Comment by everdrive

Comment by everdrive 2 days ago

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>Meanwhile, alkaline batteries can go to hell. You might as well plan on one leaking in the battery compartment.

On the other hand, alkaline batteries never burn your house down.

I also feel like they serve different purposes. Needed for long-term storage and only used in an emergency? (eg, a flashlight for power outages) You're probably better off going with old-fashioned alkaline batteries. Duracell claims they're good for 10 years. Needed for day-to-day usage? Lithium might be better: you can monitor for swelling, the battery recharge-ability is probably more important than any of the downsides that come with lithium ion batteries.

aftbit 2 days ago

No, there's basically no reason you'd ever want an alkaline battery except cost. For your use case of long-term storage or a rarely used flashlight (e.g. in a car emergency kit), you'd want a Li/FeS2 as the parent poster recommended, also called just a "Lithium" primary (i.e. non-rechargable) cell. They have a longer shelf life, don't leak, hold more energy, can provide a higher discharge current, work over a wider temperature range, and have safety characteristics very similar to alkaline.

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  • Spooky23 2 days ago

    Great point.

    I was going to say cost is a really significant factor there, but I was thinking convenience retail where they are marked up. They are only 3x more on Amazon. Now you're guaranteed to damage equipment as the current alkaline formulations leak.

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  • pimeys 2 days ago

    There is one very good reason: the discharge curve. An alcaline battery loses voltage when it discharges, the lithium ones discharge with the max voltage until they suddenly stop working.

    This is a reason insulin pumps require specifically high quality alkaline and lithium is considered a risk.

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  • everdrive 2 days ago

    That's an interesting counterpoint, thanks for letting me know. I was really under the impression that lithium ion batters discharged more aggressively. Maybe that's just more reflective of how they lose capacity over time? Can you speak to the fire risk?

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    • mbrubeck 2 days ago

      The comment above is about non-rechargable lithium-metal batteries. You are thinking of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

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  • js2 2 days ago

    Main disadvantage is cost. Looking on Amazon, it's $1.61/ea AA lithium vs $0.62/ea akalaline. That's Energizer vs Energizer. Amazon Basics AA alkaline are $0.32/ea. (Unlike alkaline, knock-off lithium aren't much cheaper than Energizer.)

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    • jdietrich 2 days ago

      If I had a dollar for every device that I've seen ruined by leaking alkaline cells, I could buy a palletload of lithium cells.

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    • Dylan16807 2 days ago

      Well how many batteries do you need as long term storage for emergency use? $10 worth?

      Everything else use rechargables for a dollar-ish plus charger cost.

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      • js2 2 days ago

        I actually can't think of anything besides smoke detectors that I'd use these for, of which my house has 10 or so. Not having to replace those yearly would be worth it. I use Eneloop NiMH or Li-ion rechargeables just about everywhere else.

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  • jandrese 2 days ago

    There are a handful of applications where alkalines are better. IR TV remotes run effectively forever on a couple of batteries and the slow self discharge on the alkalines makes them ideal for the task.

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    • bxparks 2 days ago

      Great in theory.

      In practice, the Duracell alkaline battery will leak caustic fluids inside the remote control and destroy it, and you will have to mortgage your house to buy a replacement on eBay, if it's even available. (I pick on Duracell because they are the worst. They leak if you look at them wrong, when they are brand new, inside the original packaging, before their "expiration date". But all alkalines are bad.)

      All my remotes get NiMH batteries, no matter what. I don't care if one charge cycle lasts 10 years. It's cheaper than having the battery destroy the remote.

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      • dfe 2 days ago

        I've only had batteries leak in remotes left unused for over a year. I just pick up Duracell or whatever is at Costco.

        I've also bought two replacement remotes off of Amazon in the past year, one Samsung and one Insignia. I think they were $15-20 each, which seemed very reasonable to me.

        Generally they won't have the manufacturer's logo, but everything else on the outside looks 100% identical, and all the buttons worked.

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      • bigstrat2003 2 days ago

        I have never, in my 40 years of life, had an alkaline battery leak and destroy something. I'm aware that it can happen, but in practice it doesn't happen very often.

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    • SAI_Peregrinus 2 days ago

      I think you're thinking of rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries. GP is talking about lithium primary cells, which have even lower self-discharge than alkalines. Usually about 1/2 the self-discharge rate of alkalines.

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  • fanf2 2 days ago

    > there's basically no reason you'd ever want an alkaline battery except cost

    Rechargeable batteries are much cheaper than disposable single-use batteries.

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  • jrockway 2 days ago

    Lithium primaries are great. I use them in my weather station. 2AAs have lasted at least 4 years, and still work well when it's 0F out.

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D13Fd 2 days ago

> You're probably better off going with old-fashioned alkaline batteries.

Never. They will leak and die. Alkaline cells always end up leaking and dying in my experience, given enough time.

In fact, I do the reverse: If it's something I think will sit for a long time, I make sure to put a rechargeable battery in it. That way, worst case, it's dead—but it won't be destroyed by a leak.

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  • hn_acc1 2 days ago

    It's gotten worse over the course of my life, IMHO. Costco's Kirkland batteries 15 years ago rarely leaked - now they do it in months sometimes. We had leakage a bit back when I was a kid (80s) but I honestly don't remember it happening as often.

    It's one of the things that pushed me all-in on Eneloop. We were throwing away 10-20 AAs/month at one point (wife likes electric candles). Recently, it's been 2 or 4 as we discover old remotes or something we hadn't replaced yet. And we have 8-20 AAs and 2-4 AAAs charged and ready to go at any point. Swap, and put the empty ones in the charger is now the standard process at our house.

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  • thinking_cactus 2 days ago

    I have seen panasonic cells around my area advertised as leak-proof (or was it leak resistant?). I wonder the effectiveness.

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Zak 2 days ago

Alkaline has a tendency to leak electrolyte when stored in devices long-term, especially if used intermittently, even more so if the loads are at the upper end of what alkaline can handle as they are in many modern flashlights. The electrolyte is corrosive and often results in a broken device, which is exactly what you don't want in an emergency.

Li-ion's self-discharge is pretty low for a bare unprotected cell, and a flashlight with a mechanical switch consumes no power when off. One must take care to avoid short circuits when handling such a cell, but modern Li-ion flashlights have over-discharge protection, so that's the main safety concern with a single-cell design.

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