# 32 AA size batteries from one 6-volt Lantern Battery



## zigziggityzoo (Sep 19, 2007)

As featured on LifeHacker:

http://lifehacker.com/software/how-to/get-32-aa-batteries-from-a-single-6-volt-battery-301237.php

I'd be interested if this were true across all brands of 6-volts, as I'm sure some assemble them differently. I'd also like to know the voltage/capacity of these things. If they're comparable to your average Duracell Alkaline, then I'm in!


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## Marduke (Sep 19, 2007)

Most 6 volt lantern batteries have 4 F cells inside. This looks fishy to me also, since the 32 batteries would be soldered together, not just laying in there loose. One other thing, the lantern battery says "Heavy Duty" on the side, which means that is a low grade of carbon zinc battery. That is worse than "Super Heavy Duty" which is a better carbon zinc, or even cheap alkaline batteries, which are this cheap when bought in bulk.

Edit: Just looked, the video is from the site gagfilms.com, which confirms my suspicions. It's totally bogus, you get 4 F cells, not 32 AA.


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## Bushman5 (Sep 19, 2007)

well, just for poops and giggles i'm going to buy a a lantern batt today and see what happens when i gut it. I can think of plenty of LED lights i got that would run a long time on cheap AA's


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## macdude22 (Sep 19, 2007)

Yea but can't you buy like 12 heavy duty cells for a buck at Wal Mart?


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## Bushman5 (Sep 19, 2007)

i dont shop at walmart


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## MorePower (Sep 19, 2007)

Bushman5 said:


> well, just for poops and giggles i'm going to buy a a lantern batt today and see what happens when i gut it. I can think of plenty of LED lights i got that would run a long time on cheap AA's



You'll get 4 F cells. Or possibly 4 D cells and some spacer material.


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## Illum (Sep 19, 2007)

6V batteries most likely use F cells
packaged D cells are fat and will protrude out the sides...so you might find two pairs of naked Ds sandwiched inside

I'm not sure how does 32 AA sized batteries fit inside a casing of that sort...I've extracted many many F cells from "heavy duty" battery packs...theres not really that much room in one

second, carbon zinc has really really low capacity and a very very high possibility of leaking, its cheap in design for the manufacturers to include in their gadgets to power them for the first minute of your use.


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## Norm (Sep 19, 2007)

Some nine Volt batteries contain AAAA not AAA.
Norm


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## Illum (Sep 19, 2007)

Norm said:


> Some nine Volt batteries contain AAAA not AAA.
> Norm



some?
9Vs don't use AAA, it has always been "snout-less" AAAAs...anyone who tried using 9V AAAAs for their styluses know its slightly shorter to compensate for the contacts underneath in assembly
:thanks: for pointing that out


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## Norm (Sep 19, 2007)

Illum_the_nation said:


> some?
> 9Vs don't use AAA, it has always been "snout-less" AAAAs...anyone who tried using 9V AAAAs for their styluses know its slightly shorter to compensate for the contacts underneath in assembly
> :thanks: for pointing that out


I didn't say some nine Volt batteries use AAA what I meant was some use AAAA other use a flat stack of cells.


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## Bones (Sep 19, 2007)

A 9 volt hack:

http://wewin.com...9-volt-battery-hacked

A 12 volt hack; you have to copy and paste the URL:

http://www.instructables.com/id/12-Volt-Battery-Hack!-You'll-be-Surprised.../


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## thekobk (Sep 19, 2007)

even wikipedia mentions the aaaa fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAAA_battery


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## Illum (Sep 20, 2007)

Norm said:


> I didn't say some nine Volt batteries use AAA what I meant was some use AAAA other use a flat stack of cells.



I have yet to see the ones with stacked cells:candle:
they aren't universal button cells are they?


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## Fallingwater (Sep 20, 2007)

Illum_the_nation said:


> I have yet to see the ones with stacked cells
> they aren't universal button cells are they?


In my experience the more expensive 9v batteries have AAAAs, while the cheaper ones have square (not button) cells.
On this topic: are the single flat cells any use? What's their capacity, and what are they called?


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## lctorana (Sep 20, 2007)

*are the single flat cells any use?*
No - no metal contacts; you can't connect to them.

*What's their capacity?*
About 100mAh-ish (zinc-carbon)

*what are they called?*
F22


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## Fallingwater (Sep 20, 2007)

How can they possibly have no metal contacts? How do they pass the energy to the other cells in series and to the battery terminals?


