Eneloop XX not holding charge

[Rhinny2012]

I have 4 Sanyo Eneloop XX batteries that are about 2 years old and they do not seem to hold a charge. I charge them on a Nitecore D2 and have noticed a few things:
1) If I charge them until the charger says "full", take them off, wait a few minutes and put them back in the charger it will charge them for another 15 minutes or so until it says full again.
2) If I charge them and store them for a couple of weeks, when I put them back in the charger they are very low (like 1.3 volts), so I have to recharge them again.
3) When I put a fully charged one in my Zebralight SC52, it will give 4 blinks on the battery indicator. But after a day or so, it will be giving only 1 blink even if I didn't use the light.

Do the batteries sound defective? Seems like they are not holding a charge to me, but they have basically been this way from the beginning. Thanks in advance.

 

[ChrisGarrett]

I have 4 Sanyo Eneloop XX batteries that are about 2 years old and they do not seem to hold a charge. I charge them on a Nitecore D2 and have noticed a few things:
1) If I charge them until the charger says "full", take them off, wait a few minutes and put them back in the charger it will charge them for another 15 minutes or so until it says full again.
2) If I charge them and store them for a couple of weeks, when I put them back in the charger they are very low (like 1.3 volts), so I have to recharge them again.
3) When I put a fully charged one in my Zebralight SC52, it will give 4 blinks on the battery indicator. But after a day or so, it will be giving only 1 blink even if I didn't use the light.

Do the batteries sound defective? Seems like they are not holding a charge to me, but they have basically been this way from the beginning. Thanks in advance.

Batteries will settle a bit, so it's possible that your D2 will attempt to charge them again and cease, after those 15 minutes.

1.30v after couple of weeks is probably a tad low, as I've achieved 1.30v after a full year of sitting.

The ZL could be seeking a 1.60v alkaline and that's why you're getting something different with a ~1.45v NiMH hot off the charger.

Do you see some embossed numbers on the top wrapper flap, just about the seam?

Chris

 

[Rhinny2012]

It says 13-09 SN.
What does that tell you?

 

[ChrisGarrett]

It says 13-09 SN.
What does that tell you?

It tells me that I need another beer!

2013, September and some internal code.

It tells me that they're probably not fakes.

You need to do some runtime tests with your particular lights to get an idea of the battery's health.

Charge them up. Let them sit when done, for 30 minutes. Get a light that you know the runtimes on, with a NiMH and then fire away, timing things.

Chris

 

[HKJ]

1) If I charge them until the charger says "full", take them off, wait a few minutes and put them back in the charger it will charge them for another 15 minutes or so until it says full again.

Nothing strange in that, if you check my charger reviews I usual try charging a full cell. Depending on charger it may take from a few minutes to half an hour (or even longer) to detect a full battery.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

If you charge an already charged battery sometimes the charger will continue to charge it and not realise that it is full, feel the battery with your finger to see how warm it is, warm is good it means that battery is taking the charge, but if the battery is too hot to touch for more than say 5-10 seconds the battery is full and is in danger of being overcharged and damaged, so remove the battery`s from the charger.

John.

 

[KeepingItLight]

Eneloop Pro batteries are rated for 500 charge/discharge cycles.

If you read the fine print, however, you will discover that those occur under ideal laboratory conditions. Temperature is regulated. Charge and discharge occur at moderate rates. No battery is ever over-charged or over-discharged. Every 50 cycles a special break-in cycle is performed.

In practice, that means that few of us will get 500 cycles.

Some at CPF report getting as few as 150 cycles out of their Eneloop Pros. Most others, perhaps 250.

Is it possible your batteries are just getting old?

Can you estimate how many cycles they have on them?

 

[Baggas]

Nothing strange in that, if you check my charger reviews I usual try charging a full cell. Depending on charger it may take from a few minutes to half an hour (or even longer) to detect a full battery.

Hiya HKJ. Are you saying it's okay to follow Rhinny's approach when he wrote "If I charge them until the charger says full, take them off, wait a few minutes and put them back in the charger it will charge them for another 15 minutes or so." ? I don't ever do that.

If I take a battery out of a charger before charging is complete then I never return it because I figure the cell voltage is artificially high from the charging process and this would fool any sensing based on voltage level and perhaps also fool sensing based on -Dv/Dt voltage drop.

