Although I had a good collection of NiMH (AA and AAA) batteries, I too have decided to standardize on Eneloops.



I bought Eneloops before Christmas and so far after heavy use in the cameras and mp3 players, I am impressed with them. They were on sale last week so I bought a few more.

With the regular NiMH batteries, they do self-drain fairly quick. I checked the Eneloops right out of the package with a voltmeter and they were only down 200 mh which is quite good as there is no way to determine how long they sat on the shelf before they were purchased.

I have one package of the Eneloops that I topped up the charge on. They are my test set as I want to determine how much voltage drop there is after 30, 60, 90 days.

As for charging the Eneloops, any NiMH battery charger will work...there is no need to waste your $$$ on a "Eneloops specific" charger.

I've had eneloops for over a year and have been buying those $7.99 for 4 packs. I've paid more than that for traditional NiMH batteries in the past.

While you don't need an eneloop charger, i still try to steer people towards a good charger, i.e. none of the 15 minite ones, none of the ones from walmart or radio shack which shorten the lifespan of the batteries by non properly following all the charging specs.

For any people interested, they were purchased at COSTCO wholesale. (Not sure if this is a U.S or Canadian only chain) But being Duracell I am sure you could find them in a lot of stores. I still have a whole slew of rechargeable batteries and chargers which are compatible with my solar panel charger. I believe in redundancy when it comes to any important item. These lights will simply supplement what I already have for blackouts but they were never intended to replace any item. Besides my gas generator, I have an eliminator 800 with solar panel, A couple of Gerber camp lanterns (battery operated) a bunch of Flashlights including a surefire combat light and the e2e, 4 browning black ice LED head lamps, a Coleman Lantern (naphtha) and about 6 cases of light sticks and then about 100 arctic survival candles (Canadian Army issue) so as you can see I will not be without light in a blackout. These crank lights do have use for me in that in a blackout I will use them first and save my of more valuable batteries for when they are needed. Although I can use my solar panel to recharge the batteries for a lot of my lights it does take considerable time even when rotating the sets. As a supplement to my existing lights, I still think they are worth the money.

Good ole' Costco. There is a Costco in the US but it's been my experience that they have completely different selection...though that selection changes so fast I'm sure there's some overlap given enough time.

I'll have to check them out!

here is a good article/review of them.

http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/sanyo_eneloop.html

Dave

In theory, yes. I've seen some built-in systems that were great, but I haven't seen a consumer system that I was happy with yet. In all fairness, I haven't had a chance to work with the newer Sanyos, but even those will have a limit. Any rechargeable battery will eventually reach a point it can't be recharged.

But I do agree- there should be something on them about the batteries needing some TLC to be reliable.

I picked up a pair of these flashlights today. I'm pretty impressed considering they work out to be just under $9 each.

I was especially happy with the quality of the radio. Loud, has a built in telescopic antenna, AM and FM, and it started working with just a few cranks straight out of the box. My only beef with the radio is that the entire frequency range is tuned within a 1/2 turn of the knob...a little tricky to get the AM stations perfect.

The LEDs could be brighter but it gets the job done. One's going in my car kit and the other is going by the bedside table ready for the next power outage.

As a note, the BJs warehouse store near me (competitor to Costco) has a similar product from a company I don't recognize (MegaBrite). They were $19 for a 2-pack, and they had NOAA radio in addition to AM/FM and flashlight. No ability to charge other devices. The quality seemed OK, except for the NOAA band which was very difficult to tune and use, so they are not bad for the price. Interestingly, the directions actually suggested cranking them for about a minute every three months, which should help keep the batteries healthy longer.