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## Illum (Sep 20, 2007)

probably pressed to contact when they stacked them and then crimped the tops down

I'm going to take apart one of the "flower power" heavy duty 9Vs pak-lites come with and see for myself...unfortunately my cameras currently on vacation with someone else

EDIT: actually I did a search on it....theres a "9V compatible" cell consisting of 6 F22s stacked, looked nothing like a 9V




EDIT: lctorana, what bothers me is that its slightly shorter and fatter to say, duracell



:thanks: for pointing that out Fenris


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## lctorana (Sep 20, 2007)

Erm - mean to say you've NEVER dismantled a zinc-carbon 9v (or 15 or 22.5 or 45 or 67.5 or 90v) battery?

They are graphite-y carbon on one side, and something sooty and black on the other. And waxed cardboard or plastic on the sides. Some brands do have a metal plate on one side of each cell, but not all.

Trust me - it's both messy and pointless.


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## lctorana (Sep 20, 2007)

Your edit puzzles me - that looks EXACTLY like a 9v battery to me - it's certainly what I was talking about - what were you expecting?

Eveready 216 / English PP3.


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## Fenris (Sep 21, 2007)

lctorana said:


> Your edit puzzles me - that looks EXACTLY like a 9v battery to me - it's certainly what I was talking about - what were you expecting?
> 
> Eveready 216 / English PP3.




That battery looks shorter and a little fatter than a regular 9v. To me anyway.


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## lctorana (Sep 21, 2007)

Ahhhh...

Happens when you get to my age.


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## Handlobraesing (Sep 21, 2007)

Heavy duty = 4 x F
Alkaline Energizer = 4 x F
Most other 6v lantern = 4 x D

Go to the store. Feel the weight on Energizer vs other. Energizer weighs noticeably more thanks to Fs being used instead of Ds


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## BobKy (Sep 21, 2007)

Bushman5 said:


> well, just for poops and giggles i'm going to buy a a lantern batt today and see what happens when i gut it. I can think of plenty of LED lights i got that would run a long time on cheap AA's



I just opened a Ray-o-Vac 6 volt battery and it contained only 4 non-standard 1.5 volt cells.


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## wptski (Sep 21, 2007)

I heard about this the other day at work and it is the Wal-Mart brand "only"! If the whole thing is a joke, I don't know.


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## Illum (Sep 21, 2007)

wptski said:


> I heard about this the other day at work and it is the Wal-Mart brand "only"! If the whole thing is a joke, I don't know.



its starting to sound like Wallys selling cheap AAs in a container that looks like a 6V lantern battery.


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## electromage (Sep 21, 2007)

I don't think it's a joke. It's certainly not worth it though. The AAs in that battery are going to be some crappy carbon zinc, like the kind that come with some cheap electronics. They're almost useless, but if you really want a lot of cheap batteries instead of a few good ones, you can find bulk packs of them extremely cheap anyway.

I really don't see the practicality of this, the author makes it look like this is some kind of magic money-saving technique, but it's not. I use Titanium NiMH cells, and they're fairly expensive, but still a heck of a lot cheaper in the long run than taking apart alkaline lantern batteries.

Now for a more interesting "hack"...somebody should take apart a lantern battery, replace the cells with either high power, or 2700mAh cells, and put it back together to create a "Super Mega Ultra Heavy Duty" lantern battery!

..."ray-o-vac lantern" hotwire anybody?


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## Quickbeam (Sep 21, 2007)

The 9V pictures above are probably distorted. The top picture appears to be squashed top-to-bottom resulting in the unusual look of the battery.

Rayovac 9V (at least when I dissected one several years ago) consists of flat cells encased in plastic. We had a thread going a long time ago where a bunch of us dissected 9V's looking for the brands that had AAAA for running the Stylus.

Can't find the thread now, but if you do a search for AAAA you can find several threads about this topic.


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## lctorana (Sep 21, 2007)

My understanding about 216/PP3 style 9v batteries is:

All zinc-carbon ones, from all manufacturers, whether standard-duty or heavy-duty, use F22 flat tablet cells.

All alkaline ones use AAAA cells.

(I have no idea what's inside a zinc-chloride/extra-heavy-duty one - probably F22, but I'm not calling it)