I would be interested to know if I have been doing this wrong all this time!

 

[Rhinny2012]

Thanks for all the responses. I would say that they have less than 50 cycles in them. Also, they only get warm while charging, never hot.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

I would not follow Rhinny's approach, and I don't ever do that as well... at least it's not necessary with LSD batteries such as Eneloop XX's because they should hold most of their charge anyway, and charging them to full again probably means wasting about half a charge cycle because they hit the "upper end" once more before they finally get discharged.

This could also be the reason why they aren't holding up as well as they should... or one of the reasons for it.

As for the 50 cycles, I had some NiCd cells in the past that were already ruined after about 50 cycles over the course of about 2-4 years... that's when I still made sure to discharge them completely every time to overcome memory effect, and also didn't observe the end of charge well so that they were often severely overcharged. One set of AA's in a SHARP BASIC calculator even only went for 16 cycles before the first cell broke (but over the course of 4 years)... so since the cycle ratings of the Eneloop XX's is rather low, I do find it possible for them to show their first weaknesses after only 50 cycles.

Hiya HKJ. Are you saying it's okay to follow Rhinny's approach when he wrote "If I charge them until the charger says full, take them off, wait a few minutes and put them back in the charger it will charge them for another 15 minutes or so." ? I don't ever do that.

If I take a battery out of a charger before charging is complete then I never return it because I figure the cell voltage is artificially high from the charging process and this would fool any sensing based on voltage level and perhaps also fool sensing based on -Dv/Dt voltage drop.

I would be interested to know if I have been doing this wrong all this time!

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I think i read that full discharging Eneloop XX every time hammers the cycle life, so shallow discharges is better which make buying Eneloop XX for the extra capacity a bit of a waste of time unless you only discharge them full infrequently or in an emergency.

John.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

You are most likely damaging the cell by trying to charge an already charged Eneloop. Long as it stays above 1.3v it's ok. If it was dropping to 1.27v i'd be a bit worried and the only accurate way to tell if your Eneloop is not holding a charge is to discharge it with an analyzer charger and record the result capacity.

I think i read that full discharging Eneloop XX every time hammers the cycle life, so shallow discharges is better which make buying Eneloop XX for the extra capacity a bit of a waste of time unless you only discharge them full infrequently or in an emergency.

John.

If you discharge them all the way to 0% you can. Since you get an extra 22.5%+ with Eneloop XX/Pro you can probably go to about 10% and save some cycle life. I have some AAA Pros that if you discharge them all the way down they'll only recover to about 1.1v (or lower). I wonder if doing a break in on these high capacity cells on occasion would help with cycle life. It would almost seem pointless to have the higher capacity cells when they'll only probably last 2 or 3 years compared to the standard 2000mAh ones. Still it's a good advantage for those in photography or needs that extra runtime in flashlights. My TN4A requires high capacity cells since runtime is so short on the max settings. But at the same time it's sort of nice when the light starts dimming on max i know when to recharge them or switch to a much lower output so in a pinch the high capacity cells will give me more runtime in the lower settings once the cells are not capable of powering the max output.

 

[Baggas]

It would almost seem pointless to have the higher capacity cells when they'll only probably last 2 or 3 years compared to the standard 2000mAh ones.

I find that technology creeps along and it's not long before I want a newer type of cell long before my old cells have stopped working.Now I just buy for a few years ahead. That means I actually prefer to go for higher capacity even if it comes at the cost of shorter life.

 

[RobertMM]

I have a pack of 4 XX that are useable, but noticeably weaker in devices. Probably because of quick charging the cell individually in the MQR-06 charger they came with, at around 1700 mAh.

I used them in single cell lights, so I usually charged just the depleted one then put it back in storage and used the next one on line.

 

[MidnightDistortions]

I find that technology creeps along and it's not long before I want a newer type of cell long before my old cells have stopped working.Now I just buy for a few years ahead. That means I actually prefer to go for higher capacity even if it comes at the cost of shorter life.

And that is perfectly ok. I'll buy the bare minimum of the high capacity Eneloops ( or the re brand of the high capacity) just in case. I'll try to make them last a good 5-7 years. But if not its no big deal. I have some 2300mAh Duracells that lasted a good 7 years.