Vanson BC1HU / Powerizer Batteries from BatterySpace.com
After my wife and I began preparing for our first child, we quickly realized that battery use would become an increasingly important part of our lives. Just about every baby shower gift (with the exception of clothes) required batteries! Having already spent more than I would have liked on strollers, cribs, paint and college funds, I decided to take action.
Initially, I was shocked at how expensive rechargeable batteries were, but after I learned that with proper care, rechargeable batteries can be recharged 500-1000 times, my apprehension quickly faded. In fact, if you factor in the number of cycles you can get out of rechargeable batteries, they are far more economical than their single-use alkaline counterparts!
Truth be told, the only prior experience I had with NiMH and NiCd rechargeable batteries was the NiCD battery in my cordless phone. It worked well but only for a while. From experience, I knew that rechargeable batteries lost their ability to hold their charge, but I never knew why.
I started to research rechargeable batteries. One of the best resources I found was www.batteryuniversity.com
I learned that there are three main factors that contribute to shortened battery life, namely: Memory, Capacity and Overcharging.
“Memory” is probably the most significant. The useful life of any rechargeable battery is reduced over time with the number of charges / discharges that it has been subjected to. (This is more prevalent in NiCd than NiMH.). Preventing memory effect is a direct function of the quality of the battery and is largely unavoidable.
Capacity was especially important because I wanted our rechargeable battery solution to be low-maintenance. The last thing I wanted to do was have a screaming baby and running around looking for emergency batteries. I learned that Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) offered the higher capacities (mAH) than Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) rechargeable batteries. NiMH does have a more rapid self-discharge rate than NiCd when idle, but for our purposes, this would be offset by the higher capacity and our anticipated heavy use pattern. NiMH offers the highest capacity for the dollar (mAH/$). I decided on NiMH as my battery chemistry of choice.
Overcharging is perhaps the most detrimental to rechargeable batteries (but fortunately, it’s also the most controllable!) The charger I was using for the cordless phone I mentioned earlier was routinely subjecting the batteries to overcharging and high temperatures which was shortening the useful life of the batteries. There are two solutions to this problem. One solution is to buy a charger with a built-in timer that turns off automatically after a preset time, but to not overcharging a partially charged battery is difficult without using the oft present discharge / recharge cycle function. A better solution, is a so-called “smart” charger that contains microprocessors that senses when the battery is fully charged and then automatically switches to a “trickle charge” which does a much better job of regulating the temperature of the batteries.
As I mentioned earlier, most of our battery usage would be for use in baby-related items such as swings, bouncy chairs, etc. Most of these items use “D” size batteries and often in odd amounts. Therefore, we needed a charger that could charge all battery sizes in odd numbers of batteries. Being able to charge odd amounts of batteries is another benefit of the microprocessors present in a smart charger.
After all my research, I decided on the Vanson BC1HU Universal Smart Charger + 61 assorted Powerizer NiMH rechargeable batteries of various sizes from batteryspace.com. The BC1HU charger is an inexpensive charger and had all of the “smart” functions wanted. The Powerizer batteries have some of the highest capacities available on the market and one of the best values in terms of (mAH) per dollar. (I bought AAA-850mAH, AA-2500mAH, C-5000mAH, D-11000mAH, 9V-200mAH.)
As a perk, this combo comes with a battery organizer for with room for 66 batteries which also includes a battery tester. All total, it cost $179.95 plus shipping which is a very reasonable price considering everything includes. I was also able to find a 5% coupon code which helped reduce the cost a little. Yes this is an expensive initial investment, but I believe in the long run this will pay for itself when compared to the cost of alkaline batteries.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the purchase and looking back, I wish had invested in rechargeable batteries a long time ago. The only thing that could change my opinion would be if the quality of the batteries themselves causes them to lose their ability to hold a charge before the advertised 500-1000 cycles. Since I have only owned the batteries a short time (a handful of cycles), I cannot fully assess this yet.
As I type this, my baby is resting comfortably in his swing.
Mission accomplished. |
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