This is an interesting article about extending alkaline battery life.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2928997/...00-percent.html

Interesting but there has to be a catch.

If this works like they say, why do the equipment manufacturers not build the circuit in to start with?

ADDED
This sounds similar to a circuit for powering an LED, called a joule thief. It trades some power to gain voltage.

It's a regulator circuit. Higher continuous output in exchange for shorter run time. Take a look at heavily regulated flashlights like the Fenix brand for regulated discharge curves.

NiMH Rechargables are still cheaper, more environment friendly, leak free and most of the time higher in performance compaired to regular alkalines (not sure what the batteriser does). The metal bit of the batteriser looks like it will cause issues with metal walled items, like flashlights and ait dd size and might cause issues with tight battery holders.

So in my mind not a break through item as the article make it sound like. Some devices have similair things build in to them. I think having electronic manufactures adding a more efficient circuit will be more efficient then adding them to your alkaline batteries.

Yup, must be something similar to a Joule thief intended to drive an LED from a single 1.5V cell, the kind you find in cheap solar garden lights. Basically a voltage booster and regulator circuit to keep the output voltage more or less constant even when the cell voltage drops with use.

Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this premise. First, the voltage booster ramps up the voltage by producing short, relatively high voltage pulses. This is acceptable for powering a simple LED or the like but does not work with more complex circuits. Adding a good regulator circuit will (ideally) keep the output voltage constant without the unwanted ripples. But in practice, it seldom works really well.

Then there is another technical problem with the voltage booster concept. Even if it does provide a constant 1.5V output until the actual cell voltage drops below any useful level (say, 0.5 or even 0.3V) the battery will not be able to provide much current due to the limitations and relatively inefficient nature of voltage booster circuits. So it may work for low-power devices but that's about it.

Maybe the Batteriser is somehow more efficient in some aspects but at the end of the day, the energy capacity of any battery cell is finite. You may boost the output voltage with an electronic circuit, but only at a modest current (maybe tens of miliamps at most from an AA cell). Not even taking into account the extra size of the Batteriser clip, which I suspect wouldn't fit in many electronic devices.

Isn't running an alkaline all the way to 0 just asking for it to leak?

I have a similar question- Isn't just putting an alkaline in a device just asking it to leak? That's the big problem with alkalines. I have gone to rechargeables with great success and satisfaction....

Yeah, I have alkalines here, but they're in the store packaging. I'll use them when I need them but my lights/radios are without batteries unless in use. The batteries in those are NiMH and lithium primaries. Speaking of which, could I put one of the Batterisers around a 1.2 volt NiMH?

What happens if you put one around a lithium primary; will it bring the voltage down to 1.5 volts? My Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx can't handle lithium primary batteries, too many volts.

everything is a tradeoff. If your device draws 100mA at 1.5v then the power circuit will pull 107mA when it drops to 1.4v to equal the same power. The lower the voltage goes the more power it will have to draw to make up for it. Of course the more power you draw the faster you deplete the cell.

So there is no way your going to get a huge increase in life.

Noticed they used the worse example, Apple devices are some of the worst WRT battery life coming from the form over function design. Take any other brand of device which is designed better and designed around lower (1.2) voltages and your wireless mouse may last 35 days instead of 30 days on a pair of batteries.

Your still better off buying NiMH

They noted it worked with NiMH. Which is good as some of my electronics won't work at the lower voltage of NiMH. So you could get more time out of the rechargeables too.