Sanyo Eneloop questions

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ricky1980

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Richard Wong
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1) are they suitable for flashguns as they are lower than 1.5V
2) I use my flash not very often, so how should i look after these batteries i.e. discharge every month and recharge or just top up every other week?
3) following the above what kind of current I should be charging these babies during the cycle (discharge then charge) and during the trickle charge (the topping up charge)

I got the 2500mAH version and a smart charger which does individual channel charging/discharging/testing and setting charging current as well.

many thanks...very fed up with crap alkaline batteries and constant need to buy them
 
1) Yes.

2) leave em in a drawer?!

3) No idea.

I have 4 sets of eneloops, they hold charge remarkably well, and seem to give a good consistent output. You'll have no issues with them.
 
if they are nimh then they will self discharge - so leave them charged up and check them every so often (2 months ish) as they can be damaged by over discharge.

Top marks for getting an individual cell charger - try to keep using them as a set though, as then they will stay better balanced, and if you have time, do a discharge then charge as this will help reverse any memory effects. My smart charger does 200, 500 or 700mA charge options. Should be good to use either the 500 or 700 on those 2500mAh cells.
 
1> Yes I love mine in my flashgun, and the kiddies toys!

2> I would not be charging them up to top them up constantly, just charge them when you need them, they lose charge much more slowly than older rechargable batteries

3> I would charge them as slowly as you can bear.

D
 
Looks like your questions have been answered, but just to add that the 'downside' of NiMh is that they will behave similarly when at 25% charge to when at 90% charge, so you don't get much warning that a set is about to run out.

The big upside of the Eneloop type is that you can just have a spare set in your bag (unused they keep charge for a long time), so when they do run out, swap the the fresh set, and recharge them when you get home (and they are then the spare set, etc.)
 
use them (i.e. the XX version) in my handheld GPS and charge them with a Technoline BL-700 Intelligent AA-AAA battery charger and have had no issues at all. No need to top them up, you get about 8 hours off a full charge, not sure about a flash gun, but have 2 sets of batteries so always have a spare set of full charged batteries to put in the GPS.
 
ricky1980 said:
1) are they suitable for flashguns as they are lower than 1.5V
2) I use my flash not very often, so how should i look after these batteries i.e. discharge every month and recharge or just top up every other week?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend a monthly discharge/recharge as it not necessary for Eneloops, one of their plus points is their very low self discharge rate. The Sanyo claim is 85% after 12 months and was (just about) verified in independent tests at CandlePowerForums (84% remaining after 1 year).

This is an excerpt from the CPF test:

You can see that the biggest drop in capacity comes in the first 30 days. After that, things settle down. Looking at the numbers we have about 93% of the initial Amp Hours after 30 days and about 91% of the initial Watt Hours for the same time period. At 90 days we have about 88% of the initial Amp Hours and about 85% of the initial Watt Hours. At 180 days we have about 86% of the initial Amp Hours and about 82% of the initial Watt Hours.

I can easily see how these cells could still have 85% of their initial capacity at the end of a year. I am only going to project out to the year mark because I am going to be using my cells. Someone else can do the 1 year testing…

UPDATE:
I just finished testing a set of 9 cells that I normally use in my Mag85. I set them aside a year ago and just finished testing them. Under a 1 amp load, they came in at 1578 mAh. Initially they came in at 1871 mAh, so you can see that they did not live up to their 85% remaining charge after a year of storage.

However, 84.34% is pretty close...
Click to expand...
 
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Jumping in, but has any tried the uniross hybrio AAs? Any preference between them and the eneloops?
 
jonoooo125 said:
Jumping in, but has any tried the uniross hybrio AAs? Any preference between them and the eneloops?
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there the same but from a different manufacture
i think the uniross hybrio batteries was the first of the long life rechargeables to appear on the market
i have several sets of AA , AAA's and pp3 hybrio batteries and most sets are a few years old now and are still going strong
i can't comment on eneloops because i have no experience of them

another type of battery i have been using for flashes are the BPI NI-ZN's which are 1.6v ( 1.7v measured at full charge ) because of their higher voltage ratings they speed up the recharge cycle and i have had no problem with them as far as the amount of flashes per charge they last a while

i'm not sure if they are on par with enloops / hybrios for natural discharge rate but they seem to be good enough and much better than normal nimh rechargables
 
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jonoooo125 said:
Jumping in, but has any tried the uniross hybrio AAs? Any preference between them and the eneloops?
Click to expand...

I bought some hybrios when they first came out. Just replaced them - that's maybe 3 years of use. And when I say "use", I mean once or twice a week every week.

Went through all the advice I could find on batteries for flashguns before replacing them. It seemed to come down to this:
- if you don't use them much then anything will do. Low discharge are handy. Eneloop seem better than most but a set of any kind will cost you between 5 and 20 quid so it's not a major decision.
- if you use them a lot then get a good brand. I went for Ansmann which lots of people seem to think are the best.
- if you use them a lot then you may not want to bother with low discharge since you'll probably charge them every time you want to use them. LD cost more and tend to have lower capacities than non LD.
 
i just did a test cycle on the 2 sets i bought, the V was at 1.45V when fully charged and 2600mAH which is quite good.

put them in my flash gun and the red ready light came on as soon as i switched it on...awesome.

Look forward using them and ya i will keep a second set in spare in case the drop off :)

thanks for all the comments
 
Why oh why don't flashes have some indication of remaining battery capacity? Sooo annoying.

Back on topic, I use Eneloops in my flashes all the time and they are fine.
 
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