363
Tired of expensive disposable batteries and rechargeable AA suck. So I made a 10k mAh pack for my deadbolt.
(sh.itjust.works)
Eneloops would only last about 3 weeks. And disposable last 2 months. This door is used a lot and since it has Zwave and a door open sensor it sends info on every open.
Bonus, since it can handle the lipo AA batteries that put out 1.8v and it gives the motor more oomph I made the battery pack give 7.2v and it never sticks anymore.
This is a garage-door so its not critical access but is used a lot.
Rechargeable li-ion batteries are the game changer for me.
All the fancy expensive rechargeable including Eneloop would have a 30+% failure rate every recharge cycle and I wasted so much money. I have 16 li-ion AAs that I rotate including in my door locks and they have gone through multiple recharge cycles with no failures.
If your Eneloops are failing that much, they are either being over discharged or something is wrong with your charger.
All of my Eneloops have been much more reliable than lithium ion batteries.
I may be the unluckiest person in the world, but I've bought expensive official Eneloops multiple times and used multiple chargers and just gave up. Sure, it may be because I'm doing something wrong, but I certainly couldn't figure out what that may be.
Where did you buy them though? First thing I thought of was fakes, which are sold pretty much everywhere online.
I know you said official, but did you actually check that?
Amazon Eneloop official store/Panasonic listing, shipped and sold by Amazon (not a third party seller).
Just anecdotal here, but I haven't had a single eneloop fail me. Heck, I haven't even had rebadged eneloops fail either.
What is considered a "failure" in this context?
The battery no longer recharges and is effectively trash.
That's just terrible to hear. My oldest Eneloops are going on a decade with no failures, but I also had fairly good luck when I used to buy cheaper rechargeables. The common thing might be only using slow chargers.
Nobody else has brought this up, but I've read that counterfeit Eneloops are a thing.
I had a similar failure rate then changed my charger and haven't had a battery fail since. My original charger was Energiser branded, which is the most common battery where I live so I thought it had to be fine. I replaced it with an eneloop BQ-CC55. I don't love it - it's a fast charger and it makes batteries uncomfortably hot, but it was able to charge batteries to full health that both my energiser and trickle charger thought were dead dead. That includes energiser batteries!
Thanks for the recommendation. If somehow my li-ion batteries die, I may try again (I couldn't make myself throw out the Eneloops after spending so much, even if they wouldn't charge, so who knows...).