NiCds are great for those solar-powered lights that get charged up in the daytime and flattened overnight.

NiCds seem to like this kind of service and will happily do it for many years. Float charge service? Nah!

This US video popped up on my recommend viewing list. It features autopsies on LED bulbs, each with the same failure mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Pemtc3Uhw

(PS: You might like to play this at 1.5 times normal speed. He's a slow talker.)

I do have issues with where NiCd is used. If the battery is run flat & then recharged, that's fine. What has to be watched out for is that they can reverse polarity, if run down too far. In two of my flash guns the battery holder had Barretters, an idea I copied, in chargers that were on batteries that could draw heavy current.

These I have found in my exit lights? One failed pretty quickly due to battery quality. That is of concern when discharged partially: They have a memory and only charge partially if that happens. I wonder at how many exit lights get tossed for not running, due to the wrong sort of battery.

Marc

NiCads were used almost exclusively in portable ham radio walkie talkies (we called them "handie talkies" or "HTs"). Thing was, the NiCads never lasted as long as claimed, in terms of recharges and time to when the battery goes flat after a charge). I don't think anyone actually got a thousand recharges out of a pack. I modified an old Icom u-2AT to use a lithium ion 8.4V pack I got from a Nikon camera. This pack fit inside the old battery case, and I use the Nikon charger, which I also modified to have a 3 wire cable and a plug to connect it to the new battery's 3 contacts. Works a lot better.

The globe in the bathroom finally failed, old school tungsten filament type about 100 years old.
Got a new one from Woolies and guess what, no old school types that destroy the atmosphere and cause global warming, just a choice of dim bulbs full of poisonous radio active electronics OR, MY LORD an old school bulb with a QI bulb mounted in the middle where the filament used to be.
So that construction must be ok with greenies, thumbsuckers and climate panic merchants and wont cause global warming and climate change?
Folks we are surrounded by children and idiots like that ferrymcferryface controller for trains in NSW.
No wonder revolutions start.
About time for "the rise of the technicians" and take the world over and run it properly!
Fred.

An update to my post about the high failure rate of LED 'globes' that I purchased in a batch from Aldi last year; another two failures. I am now keeping a record of the date that I installed each globe. One that I put in to replace a previous failure lasted just 22 hours (based on estimated three hours per day). The other lasted just 12 minutes installed in a table lamp (base down and with a large open shade allowing ample air flow). Also when I removed this failed globe I burnt my fingers on the envelop as it was as hot as a 60W incandescence globe that had been on the same length of time. So this experience would suggest that the claim that LEDs are energy efficient because they have an 'electronic' power supply and therefore run cool is a load of rubbish.

Andrew

The other lasted just 12 minutes

Seriously, contact Aldi and tell them not foist any more of that junk on the public.

The 'batch' issue is one worth highlighting. Most Aldi stuff is under generic brands rather than those of the big companies. I bought a pack of six LED globes from Aldi in Gladesville when that store opened on the old North & Western Bus Lines depot site about five years ago and they are still all working to this day. There's a good chance that subsequent orders for globes come from different suppliers and simply get packed in the same packaging for sale.

Hi Fred.

Refering to your post, #:80 We now refer to "greenies, thumbsuckers and climate panic merchants" as "Bedwetters".
It uses less space.

Wayne.

Hi Wayne, "Bedwetters", yup that's better, i'll try and work that into a few posts!
Cheers, Fred.