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Tired of expensive disposable batteries and rechargeable AA suck. So I made a 10k mAh pack for my deadbolt. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 week ago* by to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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Eneloops would only last about 3 weeks. And disposable last 2 months. This door is used a lot and since it has Zwave and a door open sensor it sends info on every open.

Bonus, since it can handle the lipo AA batteries that put out 1.8v and it gives the motor more oomph I made the battery pack give 7.2v and it never sticks anymore.

This is a garage-door so its not critical access but is used a lot.

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[–] 8 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Rechargeable li-ion batteries are the game changer for me.

All the fancy expensive rechargeable including Eneloop would have a 30+% failure rate every recharge cycle and I wasted so much money. I have 16 li-ion AAs that I rotate including in my door locks and they have gone through multiple recharge cycles with no failures.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    If your Eneloops are failing that much, they are either being over discharged or something is wrong with your charger.

    All of my Eneloops have been much more reliable than lithium ion batteries.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    I may be the unluckiest person in the world, but I've bought expensive official Eneloops multiple times and used multiple chargers and just gave up. Sure, it may be because I'm doing something wrong, but I certainly couldn't figure out what that may be.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    30+% failure rate every recharge cycle

    What is considered a "failure" in this context?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    The battery no longer recharges and is effectively trash.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    That's just terrible to hear. My oldest Eneloops are going on a decade with no failures, but I also had fairly good luck when I used to buy cheaper rechargeables. The common thing might be only using slow chargers.

    Nobody else has brought this up, but I've read that counterfeit Eneloops are a thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I had a similar failure rate then changed my charger and haven't had a battery fail since. My original charger was Energiser branded, which is the most common battery where I live so I thought it had to be fine. I replaced it with an eneloop BQ-CC55. I don't love it - it's a fast charger and it makes batteries uncomfortably hot, but it was able to charge batteries to full health that both my energiser and trickle charger thought were dead dead. That includes energiser batteries!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    Thanks for the recommendation. If somehow my li-ion batteries die, I may try again (I couldn't make myself throw out the Eneloops after spending so much, even if they wouldn't charge, so who knows...).

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