Tag Archives: batteries

Battery stuff

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The consensus is pretty much universal: unless youre using lithium batts, your batteries are going to crap the bed and cost you your device.

Ii mention this because I just had to take two sets of slip-joint pliers to open the tailcap on a mini MagLite and you can imagine what the inside looked like. Fortunately, mini Maglites are not terribly expensive. But what if it was my GPS? Or my pocket radio? Or some other piece of expensive gear?

A while back I actually managed to catch a battery disintegration in progress.

It seems pretty clear that some sort of inspection is going to need to be performed on a somewhat regular basis for these items that have batteries left in them long-term. But, it also means I need to come up with a way to keep batteries at hand for when I don’t want to store them in the devices. Lets take the Siege lanterns that pretty much every one of you bought a few week back. Those take three D-batts. If I’m not going to keep them in the light, then i need to keep them nearby and I need to keep them protected. (And isolated from each other.) Tall order. Best thing I’ve seen thus far is this. Doesn’t seem to offer much elemental protection though. What I’d really like is something like this, but sized for D-batts. Is there such a thing? Dunno. I suppose the PVC minded might be able to create some sort of ‘cigar tube’ that holds three D-batts but I’d prefer a ready-made solution. In the meantime, while I quest for such a thing, I’m thinking a quarterly inspection schedule is going to have to be instituted..which means I need inspection tags for the devices. More work.But…whats it worth to have your gear work when you need it, right?

A quick addition to Evernote and I’ve got a checklist and a reminder to check batteries quarterly in..uhm..lets see….15 different devices.  We’ll see if this reduces the incidence of destroyed Maglites.

AA battery case and pouch

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Battery standardization is kind of an important thing. When I need batteries for my flashlight, radio, or other geegaw, the last thing I want is to discover I’m out of the battery I need but I have zillions of the batteries I don’t.

For my general needs, it’s just three battery sizes: CR123, AA, and D. End of story. Sometimes it requires a compromise when one product might use one of those batteries but another, better, product might use something like a 9-volt or C-battery. In cases like that I usually fall on the side of logistics because even if the product is a bit better, when the batteries fade and it’s non-functional it will be a lot less than ‘better’.

For stuff that I carry around in the Bag O’ Tricks there is no room for argument – one battery size. Period. Full stop.

For that task, I go with AA lithium batts. They are expensive, yes. The advantage is that they are far less vulnerable to temperature, and they tend to keep their charge over time. The problem is, how to carry spares. I used to just take an Altoids tin, line it with plastic, put tape over the ends of the batteries, and  store ’em that way. Cheap, but there are better ways. A fella handed me a Maxpedition catalog years ago and they had this little guy:

It has been my absolute first choice for storing spare batteries in my gear. It keeps them separate from each other, protects the important ends, and conveniently splits apart and is colored to help differentiate dead from live batteries. (Whys ave the dead ones? Might be rechargeables that you want to save for later recharging.)

I’ve used this thing to carry around my spare AA batts (and it’ll carry CR123 batts as well) for years and can’t think of a problem I’ve had with it. I keep it in the nylon pouch as an added measure of safety and security, but the plastic sleeve by itself would seem to work fine in a tucked away pocket on your gear.

The things I carry in my bag that need those batteries? A couple small LED lights, a small AM/FM/SW radio, and the very small and very useful ICOM R6 receiver. All of those run on AA’s and therefore I only need to keep the one type of battery in my bag. (Also means that, in a real crunch, I could swap batteries as needed between devices.)

While the pouch has MOLLE webbing to let you mount it to your gear, I find it more useful to carry it inside my gear. Why leave it outside your bag to get banged around?

As I said, I’ve used this sort of thing for carrying around spare batts for years and haven’t had a single problem with ’em. Recommended.

Link to two TSP podcasts on backup power

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Someone in comments pointed out this link to me and it was worth sharing:
http://www.battery1234.com/

Its a page with two episodes of The Survival Podcast on the subject of emergency backup battery systems. I listened to both episodes and was quite pleased. Lots of information and lots of very specific information…names are named. Yeah, everything the guy discusses is linked to on page and available off Amazon, but I thought the content of the two articles was so good that who was I to begrudge the man a chance to make a few bucks off his links?

I listen to TSP on and off…Far too much permaculture and gardening content for me. Not saying its not important, just saying that it gets boring after a while. Anyway, the two episodes at the link were, in my opinion, quite good and I recommend them to anyone who is still behind on getting some sort of backup/emergency power system in place.