I know of no exceptions to the above rule. It's as chalk & cheese as you can get.

~~~~~

For vintage radio reasons, I have recently dismantled some NiMH ones, and found seven of what I will call AAAAA cells!


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## evan9162 (Sep 21, 2007)

lctorana said:


> My understanding about 216/PP3 style 9v batteries is:
> 
> All alkaline ones use AAAA cells.




Not true. I have personally disassembled duracells, ray-o-vacs, and off-branch alkalines all which were made of the flat square cells.


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## lctorana (Sep 21, 2007)

Ahhhh...

Alkaline F22s!

Thanks!


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## evan9162 (Sep 21, 2007)

Yep. Though the stack was pretty well bonded together, I don't think there was a good way to extract an individual cell from the stack. Probably no good reason to disassemble it.


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## Fallingwater (Sep 21, 2007)

lctorana said:


> For vintage radio reasons, I have recently dismantled some NiMH ones, and found seven of what I will call AAAAA cells!


More info about these "five-A" cells, please


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## Fusion (Sep 22, 2007)

http://www.break.com/index/lantern-battery-trick-fails.html

there you go, four "F" cells.


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## lctorana (Sep 22, 2007)

Fallingwater said:


> More info about these "five-A" cells, please


 
Erm, dunno what to say, really.

They're 7mm diameter, 41mm long cylindrical flat-top cells, and the mAh capacity is - well, whatever your 9v NiMH battery is. Say, 160 or 180 or 200mAh.

I know this is only a smidgin less than AAAA, so thay might be called slim-AAAA, or some other naff title, but the extra size reduction results from the need to pack 7 into that PP3 case.


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## Marduke (Sep 22, 2007)

lctorana said:


> Erm, dunno what to say, really.
> 
> They're 7mm diameter, 41mm long cylindrical flat-top cells, and the mAh capacity is - well, whatever your 9v NiMH battery is. Say, 160 or 180 or 200mAh.
> 
> I know this is only a smidgin less than AAAA, so thay might be called slim-AAAA, or some other naff title, but the extra size reduction results from the need to pack 7 into that PP3 case.



There is no AAAAA battery, so they must have been AAAA's. The probably squeezed another one in there to help compensate for the low voltage. Alkaline 9v batteries are.... 9 volts, from 6xAAAA @ 1.5v each =9v. Rechargable AAAA's run at 1.2 volts, so 6xAAAA @ 1.2v each = 7.2v. If they squeezed another one in there, they can get 8.4v out of it.


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## turbodog (Sep 22, 2007)

BobKy said:


> I just opened a Ray-o-Vac 6 volt battery and it contained only 4 non-standard 1.5 volt cells.



They ARE standard cells, just not ones you recognize.

They are an "F" cell. It's a classification, just like "C" "D" "AA".


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## lctorana (Sep 22, 2007)

Marduke said:


> There is no AAAAA battery, so they must have been AAAA's.


I did say there were seven of them, and I did say they are smaller than AAAA.

Don't care what you call them.


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## 65535 (Sep 22, 2007)

Did anyone notice that all the cells had no dielectric coating of any kind? The batteries would short out on themselves if not connected in parallel that is a complete BS video. Just so you know.


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## Quickbeam (Sep 23, 2007)

F Cell Information:

http://www.prc68.com/I/No6.shtml#F

and scroll down in that same page for more info on lantern batteries...


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## Marduke (Sep 23, 2007)

While shopping at Target, I saw something interesting. A Rayovac 6-volt lantern that uses a battery holder that uses 4xD's, but is in the shape of a 6-volt lantern battery. The light even advertises it can use either the special holder, or a 6v lantern battery. I've seen several lights with this adapter, but I have yet to see it sold separately.

http://www.rayovac.com/flashlight/4d-b_rb.shtml


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## lctorana (Sep 23, 2007)

The logic of these is the same as those 1AA carriers - they might get you out of a hole, but as F cells have nearly double the size of equivalent D cells at equal or less cost, you wouldn't use the carrier if you have access to a proper 4F lantern battery.


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## Illum (Sep 23, 2007)

65535 said:


> Did anyone notice that all the cells had no dielectric coating of any kind? The batteries would short out on themselves if not connected in parallel that is a complete BS video. Just so you know.



they might have a very light coat on that matter....the F cells are essentially naked too


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## lctorana (Sep 23, 2007)

I've dismantled heaps of these things, and I've yet to strike a coating.

The F cells I have encountered have either a cardboard sleeve, which resembles a toilet roll in miniature, or the casing has plastic divisions built in, leaving the cells naked but separated.


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## ampdude (Sep 24, 2007)

Illum_the_nation said:


> I have yet to see the ones with stacked cells:candle:
> they aren't universal button cells are they?




I took apart a Fuji 9V that had stacked cells.


When I buy lantern batteries for my 6V lantern lights, I try to buy the alkaline ones with F cells. I'll only buy the carbon zinc ones if they are really, really cheap, like $1.99 or less. Some of the 6V lantern batteries, alkaline & carbon zinc, do come with 4 D cells inside, so you have to watch what you buy.


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## lctorana (Sep 24, 2007)

