Rechargeable batteries are pants

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Apologies in advance for the rant but rechargeable batteries are bloody useless. I have three sets of 2700 AA's and they struggle to hold a charge even when I run them right down. I just put a freshly charged set on SB-800 flash and after about six shots they were taking forever to bring the gun back to a ready state.

I have been looking at alternative power sources but the Nikon version uses even more AA's and the Quantum gear is very expensive. I did a bit more research and found the Black Box which will hopefully fulfil my needs. After having paid out Gods knows how much on rechargeables and chargers I am looking forward to putting this through it's paces.

Rant over. :D
 
Out of interest what make are the rechargables? I've got Uniross and Vanson ( I don't know where those came from) and have had no problems.

I tip I was given some years ago, was that some batteries, particularly high capacity Li-ion needed a longer charge than some chargers give. Many chargers work on a timer rather than charge current. I usually recharge mine for double the indicated time,(switch off then on again), and have had no problems with well over 100 flashes from my 430EX on the Canon with 1800mAh Uniross

Have you investigated the Quantum packs?
 
Just spent an entertaining and informative few minutes reading through his site, cheers m8 :)
 
important: are you using the correct type of charger for the type of cell?

is the charger working properly?

are they decent quality batteries?, there's a lot of crud out there

alternatively you may have 1 bad cell?

as far as I recall NiMH (which they would be at 2700mAH) dont suffer from memory effects (thats a problem with NiCad) so should not need discharging before charging.

for any set of batteries if you fully discharge then one of the cells in the set will discharge before the others, you can then get in the nasty situation of reverse charging that cell, which means next time its even worse, and soon it is in total failure

high resistance contact: flash guns of old were bad for a slightly tarnished battery contact stopping the charging as the voltage drop across the contact would prevent the high voltage charging from kicking in properly. Clean the ends of the batteries and also the battery contacts. I always wipe the ends of batteries down my jeans before using them.

what make of charger and model?
what batteries, make & model?
 
As far as the actual cell manufacturers GP's are probably going to be the best you get, I run various GP cells in quite a lot of things.
 
I have some batteries I bought from China! They work out at about £35 for FIFTY!!!

They hold enough charge for maybe 60+ shots in my SB800. You do not need to discharge NiHM batteries before charging them!

Are you using the adapter to have FIVE batteries on the SB800?
 
Have used energizer 2500mAh batteries in my flash for over 12 mths last for ages. I charge them up after using the flash. I also have the Nikon SD8a External Camera Battery Pack on my old SB-80DX flashgun.

Paul
 
Hacker

I use a lot of batteries, and have found that it is not the rating of the batteries, but the quality of the batteries that makes a difference. It’s worth paying for quality batteries – I normally use Uniross.

I’m not sure if your black box solution will solve all your problems. I work as a sport photographer and I often take many hundreds of photos in a row using fill in flash I have two Canon 550ex's – and you can make them recycle quite fast by using an external battery pack – the canon one I use takes 6 additional AA batteries to fire the flash so you are now powering your flash with 10 batteries instead of 4 and recycle times are much faster and the whole set up will last much longer then just the batteries in the flash – I guess this is similar to the set up you have looked at and looking at your black box solution, it will work in the same way – just last longer – but it wont be any faster due to the fact that it is still supplying the flash with just 6v (or 9v depending on flash make)

Earlier in the year I worked for ASI on the UK Ironman Triathlon as a photographer, and they provided each of the photographers with a Metz 45 CL- 4 flashgun and a custom battery pack to use for the day. We used the flash for fill in (-1 or -2 eva) and it worked really well – I was very impressed with the Metz and decided that I would need to buy one.

Two months or so later, and after much research and watching on ebay I brought one on ebay together with a quantum turbo battery pack – total price £150!!!

Now the important thing here is that the turbo does not supply the 9v that the normal battery pack supplies instead is supplies the flash head with 320V!!!! It looks like I will need to be careful using this in the rain.

This enables the flash to fire really fast – on winder mode (5m at f2.8 at ISO 400)
it will do this at 8 frames per second with the 1d…

With a more powerful flash output is will do 3 frames a second (tested on 1ds) – and it will keep going at this rate until the camera buffer fills up
 
Thanks for all the advice, tips and comments. I've been using hahnel batteries and sometimes they do get mixed up, I'll probably keep them for emergencies.

