Rechargeable AA Batteries for Sony DSC-P50

Tim Smith wrote:

On 2004-07-10, Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:

There are also special NiMH batteries that can be charged in 15 minutes
in appropriate chargers. They say "I-C3".


Those look nice. Wal mart sells a very entry-level device that includes 2
I-C3 (looks like AA sized) batteries and a charger for $28

...

Do those last as long as regular NiMH batteries that take 1-2 hours to
charge? By "last as long" I don't mean number of rechargers (though if you
know that you can share). I mean how long before you have to recharge it.


They should. The number you want to look at for a battery is the mAh
rating. I believe those batteries are 2000 mAh. "mAh" means "milliamp
hours" and is a measure of the total energy the battery can deliver. A 2000
mAh battery could theoretically power a device that needs 1 milliamp for
2000 hours, or a 2000 milliamp device for 1 hour, or a 500 milliamp device
for 4 hours, and so on. (Batteries have other limits, such as maximum
current, so not all of these combinations are possible--it would not work to
try to power a 7200 amp device for 1 second!).

I know you were just putting out numbers, but at 1-4 hours there would
probably be a substantial loss of energy to internal resistance. At
2000 hours, there would inevitably be a loss to self-discharge.
In a practical sense, a high-drain device (i.e. digital camera) will
render a battery useless when it still has substantial usuable capacity
for a lower drain device.

Tim Smith wrote:

On 2004-07-10, Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:

I found this at Radio Shack which has four 1800mAh NiMH AA batteries & a
quick charger for $30. Catalog # 23-043

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...ct%5Fid=23-043

(the # is part of the link)

Is this the way you guys would go? Any other cheaper & just as good
options (or am I being a tight-wad)?


Radio Shack seems a little bit behind on NiMH AA batteries. It's not hard
to find ones with 2000-2200 mAh. (A couple years ago, when I switched all
my battery-powered devices except the smoke alarms over the NiMH, 1200 mAh
was the norm).

The chargers have also been improving. My two year old charger takes about
8 hours to charge a pair of 1200 mAH batteries(the batteries have to be
charged in pairs). The charger I bought about a month ago does 1-4 2000 mAH
batteries in an hour. Now I see that model has been replaced by one that
does it in 30 minutes:

URL:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....97111512&skuId
=5835894&type=product

There are also special NiMH batteries that can be charged in 15 minutes in
appropriate chargers. They say "I-C3".

NiMH batteries are no longer the speciality item they were a few years ago.
They and their chargers are widely available at places like Best Buy,
Circuit City, Target, Wal-Mart, etc., so I'd suggest looking around at a few
local places.

Actually - the batteries are fine. I just picked up two packs of
Energizer 2300 mAh batteries for $9.99 each (in 4-packs) at Target.
I think they may be found at Wal-Mart at about the same price.
These appear to be the same Japanese-made batteries (marked "HR"
on the negative terminal) that I've seen sold under several brand
names. I've seen them rebranded as Sony, GE/Sanyo, Maxell, Olympus,
or Kodak.

However - the chargers I've seen at the mass merchandise stores
aren't in the same class as the Maha or Ansmann chargers you can
find at Thomas-Distributing. The ones at Wal-Mart are either
the dumb timed chargers or the super-fast smart chargers. They
won't have anything like the Maha MH-C401FS slow/fast charger I
use.