Alkaline AA Alternatives 

Exxxactly!

@@twotone3070 It might take 5v and then have an internal charge controller. I haven't used these ones, but have the type that has a micro usb socket on the side of it. When I plug the USB cord into it to charge it, I do notice that the battery has 5v instead of 1.5v across its + and - !

EDITED TEXT: One can actually get all the variants shown in AAA size. Searching for the 14500 3.7V cell is difficult to find when searching for them as AA size.. The reason is to prevent people from using them as an AA replacement and damaging their devices - thus - they are not advertised as AA These cells can only be used in a device that uses 3 AA cells in series - such as certain (older) remote control cars - and then one needs AA dummy conductors to fill the empty space of two 1.5v cells. The same holds true for AAA cells - however when searching for 10440 cells - one will find quite a few variants.

I found some 10440 (~AAA) 3.2v lifepo4 cells, but only being ~280mah which seems disappointingly low. I guess with the higher voltage (halved with the dummy short cells) it would work out being around 1/3 useable charge compared to using decent alkalines.

@@andrew_koala2974 Were practical, in devices that use 3AA cells in series, I just rewire it to parallel the cells and get longer runtimes.

The worst thing about them is that they drain quickly, even when not in use.

@@KevinSolway You just have to get the ones that specifically state low self discharge, like eneloops.

°C

@@benbaselet2026 I've used both types and found the Eneloops do last much longer than 'regular' NiMH batteries.

@@KevinSolway LSD = low self discharge

Is it a quadropus USB cable, or does it actually have 8 leads :) That's clever dropping the voltage to 1.2V.

I'm surprised more cameras these days don't use lithium cells. I bought a small nikon in 2008 that uses a lithium cell, which still works! Only ~$12 to replace if needed.

@@jimmybrad156 I also had one, not Nikon. I bought it probably 25-30 years ago and swore never to buy one again. The battery run out in Mauritius and could not find a replacement. I know, I should have carried a spare, but regular AA batteries are available everywhere, so I will not have the same problem again.

@@thehun1234 Good point; never thought of that scenario!

A spare lithium battery then would have cost a days work too I guess.

@@jimmybrad156 Not really, at least not for me. I was working outside Hungary, so I had a reasonable salary. The real problem was that I believed the salesman when I bought the camera. He claimed that when the low battery indicator comes on the camera can still take at least two rolls of pictures. In reality, after the warning came on, the camera totally shut down after a few more shots.

I go for the hand-powered grinders 🐝 free energy :P

Would love to see a video of them!

Same here. The lux value is on the LCD, but the Tuya (and Lidl) app ignores the lux value.

@@JulianIlettGood to know.. Perhaps you've got a Silvercrest (Lidl}) zigbee gateway like me? Anyway, I recently found, in the Aliexpress listing, which I bought the sensor from, a warning saying that one should send a message, with the gateway ID number, to the seller and ask for a firmware update, in case something is odd about the sensor operation. Haven't tried that myself yet, though. Maybe that'll fix it. I'll come back and drop a reply to let you know about it.

I actually just pulled out the charger for these and measured the voltage while the cell was charging and im seeing about 4.5v. The cells also lower their voltage when the internal lithium is almost discharged. It stays at a flat 1.5v, then when I think there's about 10% remaining of the lithium cell is drops the output to 1.1 or 1.2v so that devices that can sense the state of charge will indicate to you that they are almost discharged. It's also interesting that the buck converter in these things must be very efficient. I have some that have sat on the shelf for months after being charged and they still have a charge and output voltage. I figured maybe the buck converter goes to sleep if it senses no load, but putting a multi-meter across them will still register a voltage and a multi-meter is going to put almost no load across them that might wake up the battery, so the buck converter must be constantly active.

sounds like 'those' are different :)

usb charged 1.5v lithium ion come as aaa as well it appears.

That sounds like the flashlight may have used a simple resistor as current limiter? May be moddable to a higher one if so.

Sounds like they are relying on the IR of the battery as a current limiter.

He probably has an app so that he can see the temperature and humidity on his phone. The battery warning is probably built into that app.

@@ianhaylock7409 Having wifi access to a device doesn't mean it can send you notifications. Android lets you decide that.

they don't like to stay below 1.2v. If they go flat they will die early. A lot of devices will run fine between 1.0 - 1.2v, while the ni-zn cell suffers.

not if its a lithium cell that uses a buck converter to output 1.5v. At least not the ones I use.

@@jimmybrad156 All lithium sells recharge. You did not say what the voltage of your lithium cell is without the buck converter connected. I forgot to ad 1.5V & 3V button sells also recharge. About once a year I have to charge my car key fob 3V cell for 30 mins Via a fully charged 1 x 18650 cell. I have recharging the 3v cell about 5 times now in as many years.

So you can recharge Lithium/Iron Disulfide (Li/FeS2) batteries?

The 1.5v aa/aaa size lithium-based (probably a LiPo cell) batteries with built in buck converter and usb charger work well with low drain devices. I put them in an indoor weather station (aa) size and it lasted 6.6 months (from full charge) before needing recharging. It had 1.1v across it when it was flat enough for the weather station, after being out of the weather station for a few minutes. Took 3h10min to charge from the laptop; not sure what amperage this provided/if it slowed it/stopped it from charging faster (probably not). While they were charging, they had 5v across the AA +/- output (instead of 1.5v) so don't leave them in the load device, as 5v instead of 1.5v will fry a lot things! ~$20 AUD for 2xAA.

