Ever Ready and
Duracell over marketing the very highest capacity cells in Europe.

[1] qv Consumer ripping-off system.
 
T

Tim Auton

Jan 1, 1970
0
Guy King said:
The message <[email protected]>



Yes, but the NiMh market has gone the way of revealing it (though not
always with great accuracy). If a couple of primary cell makers would
start printing the figures on their cells it wouldn't be long before the
others followed.

Primary cell makers do disclose capacities. Just not for alkaline or
zinc carbon it seems. Lithium primary cells, which aren't that exotic
these days, often have capacity information available.


Tim
 
G

Guy King

Jan 1, 1970
0
The message <[email protected]>
from Tim Auton said:
Primary cell makers do disclose capacities. Just not for alkaline or
zinc carbon it seems. Lithium primary cells, which aren't that exotic
these days, often have capacity information available.

Perhaps it's something Which? could look into - it's about time they did
something useful.
 
T

Tim S

Jan 1, 1970
0
Guy said:
The message <[email protected]>


Perhaps it's something Which? could look into - it's about time they did
something useful.

Which? ??

I signed up to their service a couple of years ago. Compared to the free
reviews on things like digital cameras and PC motherboards, which run for
pages, and often quote decent benchmarks and give detailed feedback on
every aspect of use, I found the reviews in Which to be substantially poor.

I'd be more impressed if they had a well structured consumer feedback
database with quantitative and qualitative data.

Not worth the money IMO - it was OK in the 70's when it was the only
main source of such reviews.

Cheers

Tim
 
R

Roy Lewallen

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim said:
Primary cell makers do disclose capacities. Just not for alkaline or
zinc carbon it seems. Lithium primary cells, which aren't that exotic
these days, often have capacity information available.

I've found good data on most common alkaline cells at the manufacturers'
web sites. They typically show discharge capacity or voltage vs time for
a variety of common discharge regimens.

Roy Lewallen
 
J

John Rumm

Jan 1, 1970
0
raden said:
So how do GP super Alkaline compare ?

I buy them in boxes of 40 from CPC

Yup I used to do that as well...

However I found they are very poor in comparison. They will run my Psion
5 for as little as five or six hours cumulative use, whereas a good
alkaline will do possibly as much as sixteen.

Having said that they are plenty good enough for low drain long shelf
life applications like remote controls, clocks etc.



--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/
 
D

Dave Fawthrop

Jan 1, 1970
0
|Guy King wrote:
|>>Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on each
|>>battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
|>>available.
|> Their argument against doing this is that the effective Ah rate of each
|> cell differs at different discharge rates and that comparing like with
|> like wouldn't be possible.
|
|But doesn't the Ah rate of nicads vary in the same way?

The same thing happens with *all* batteries whatever the Chemistry.

NiMhs give a single figure, why not Alkalines?
 
R

Roy Lewallen

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dave said:
|Guy King wrote:
|>>Until Alkaline battery manufacturers state the Ampere hour capacity on each
|>>battery, I will believe that they are all the same and buy the cheapest
|>>available.
|> Their argument against doing this is that the effective Ah rate of each
|> cell differs at different discharge rates and that comparing like with
|> like wouldn't be possible.
|
|But doesn't the Ah rate of nicads vary in the same way?

The same thing happens with *all* batteries whatever the Chemistry.

NiMhs give a single figure, why not Alkalines?

NiMh capacity varies only a relatively small amount over a very wide
range of load conditions. By comparison, alkalines vary a whole lot. The
amount you can get out of one depends heavily not only on the discharge
rate, but how long the cell is allowed to rest in between partial
discharges. Also, cells can be optimized for light or heavy discharge
rates, so one which does better at low rates might do worse at high rates.

You can be sure that if manufacturers were pressed to come up with a
single number for alkaline cell capacity, each would set up the test at
the most favorable condition for their particular cell (and then inflate
the result, like they all do for NiMh cells). The resulting numbers
would be totally useless.

Take a look at the data sheets which are readily available at the
manufacturers' web sites, and it won't take long to see what I mean.

Roy Lewallen
 
T

The3rd Earl Of Derby

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dave said:
One place I work at spends many thousands a year on alkaline cells for
radio mics, etc.

Hmmm! I'd of thought a company that uses batteries on a daily basis would
go in for rechargables?
 
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