I have many solar garden lights. Most come with a very cheap old-fashioned Ni-Cad cell that rusts away in a couple of months. The latest ones have a 200mAh AAA size Ni-Cad that weighs almost nothing and it powers a garden light for only 3 hours after being charged in the sun all day.
Some came with a 350mAh AA size Ni-Cad cell but most were 600mAh. I replace the AA size Ni-Cads with Energizer 2300mAh Ni-MH cells.
The charge rates are 200, 300. 500 700 mA, 1, 1.5 and 2 A; No voltage because it does the delta(I,V) charge termination. Modes are charge, discharge, quick test, charge refresh.
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NiCd-s are in the cordless phones; Li-ion in the GPS and Cell. I have an external charger I can use for them. I can carry an extra Li-ion for the cell and I can charge in one car with the engine off and the other car with the engine on, In my previous vehicle, I put a lighter socket in the trunk so I could charge a laptop, I have a couple of iGo chargers that have dual 120/12 VDC inputs. For giggles, I have a cheap 100 W inverter, but the new laptop bricks aren't happy using it. The inverter tends to shut off.
I also have external battery chargers for the laptops. I have a self contained chargeable 12 V SLA power source but I haven't used it in years.
The drill is a NiCd pack. I don;t use the drill much, but the two packs do OK. Two packs are the way to go.
I had hair trimmers that I think use Ni-cds. One is really tough to replace so I didn;t when it died. Dunno about the other one. One was Remington and the other Norelco, I have an old National Semiconductor LED RPN calculator that uses Nicds (soldered in), This year I replaced 4 Ni-cd packs in the phones. One lasted 8 years, but usauslly get 4 to 5 years out of them.
oral-b (toothbrush) has a special take-apart disposal mode, Not successful putting them back together, I have no idea about a Phillips Airfloss. Both basically sealed against water.
Two UPS's have SLA batteries. The Trip-lite doesn't even work in non-UPS mode with the batteries dead. Not sure about the APC. One was free (dead battery) and the other was like ($10) at a thrift store. So, it takes a $20 battery, VA rating is something like 500 W.
For giggles, since we are on power sources, I made a up a box using a Chinese step-down converter with V and I meters that uses a 5.5/2.1 or 5.5/2.5 inputs (I can switch polarity internally if required) and it uses an adapt-a-plug for output. If an adapter fries for a "critical" piece of equipment (typically network stuff), I can make a replacement usually with a 12 V adapter. I do have two network gizmos that aren't in service yet that use like 19 V.
At some point, I want to make a low voltage UPS using this platform. https://www.mini-box.com/OpenUPS I haven't selected a battery yet. I want to use at least four of the the Chinese step down converters and probably a Li-Po battery. I basically want a slim form factor to hide behind a piece of furniture close to the wall mostly to power a WIFI repeater. I want to do something with the plugs, but not sure what yet to prevent the wrong voltage out with over current protection. Internally it will be 24V wit 4 step down converters.
So,I want some sort of (box with a plug) that attaches to my LOW voltage UPS with say pots to select an overvoltage and current and polarity, if it's not in range, there will be no output. I could even put the programming resistors in the "box" which isn't a bad idea, but I still need an overcurrent shutdown to protect against an adapt-a-plug being reversed.
I finally tidied up my network stuff which is a "bunch of wallwarts" and put them on a shelf with two octopus cords in the rafters. I have no intermittents anymore. US plugs suck when it comes to wall warts. The European sockets seem to be much better being recessed.
The replacement of the 600mAh Chinese Ni-Cad cells in my garden lights with Energizer 2300mAh Ni-MH cells keeps the garden lights lit until sunrise. My dogs wake me every day a few minutes before sunrise. I have a good view of the huge red sun.
I have a pair of cordless phones that came with Ni-Cad packs of three "2/3 AA" cells. After a few years a phone would quit after operating for only a couple of minutes. I replaced both batteries with Ni-MH packs from Philips which operate a phone longer than I can talk. Since the batteries cost as much as the phones then I considered replacing the phones but they are cheap. Chances are that new phones won't work and will need replacement a more few times than replacing their cheap batteries.
My electric screwdriver has a Lithium battery and it works perfectly.
Charger: **broken link removed**
So, about $55 from DealExtreme with free shipping. Shipping was fast.
My son bought a high power single AA cell flashlight for me. It has adjustable focus. I use it in the evenings in winter. It has been in my car all summer since last winter and I used it yesterday evening (sunset is early now). Its Energizer AA Ni-MH cell has held its charge for a long time over a wide temperature span.I use AA NiMH when i need AA size.....
For the car i dont ever store a flashlight in there because the batteries would have to put up with intense heat in the summer time and extreme cold in the winter. The heat would quickly ruin any batteries i have.
I guess you have seen videos of fake Lithium battery cells like this video:One caution about the 18650 size, some come with "flat" top and some come with "button" top (positive terminal).
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