Battery Reconditioning

I have a solar string light who’s battery died. And it was a 600ma Nimh. I was wondering, since I have some extras lying around, if I could replace this with a 350ma Nicad.

I just don’t know whether the circuitry inside is set to trickle for the 600 or larger battery. Or if it’ll adjust to whatever capacity battery is put in there. So I thought I would ask.

Not a good idea, as the charger is tuned for the specific type of battery, and it’s capacity.

Switching type and capacity, who knows, without a complete analysis of the charger, what will happen? May work, but may kill the battery.

I have an energizer battery charger for AA NiMH batteries. What happens if i try to charge some regular alkaline batteries. Would it recharge even a little bit, or would it cause damage the charger because of the voltage difference between NiMH and alkaline?

I doubt you would get a favourable result and my recommendation is to learn about it but not try it.
The worst case would be the alkaline batteries catch fire or explode due to gas pressure increase and internal heating.

Whether you would get a charge in it or not really depends on how your battery charger works as well. If it is a delta V type I think you will damage the alkaline batteries. If it is a low current pulse type it may work however it wouldn’t guarantee a charged battery. Most NiMH chargers push too much current into the battery for it to charge an alkaline so will probably still result in damage to the battery.

According to this website, some alkalines can be charged however require a specific charger.

I use AA Sanyo Eneloops, and the cheap charger that came with them only charges 2 or 4 at a time. I occasionally have to recharge the Enelopp batteries for a device that runs on 3 AA rechargeable batteries. I may soon have to recharge 6 or 9 batteries. Which is the best battery charger for NiMH batteries that can recharge any amount of AA batteries I want? And which would be most affordable?

The best for a reasonable about of money is the La Crosse BC-700 Battery Charger. $32.20 with free shipping at buy.com.

It can charge each cell individually can automatically discharge/charge them. It can also cycle discharge/charge batteries so you can tell if a battery has deteriorated.

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I have a nimh recharger, and I want to get additional batteries. I don’t want to have to buy a new charger, but I want to make sure I can recharge these new batteries.

Generally, any NiMH cell of the correct size should be usable,
but make certain that you use and charge them as sets,
not as individual cells that you grab and install at random.
(In other words, don’t mix-and-match cells without regard to
their brands and mAH ratings; use only matched sets.)

Last October, I bought a digital camera that uses AA cells.
I then bought some Sanyo "Eneloop" NiMH’s (a package
containing 8 AA’s and 4 AAA’s and a charger for them).
The camera uses 2 cells at a time, so I marked the AA’s
as pairs with numbers ("Pair 1", "Pair 2", etc.).

I have a nimh recharger, and I want to get additional batteries. I don’t want to have to buy a new charger, but I want to make sure I can recharge these new batteries.

Generally, any NiMH cell of the correct size should be usable,
but make certain that you use and charge them as sets,
not as individual cells that you grab and install at random.
(In other words, don’t mix-and-match cells without regard to
their brands and mAH ratings; use only matched sets.)

Last October, I bought a digital camera that uses AA cells.
I then bought some Sanyo "Eneloop" NiMH’s (a package
containing 8 AA’s and 4 AAA’s and a charger for them).
The camera uses 2 cells at a time, so I marked the AA’s
as pairs with numbers ("Pair 1", "Pair 2", etc.).