Grade D1 alarms (e.g. the Aico Ei3014) and Grade F1 alarms have an integrated non-user-serviceable battery that is rated for the lifetime of the alarm (usually 10 years), meaning you'll never need to worry about fire alarm batteries again. It's the Grade D2 and F2 alarms that have the user-serviceable replaceable batteries. I don't recommend Grade F1 or F2 if you can get away with a D1 or D2, because of the obvious benefit of only having to rely on the battery when mains power goes away, and all else equal, Grade D1 is better than D2 for the integrated battery. The breakdown of the common residential fire alarm grades is as follows; D1 is mains-powered non-user-serviceable, D2 is mains-powered user-serviceable, F1 is battery-powered non-user-serviceable, and F2 is battery-powered user-serviceable.

If you just want it to work (rather than having the fun of designing it), you could probably just buy one of those cheapo buck converter boards off of eBay. You might need to add a BMS board too, unless your 18650s have under voltage protection built in. Still, it should be cheap and easy, though a bit bulky

what about the 1.5v AA lithium usb-charged batteries? I bought them for an indoor weather station and they lasted 6.6 months before needing recharging.

The clock is in my workshop with lots of WiFi, Zigbee, computers and servers. Not surprising it struggles to get a signal.

My 2x AAA 3.7v lipo > 1.5v are still strong after 14 months. Recharged them perhaps ten to fifteen times. T-Power brand. Fingers crossed!

Some 3.3v micros will work down to about 2v. So you can just run it straight off 2 AA cells if you're building a simple gadget. Probably not recommend if you're controlling some high drain load or something noisy like a bushed DC motor as the sags or noise might crash the micro. If you're going to put a 3.3v regulator in there then you're going to have to run it off at least 3 or 4 AA cells to get over the dropout voltage of the regulator. There are some neat tiny 3.3v buck/boost regulators out there. Tiny, about 1x1cm PCB with a few surface mount components on it and 3 connections v in, v out and common negative. You can find them on ebay. I use these in some hanging garden lanterns with self controlled color changing leds. When I 1st set it up I just wired the led across 2 D cells. This worked ok, but i hated how it would start out nice and bright for about the 1st week and then slowly dim as the batteries drained. I found these buck/boost converters put them between the batteries and LED and now the LED sees a constant 3.3v and the buck/boost converter will suck just about all available energy out of the batteries keeping the LED at constant brightness till it just shuts off cause the battery is too dead. I think that converter will boost all the way down to about 1v. A single LED will run for about a month straight using this setup. Since I had the 3.3v available I also attempted using an 8pin attiny micro to implement an 8hr on 16hr off timer for it to see if I could extend the battery life any. It made almost no difference. The extra load from the micro having to be constantly running negated any power savings from having the LED off. Plus the timing from the attiny using just it's internal clock is horrible, the on/off times would drift significantly within days. I ended up just going back to leaving the LED lit 24/7

@@d0ugk Power saving with a micro goes deep. Can't do it with the pre-built hobby boards as-is. But if you get it right, you can run a micro off AAs for their shelf life. Problem in your scenario is the wake up. Best to ditch the micro and use a photodiode or phototransistor light sensor. Of course, a small PV panel can be both light sensor and charger. Or maybe you don't want dusk trigger, but actual time-of-day. In that case maxim has some RTC chips that will do the job without a micro, but you'll need to program the alarm settings, usually done with a micro. The RTC could also provide wake up to a micro in deep sleep, but a micro is overkill just to time hours on/off for an LED. Fun, tho!

@@Sylvan_dB i was using just a bare attiny chip. But yeah you've gotta leave it powered up to keep track of the time unless I'm doing something wrong. Was basically trying to emulate how those AA powered Xmas lights work with the 8h on 16h off timer built in. Going the photo diode or cds cell route, may as well just eliminate the micro all together and just use a transistor the old school way. Probably the simplest thing would be to just take the controller chip out of one of those off the shelf light strings

it came from banggood originally

.... Should have removed the battery, ( correct twice a day then ! ).

@@robbieaussievic They did. I think maybe the cnc machines somehow interfeered with the RF signal.

To little capacity and to steep of a discharge ramp

How long did the lego hub last on typical alkalines vs 1.5 hours on the panasonic nimh's? I guess about the same since it makes use of ~1.0v.

@@jimmybrad156 Link to picture of NiMh charger and timer. The timer is not necessary but it is one more thing to fiddle with :-) drive.google.com/file/d/1oJp--UvzqxowBGCTLPkTf0hEe_aUFovY/view?usp=drivesdk

@@jimmybrad156 I'm not sure how long alkalines would last but I'm guessing about the same or longer. I have not used alkalines for several years since I started using NiMh. They are more expensive initially but can be recharged a couple of hundred times using chargers available on amazon. Unfortunately they no longer sell NiMh batteries at Dollarama but they should be available online.

@@jimmybrad156 The picture is now Public. You should be able to see it. drive.google.com/file/d/1oJp--UvzqxowBGCTLPkTf0hEe_aUFovY/view?usp=drivesdk

@@robinbrowne5419 Do you have any devices that have noticeably low contrast on their black and white LCD display?

Here you have a first video of four in total in my channel. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pnmKRfvVWTc.html

the aa/aaa size lithium batteries with a 1.5v output and rechargeable via a usb c/micro port on them are handy.

Fuel cells are easy to make with A4 / A3 / A2 / A1 / A0 laminator & laminator pouches or jars / pots / Zip Vacuum Storage bags

or Candle / Heat Powered Recharged with a TEG Seebeck thermoelectric generator

I'm guessing that pushing current into the cells disables the buck converter.

The battery board might 'see an intruder' and go open circuit?

Yeah, they worked hard on that!

You DO have a volt meter! Hooray!

Jays car riced!