I found this and would like to hear your opinions on it:
http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/207/44/
Does this really work or is it another hoax.
Thank!
JD
Alkaline batteries can be recharged, I used to do it. It’s OK where the current drain is limited.
Leon
Techincally you should be able to reverse any chemical reaction. It just depends how much energy you need to throw at it. I don’t believe, alkaline’s aren’t the most efficient in terms of recharge. Recharging is still better than throwing them out in my opinion.
One thing that would be a good idea on that recharger would be also limiting by temerature. 24 ohm PTC termistor in stead of a straight resistor with mounting near the battery would make it a little safer on the initial charging of weak batteries (since this is a regulated current source now).
I also don’t think charging batteries in series is a good idea either, since you don’t know the distribution of charging. Parallel with some diodes would work the best. As well as having an input voltage of around 1.5V + the average voltage drop of the circuit so that the current would be reduced to 0 on a full charge.
For a while you could buy “rechargeable alkalines”, but I haven’t seen them in a while. I have heard that normal alkalines can be recharged to some extent, but I don’t remember what the downside is. They might not last very many cycles, or something like that.
wiml:
For a while you could buy “rechargeable alkalines”, but I haven’t seen them in a while. I have heard that normal alkalines can be recharged to some extent, but I don’t remember what the downside is. They might not last very many cycles, or something like that.
I tried them and they didn’t seem any better than ordinary alkaline cells in the supplied charger. That’s probably why they aren’t around any more.
‘Dirty’ DC - unsmoothed rectified AC - is supposed to be best for recharging. The technique has been around for over 40 years.
Leon