Sportysnaps, it sounds like you got a good deal there, I have tried a Metz gun but I keep hearing good things about them. I must admit I'm not too bothered about lightening fast recycle times when shooting, I just want to have longevity and consistency and don't want to miss that all important wedding shot because my batteries have died and I'm faffing around changing them. :D
 
I'm not known for spending on batteries to be fair, but I have 2 sets of (God knows what make) of 2500s and 2 sets of older 1800s

Friday night I had a 3 hour session photographing a wedding anniversary with only an SB800 for support, first set slowed at about 250 shots (didn't recharge within 3 secs), second saw the night out at 358 shots in total

So I suspect you have a duff one in there somewhere or a duff charger - chuck the lot and buy a couple of fresh sets and charger to be sure

:thumbs:
 
Hacker have you had the gun tested/serviced lately, it may not be the batteries that are faulty, or tried the batteries in another gun?

I have 6volt yuasa (alarm battery) in a belt pouch meant for video but just as usefully on anything requiring 6 volt over a long period. Oh you can get a little lop sided though.
 
I generally spend lots on batterys because any AA's look cheap when I compare it to the batterys I buy for my r/c car at £61 for 6 sub-c cells. :p
 
I bought a load of Duracell rechargeables & they're amazing - fully charged in less than an hour & last 600+ shots over 6 hours in my SB800. Can't recommend them highly enough. They're quite new out but available in Argos. Not the cheapest but money very well invested.
 
Phil T said:
I bought a load of Duracell rechargeables & they're amazing - fully charged in less than an hour & last 600+ shots over 6 hiurs in my SB800. Can't recommend them highly enough. They're quite new out but available in Argos. Not the cheapest but money very weell invested.
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Interesting, cheers for that :thumbs:
 
Not rechargables, but the energiser lithiums are very good batteries. Unfortunately at £7 a pair (in AA or AAA size) they are quite expensive for throw aways. I have a pair in my battery case for my compact in case i need it when both sets of rechargables are flat.
 
I bought one of these chargers a couple of years ago and it's brilliant http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ultra-Fast-Charger-AA-AAA-4-X-2700-AA-Battery_W0QQitemZ320044563446QQihZ011QQcategoryZ50603QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
You can see how they are charging and if you have a bad one not holding the charge.
The Vapextech batteries ain't that great, but I bought some recently from Aldi £1.99 for 4 they are 2500mhah AA's and appear to be much better than the Uniross 2500's I have, they are called Tronic and are made in Germany, trouble is when they get them in they don't hang around for long.
 
I use the 7day shop 2700 or 2800 ones with their charger. I generally get hundreds of shots from a single set and carry 3 spare sets with me. Never had a problem... touch wood ;)
 
Wookie said:
important: are you using the correct type of charger for the type of cell?
Click to expand...


Indeed, I recently found this out myself after ruining several dozen. One battery of the same type/size does not recharge the same way as another of the same type ... Like the AA 2.5 volt nicads/lithium type in the alarm systems I install, doesn't recharge at 2.5 volts... but at 4 volts... and yet still provides 2.5 volts when fully charged... :thinking: :shrug:
 
its all to do with the chemistry involved as to what output voltage and charging voltages are needed.

Also the build quality of the battery will determine its ability to accept fast charging as a battery can turn into a small and very nasty bomb if it does not have effective venting valve, on the other hand they can also lose contents if valving is too weak.

The correct type of charger to suit the chemistry will follow a combination of current and voltage regualtion, with the best units switching between modes and regulation levels at critical points in the charge curve and possibly temperature sensing too, as well as according to simple time parameters. An incorrect or poor quality charger will turn the batteries into a small bomb or vent them to destruction or buckle and short the internal layers due to excessive heat, especially if a "fast" charger

The best chargers have individual independant charge channels for each cell.
Thats because no 2 cells will be perfectly matched, many of the cheaper chargers have 2 cells per channel and will never properly charge the cells.
 
scraggs said:
I bought one of these chargers a couple of years ago and it's brilliant http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ultra-Fast-Charger-AA-AAA-4-X-2700-AA-Battery_W0QQitemZ320044563446QQihZ011QQcategoryZ50603QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
You can see how they are charging and if you have a bad one not holding the charge.
The Vapextech batteries ain't that great, but I bought some recently from Aldi £1.99 for 4 they are 2500mhah AA's and appear to be much better than the Uniross 2500's I have, they are called Tronic and are made in Germany, trouble is when they get them in they don't hang around for long.
Click to expand...


Spookily enough .... SNAP :D

I bought the charger from an amateur radio rally a couple of years ago, with two sets of battery's (which are still going strong) but have since bought 5 sets of batteries from aldi, and they knock spots of the uniross sett I bought about six months ago
 
Thanks for all the responses. I got my self another charger today which shows the state of charge and obviously my old one was duff. With the first set of batteries one was charged within 10 minutes and two otheres took a couple hours. The second set looks like it's going the same way.

Thanks again. :thumbs:
 
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