$2.50 gadget claims to extend battery life by 8x
wmosscrop
Posts: 409
Reality or just puffery?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928997/batteriser-is-a-250-gadget-that-extends-disposable-battery-life-by-800-percent.html
Walter
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928997/batteriser-is-a-250-gadget-that-extends-disposable-battery-life-by-800-percent.html
Walter
Comments
If that translates to an 8 times battery life is another question and is probably application dependent. It's an experiment we can all do by getting a 2 dollar boost converter from ebay and trying it in our applications.
The question might be how come such boost converters are not built into battery powered devices, thus making this "magic battery sleeve" redundant?
“The time it takes for the battery voltage to drop by 0.1V is longer at lower voltages versus at higher voltages. That means that if a constant current was drawn from the battery, it would take the battery a lot longer to discharge from 1.2V to 1.1V than it would from 1.5V to 1.4V. This means that the extent to which the battery life is increased could be even higher.”
The device would NOT draw a constant current, it would draw constant POWER, which means MORE current as the voltage goes down.
IMO the whole article is a bunch of non-sense.
Bean
The heart monitor had this boost technology which caused the batteries to drain lower than they would in normal devices.
These new gadgets could allow us to use this boost technology (which the article acknowledges isn't new) in our various battery powered devices. I hope these boost sleeves work as claimed.
Edit: Based on the video on EEVblog (there's a link to this video later in this thread) I no longer have much hope this will be a useful device. I'm inclined to think the device is being marketed in a misleading manner.
Heater is correct that many devices already have boosts in them -- 2 X 1.5V cells, yet the device inside works on 3.3V. It's only if the device's boost shuts off below a certain voltage threshold, which some do for product liability (battery leakage, etc.) reasons.
-Phil
A lot of new digital cameras (for those who a cell phone image isn't good enough) shut down pretty quickly on alkaline, and the manufacturers are quick to recommend lithium batteries. For products like that with a lot of other electronics inside, it does seem silly that a booster like this is not built-in.
I despise alkaline cells. I agree that some improvement from this device is probable, but not 8X. A solid 2X would be nice.
It's a good idea, but they are waaaaay overselling it - to the point of being dishonest.
Despite their 8x claims I find the 0.1mm thickness of this quite amazing. I'd definitely get some to try.
You won't get a warning about batteries running out of power, the unit just dies...
And how much power does it use by itself?
My PDAs generally have a draw of 1 - 5mAh while quiescent to up to 150mAh when working hard. I expect a PDA I leave on the desk with a fresh pair of AAs to still be good two weeks later.
Remotes tend to draw even less...
So you will not see any benefit on those devices, actually probably a 5% drop instead.
Many of the newer rechargible cells suffer serious damage from a discharge below certain limits. And even lead acid gel cells seem to perform better in terms of useful life when they are kept near to the top end of their charge.
In sum, batteries are all about electro-chemistry. You can't just attach an electronic gadget to squeeze more juice out of one unless the battery will only be used once and discarded. That seems to be the target for the Batteriser.
Ah, I think I can see it. Take a typical discharge curve for an AA alkaline eg http://madscientisthut.com/wordpress/daily-blog/make-a-joule-thief-battery-charger/attachment/aa-100ma/
If the end point is set at, say, 1V, then it is pretty clear that there is hardly any energy left.
But if you set the end point at 1.4V, well from that graph, yes, the battery is only roughly 1/8th discharged.
But as others have said above, 1.4V is not a flat battery. It is a perfectly good battery that has a long way to go, and indeed, for devices that ought to be designed for both alkaline and rechargeable batteries, to cope with the lower voltage of rechargeables eg 1.2V, they need to be able to run at lower voltages.
With modern switching regulator modules on ebay available for under $2 (step up and step down), these days you can have have a fixed regulated output from a wide range of inputs (3V to 30V) and so there really isn't any excuse for a device failing at 1.35 to 1.4V per cell.
Batteries discharge current; the voltage is secondary. All these charts should be showing how much current is left. It's not just 1/8th. Only in feeble applications where just a trickle current is required (smoke alarms, remotes) would you get any benefit, and then it would be only marginal to what you get already. Plus, as I've said before, forcing an alkaline to over-discharge increases its chance of leaking. Now you have the mess and added resistance of that to take care of.
So this device converts low voltage to a voltage high enough to avoid a performance failure. It takes the leftover electricity out of the battery down to a much lower voltage.
I have one simple circuit around here that does this for a single AA and an LED. I just can't quite remember all the components. There was a torriod coil induction and something else, maybe a transistor or a blocking diode.
Cha-Ching! http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/151851-Happy-Ending-to-Leaky-Duracells
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Joule-Thief/
Ancient technology.
Because many devices, like cameras, don't like the 1.2V/cell of NiCd and NiMH rechargeables, and they did a poor job selling rechargeable alkalines. In fact, last time I tried to find some at Fry's they didn't have any.
PS: Throw away any old rechargeables from pre-LSD days. They were terrible too.
Make this bloke an offer he can't refuse on 800x AAA batteries and corner the market! http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-200-4-packs-AAA-Duracell-Rechargeable-Batteries-1000mAh-800-total-/321749372663
The failure of consumers still using non-rechargeable technology falls to the battery companies, and their lack of marketing and consumer education. They've had several chances of selling a 1.5V/cell rechargeable. They even could be building this boost technology into their premium 1.2V/cell NiMH. It would cost more, but then consumers wouldn't be frustrated not knowing which of their devices is tolerant of the lower voltage. You all are thinking the general consumer is as knowledgeable about batteries and electronics as we are, when in fact most people don't even realize there's something like a voltage difference between the common cells types.
As for ALL digital cameras working blissfully with 1.2V cells: THAT is rubbish. This is about the most common complaint you see on the camera forums.
Verdict: Mostly useless. Possibly detrimental. Even possibly dangerous.
Yep, seems he like the Eneloops too. :-)
It did come across as your personal opinion of rechargeables.
There is of course a [silly unneeded] setting in the cameras to set the type of cell being used. I guess some fail to set that and then complain. I'm confident all digital cameras than take AA cells will accept modern NiMH cells.
I know what you mean though. I gave a small bunch of the new (at the time) LSD rechargeables to my brother and his family to use ... the next time I seen them I asked about the results and they said pretty much exactly that - none of them worked - I checked the cells and they were fully charged, I asked them to show me something that the cells didn't work with but I got no takers ... that was about five years ago, they gave the cells back to me I think. The following year I got jokes about buying useless chargers and batteries ... I don't even know if the cells were ever tried!
They just don't seem to perceive any value in rechargeables.
Side effects as efficiency is 85% at best
1: The device works just fine at 1.5-to-1.0V (per cell) they tap the battery directly without any quiescent current.
2: Put the boost circuit inside the device, as it's the battery that needs to be cheap and not trying to save 30cents on the device (all reputable manufactures like Logitech etc does this)
If you have a device made in the last 5years that does not do the above, write a review and shame them over the low battery life.