Sometimes, you get less than you paid for…

Between the digital cameras, GPS, several remotes, electric toothbrushes, R/C toys, flashlights and other assorted electronics, we use a lot of rechargeable batteries, especially AAs. Last fall I needed a few more… so I bought 8 “BTY” brand AAs from Ebay. I didn’t look for any reviews… figuring the were so cheap they’d be “good enough” (how bad could they be, right?). For about $1.00 per battery, I wasn’t expecting much.

But I got even less than I bargained for.

The ratings on the batteries was “2500” mah… but they never seemed to last very long. It didn’t make much of a difference until I got a Wii Fit for Christmas… then charging the batteries every 2 days with light use got to be a bit much. So I did some poking around, found a couple reviews… which said the BTY batteries were crap. Surprise! šŸ™‚

Powerex got good reviews, and the price was right (although about 4x the price of the BTY’s). I also picked up a good charger: one that can cycle NiCD/NiMH AA/AAAs and tell you their true capacity.

Results? The new Powerex 2700’s almost held their rated capacity (2600-ish mah). The BTY 2500’s I tested averaged averaged around 470 mah (less than 20% their printed capacity!). Although Powerex was about 4x the price of the Ebay specials, they delivered over 5x the charge.

The Wii controllers, Wii Fit, and 2 GameCube Wavebird controllers use 12 AA’s: so I need to buy even more: you can bet I’ll be more carefull with Ebay purchases from now on šŸ™‚

One Reply to “Sometimes, you get less than you paid for…”

  1. Pingback: Please don’t melt my face… | Captain's Blog

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