ampdude said:


> Some of the 6V lantern batteries, alkaline & carbon zinc, do come with 4 D cells inside, so you have to watch what you buy.


 
I've heard of this of course, quite often. Maybe Australia is different, and maybe it varies from batch to batch, but I have yet to strike this.

As a service to CPF members, could we start posting which brands and battery model nos contain D cells?

For zinc-carbon, this is more of an issue than you might think, as a HD F -cell has over 10 Ah capacity, and can last anything up to 10 years! The equivalent D cell


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## lctorana (Sep 24, 2007)

ampdude said:


> Some of the 6V lantern batteries, alkaline & carbon zinc, do come with 4 D cells inside, so you have to watch what you buy.


 
I've heard of this of course, quite often. Maybe Australia is different, and maybe it varies from batch to batch, but I have yet to strike this. I have dismantled Eveready, Acme, Panasonic and Mallory in recent years.

As a service to CPF members, could we start posting which brands and battery model no's contain D cells?

_ For Zinc-Carbon cells, this is more of an issue than you might think. For example, a heavy-duty F cell has over 10 Ah capacity, and can give anything up to 10 years' service! The equivalent D cell would be lucky to give you half that._


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## Fallingwater (Sep 25, 2007)

Weird, I haven't seen lantern batteries on sale around here. Electronics shops probably carry them, but I doubt they'll be as cheap as $2 a pop.
Too bad, I could use some F cells. One could probably power a wall clock for a decade


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## Norm (Sep 25, 2007)

They are usually on sale at the bigger hardware shops here , Bunnings etc.. You can often pick up a lantern and two batteries for about A$10.
Norm


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## lctorana (Sep 25, 2007)

And all supermarkets.


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## lctorana (Sep 25, 2007)

Fallingwater said:


> ...F cells. One could probably power a wall clock for a decade


Easily - I'd almost guarantee it!


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## Illum (Oct 9, 2007)

evan9162 said:


> Yep. Though the stack was pretty well bonded together, I don't think there was a good way to extract an individual cell from the stack. Probably no good reason to disassemble it.



well, since no one bothered to put up pics on the 6xF22 9V, heres an disassembly of a "golden power heavy duty" 
I um....left my pak-lite on in my backpack for I think the entire day, when I found it it was basically a dim glow from the LEDs.....the cells ruptured and if I was going to disassemble further its going to be an acidic mess.


 

 

 
notice the "bubbles" inside the sealed cell assembly? 





the contacts are spiked and only contact the cell at limited points, so no stable contacts there



acid on bottom contact


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## parnass (Oct 31, 2007)

zigziggityzoo said:


> As featured on LifeHacker:
> 
> http://lifehacker.com/software/how-to/get-32-aa-batteries-from-a-single-6-volt-battery-301237.php



Debunked on snopes.com.


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## ampdude (Oct 31, 2007)

I picked up another lantern light for $3.50 at Walmart last week for my truck since I gave the one I had in there away.

I would like to get one of those 4D to lantern size adapters if I see one in the store someday. As mentioned above, it may not be as bright or as long running as a lantern battery with F cells, but will get you out of a bind if you have D cells laying around like I normally do. Hey, a 4D Maglite still runs a looooong time. :candle:


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## Exide (Jan 13, 2012)

I have hacked old batteries to rebuild them for my radios, The PP9 contains tablet or as there known over here layer cells. I took apart a Cegasa pp9 an it had six u10 round cells in series at 1.5V each, the same for the 3r12, i have an Ever Ready wallite that uses U10s an if you need them just hack apart a £r12 four half volt battery, there are three in series inside. The zinc carbon pp3 has layer cells but alkaline has six small round cells inside, All old HT batteries will have tablet or layer cells in but the real old ones have round U10s in. LT radio batteries are always zinc rounds in. Now for the lantern batteries, i have hacked many apart to use the old casings for a rebuild for my old lamps, these contain four large round cells in series everytime but i hacked a air alkaline lantern battery an it had four tray cells in with metal covers, the plastic trays had the manganease dioxide mixed with potassium hydroxide as the electrolite, the manganease is that black powder stuff. daft as it sounds i did rebuild a lantern battery with 32 AA cells four wired in series the same with the other four then joined the lot in para, i did the same for the other three chambers that this battery has, it was a tight fit an very labour intensive, No company who makes batteries would do this as the expence is to much an a lantern battery made this way would cost alot. I also hacked apart an Ever Ready four half volt 481 cell to rebuild, it was a 1960s one an had 12 D cells inside, four rows of three, each three wired in series then the lot joined in para to make it last longer, My pics are on here. When i first heard about the lantern battery hack i did not believe it but some did an a few went out an baught these batteries in the hope of finding 32 AAs. You can put those F cells to good use though, you can use them in your old bike lamps that use a twin cell battery thats no longer made, make sure you insulate the cells and be very clever with a solder iron an be patient when adding those strip terminals.


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