Hi Folks.
My fascination with battery life in domestic equipment continues.

Recently I wanted to find out the metric equivalent of fluid ounces, so I reached for my Metric Conversion Calculator, a Toshiba
LC-838.

Unfortunately' it failed to switch on. I thought that the battery contacts might have become tarnished. However when I opened it up, I found that one of the two LR-44 batteries had leaked . The other battery measured 1.5volts.

Now to the meat and potatoes.
These two batteries were fitted on 13-8-2004. The previous batteries came fitted with the calculator in 1980.

My conclusion.
Unless you are powering a watch, batteries seem to work to their shelf life. As in the example above, one battery was still at its rated voltage.

Whenever I am in a long line at the check out of a two dollar store, I will look at the packets of batteries to see how many I can find containing batteries that are leaking. You would be surprised how often I find leaking batteries.

I personally never purchase Zinc/Carbon batteries. Even alkaline batteries appear to be not the safe bet they once were.

Wayne.

I have made comment on this previously. As far as I can see battery quality went to hell years ago. I stopped buying the brand with the Rabbit years ago and the local Woolworths took them off the shelf about the same time. The Mexican ones were alright for a while but I will not use them.

The PAT tester has the 10year storage Lithium's in it from the mob that wiped out Bhopal. These are leaking like sieves into a bunded battery box and of course they want you to jump through a myriad of hoops to avoid claiming on them for failing. So I would not advise using them either.

So far I have not had major issues with Jaycar & Woolworths Chevron, but leakage in button batteries is becoming an issue. However, one can rest assured that the regulatory authority will again be caught asleep at the wheel and nothing will happen.

Woolworths Chevron

Worse than Duracell.

AVOID !!!!

I find that interesting, one expects cheap batteries to be a bit on the trashy side but so far its the big brand names that I have had the worst experiences with.

And as noted there seems to be every attempt at avoidance, by hoop jumping, with the one with the cat on it to accept any liability.

A few days ago was told that Varta D cells are now being made in China. Previously they were of German manufacture.

Not sure but believe Varta has been taken over by Energiser ??

If so really disappointed as always bought Vartas as they were a non Chinese make, a bit of diversity.

One gets the feeling that the only difference in these batteries is the colour of the jacket. Its like one big phone company here, its all about greed & profit and nothing about either quality, nor service.

I am not surprised with Varta, Australia is aping their woke climate change model, as it has now realised it doesn't work. Our bureaucracy will love it. They will adopt anything that doesn't work with gusto.

Because the power is so unreliable many German companies, like ours, are shutting up shop and shifting operations to China & SE Asia.

The batteries I trust most are bought from Aldi.
They are alkaline and called Active Energy.
Their case is predominately silver and blue in colour.
I haven't had any fail on me yet.

Wayne.

My experience with Aldi "Active Energy" alkaline batteries is the same as yours Wayne.

Talking about alkaline batteries:

The orange batteries I haven't touched for twenty years. Perhaps they have improved, but not so based on people's comments here.
So have stuck with the silver batteries and no problems - even those in clocks that run flat and are left in place. I recently bought silver batteries at a cheap shop because I was in a hurry. The packaging was different but otherwise the batteries look identical to those from the big two retailers.

The Aldi batteries I haven't tried but will do so next time some are needed.

It is a constant education progress to convince people to not mix batteries not new out of the same packet, or different in any way. Have had to repair remotes where this rule has been broken.

Also if taking batteries out of a remote that is going out of use, tape them together so that they can go together into another remote.

Another thing that this keyboard and some cordless phones did, and do, is to stop working where there were /are stainless steel contacts.

I have no idea of which grade they are using but is seems to form some sort of skin that causes non-conduction? One takes out the batteries & puts them back & all is well, until it happens again. Or you clean the contacts on the phone.

Marc

"some sort of skin that cases non-conduction?"
My quick cure for this is to take off the battery compartment and spin the batteries with my thumb. Usually works.

In a former life it was my duty to cut up batteries to see what type of steel was used. For alkaline it was nickel plated steel. For normal batteries it was tin plated steel. At the time we assumed this was because tin is amphoteric, that it is attacked by both acids and alkalies, so that for alkaline batteries, nickel was used to make them resistant to the chemicals and so resistant to leaking. Be interested to know if anyone knows that this is in fact the case.

An interesting summary of Panasonic's history of battery development:

https://www.panasonic.com/global/energy/products/battery/profile/history.html