mdocod
Flashaholic
This thread is from 2005. Please don't drag up an old question about NIMH cells to ask about CR123 cells...
anyone bought batteries from tenergy?
- Thread starter mdocod
- Start date
Help Support Candle Power Flashlight Forum
Hitthespot
Flashlight Enthusiast
I have bought quite a few cells from All Battery. The first order that I received from them was a set of 4 7.2 volt 3800mah rc car packs. These are to date the best batteries that I have ever used. I was previously using gp cell packs that were 3 times the price that did not perform as well. Based upon this experience I ordered a set of 4 3800 mah packs as well as 24 AA 2600mah batteries. The new 7.2v packs were a very bad dissapointment. There were always a cell or two that would heat up to two or three times the temperatures of the rest of the cells and they would always cut out prematurely when charging.
I sent these back to tenergy and they replaced them with the higher 4200 mah capacity versions. Unfortunately these were not much better than the previous batteries. The customer service was pretty good though, my only complaint is that I had to pay the shipping back to them, so I was out 17 dollars. Of course the new batteries were worth more than 17 dollars more than the old ones, but they werent much better so no real gain there.
As for the AA cells, I have been very happy with them so far. they seem just as good or better than my energizer or rayovac 2500 mah cells. I have not yet been able to test these in a high drain application, so I cannot say whether certain cells will overheat or not. I know I would not buy the 7.2 volt packs again, but as for flashlight batteries, I think I would.
The biggest problem here seems to be consistency of the quality. If I could be assured that all packs would be of the same quality as my first order I would order nothing but tenergy batteries. Hope this helps somewhat in your choice of batteries.
I sent these back to tenergy and they replaced them with the higher 4200 mah capacity versions. Unfortunately these were not much better than the previous batteries. The customer service was pretty good though, my only complaint is that I had to pay the shipping back to them, so I was out 17 dollars. Of course the new batteries were worth more than 17 dollars more than the old ones, but they werent much better so no real gain there.
As for the AA cells, I have been very happy with them so far. they seem just as good or better than my energizer or rayovac 2500 mah cells. I have not yet been able to test these in a high drain application, so I cannot say whether certain cells will overheat or not. I know I would not buy the 7.2 volt packs again, but as for flashlight batteries, I think I would.
The biggest problem here seems to be consistency of the quality. If I could be assured that all packs would be of the same quality as my first order I would order nothing but tenergy batteries. Hope this helps somewhat in your choice of batteries.
mdocod
Flashaholic
Hi peelu, Welcome to CPF!
The consistency issue is exactly where tenergy falls on their face and is why your experience with their packs has been so hit and miss. Sometimes you'll find a dozen cells that perform similarly, but more likely out of a dozen cells, you'll have a bell curve of massive variances in true capacity and internal resistance. As far as I know, they do not put any effort into cell matching when they build packs so it's luck of the draw really.
With loose AA cells, the inconsistency is often not noticed as much because the cells are not being used in aggressive applications, they "seem" to work fine for awhile, but when you start to actually do some run-tests with them in devices with a known drain rate, the dud cells starting showing their ugly faces and cutting the runtime a lot...
I'm not familiar with the RayoVac 2500s but we here at CPF have a long nasty list of things to say about the Energizer 2500s. Many folks go on using them for along time and complain about awful capacity, what they don't realize is that, they actually do have ~2500mAH capacity, but they self-discharge so fast that their state-of-charge is often in half or less by the time you get to where you are going to use them. In my experience, the Tenergy 2600s did seem better coming from Energizer 2500s because they don't have as much self-discharge. So, say for example you charged the cells up on tuesday, and needed them in the Camera on Thursday, even with a dud cell at 60% of label capacity, the Tenergy would power up the camera, whereas the Energizers would not because they died on Wednesday evening from self discharge.
Then I found eneloops. All my Tenergy, Energizer, Kodak and Powerizer cells are retired. I use them for nothing more than test-fitting for projects.
-Eric
The Eneloops do seem to be the best bet currently.
There some really grea cells, I use them in my SF/6P and my Brinkman MaxFire. They hold up rather well under cold temps as well. I've got to order another 50 next month.
chiphead
Ive used a few and didn't notice too much heat. Tenergy does sometimes die off a bit. But for the price they are not too bad and never had much differences in sizes either worth noting. I just buy mine at the supermarket or big super store, depending on the type I need. Energizer is pretty good for me.
I actually came here looking for a different kind of tenergy. More the http://tenergy05.com related to table tennis.
sorry off topic.
I actually came here looking for a different kind of tenergy. More the http://tenergy05.com related to table tennis.
sorry off topic.
i have tenergy bateries aa and aaa they seem to loose there charge very quickly they also are alittle bigger which means they fit alittle tight on some devices
alternety
Newly Enlightened
Since this thread has risen from the grave;
I bought 8 Tenergy Low Self discharge C NiMh 4AH cells for my work radio. Run time felt so so. The cells are fairly new. They have been charged 2 to 4 times each (I was not counting). They have all been used in the same sets of 4 in the radio so they have the same history.
So, I ran all of them through a refresh cycle on BT-C3100 chargers. Results:
3895
4279
1991
4188
4226
2421
4183
2427
I am very seriously not impressed. I am going to put them in more or less matched sets. I guess I am just lucky that there are 4 4AH cells to make a set. The other 4 are significantly mismatched so the lowest common denominator will probably win.
I would be very interested in any known good producer of LSD NiMh C cells.
I bought 8 Tenergy Low Self discharge C NiMh 4AH cells for my work radio. Run time felt so so. The cells are fairly new. They have been charged 2 to 4 times each (I was not counting). They have all been used in the same sets of 4 in the radio so they have the same history.
So, I ran all of them through a refresh cycle on BT-C3100 chargers. Results:
3895
4279
1991
4188
4226
2421
4183
2427
I am very seriously not impressed. I am going to put them in more or less matched sets. I guess I am just lucky that there are 4 4AH cells to make a set. The other 4 are significantly mismatched so the lowest common denominator will probably win.
I would be very interested in any known good producer of LSD NiMh C cells.
