Worst AA Battery performance ever?

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milspec78

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Tristan
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The last batch of AA's i bought off of an online auction site have 3500mAh stamped on the side in large easy to read letters. They were sold as NIMH 3500mAh and it stated that in the title and the text.

I knew full well i would not get 3500mAh out of any of them but i reckoned even if they gave 2000mAh out per charge they were bargains and I would be happy!

They have had the full conditioning cycle on my analyser and the one with the highest capacity reached the dizzy heights of 850mAh!. Most only managed 800mAh, worse than any of my AAA's!

Such blatant false marketing, the cheek of it! It says they have sold 850 sets of these exact type, i bet almost all of the owners have no idea! They probably arent even Nimh!

Definately the worst AA batteries I have ever come across!
 
How much did you pay for them?
 
While that site's good for some stuff, I'd never buy easily-counterfeited products (headphones, sunglasses, memory cards etc) or unbranded electrical goods from there.

Much like many things in life you get what you pay for - I use exclusively Annsmann MaxE rechargables in my flashes and they've been very good. These or eneloops (both low-self discharge designs) are all I'd consider tbh :)
 
They were super cheap bout £4 a set in the end and i only wanted them to keep my gooduns out of the kids toys to be honest. By the time the Innotab, Early Learning Centre gadgets and an annoying noisy plastic frog with movements and sound effects have been powered up i struggle to fill my flashes with batteries :)

I am going to return them just out of principle, the audacity to label 850mAh batteries as 3500mAh hit a nerve :)

Interestingly I have 8 sets of Maplin 2500mAh NIMH that have had hundreds of fast charges through them each over the last 4-5 years and they all still hold in excess of 2300mAh. They were less than £5 per set and have been exceptionally reliable!
 
how did you measure the capacity?

I have some eneloops, and some 7dayshop ones (roughly same price what you paid) and they are perfect in my flashes, last for 100+ high power shots.
 
as far as i could find on the net they only went up to 3000mah.... ive got loads of 3000mah and 2900mah and they are fab batteries- they last forever (not literally of course)
 
I've learned the hard way that when it comes to flash batteries and SD cards, not to save that couple of quid by going unbranded. It's Eneloops and Sandisk all the way for me. And only from reputable dealers.

The risks simply are not worth it.
 
WARNING - OCD confession follows:

I have AccuPower IQ328 charger/analysers. There are loads of similar units available (a lot come with euro plugs, the Accupower one is uk model). If you use loads of rechargeables one of these is mega.

In test mode it does some trickery and gives a readout of the capacity in mAh on completion a few hours later. Makes it dead simple to match like capacity's to a set and pick out and replace a bad cell.

...Exercises my battery related OCD....(hangs head in shame)...:)
 
Do us all a favour and "Name and Shame" the offending trader!
Nothing wrong in doing this, you'll be working WITH the Law. You've been sold either counterfeit goods or have had a fraud perpetrated against you.

Leave bad and warning feedback, report them to eBay and also Pay Pal if thats what you used to pay for them.

But even if you cant be bothered to do that, NAME THEM! Without it any of us could be dealing with them in the future.
 
Wont name, but the batteries are all green and have 3500mAh stamped on the side of them, easy to avoid as they are the only one on there :)
 
I can't help thinking it's one of those cases of 'if it sounds too good to be true...blah de blah de blah...'
The batteries are unbranded and only sold by one seller on ebay, none of the world's major manufacturers quotes anything like that capacity in AA.
You're not daft, you said yourself you knew you wouldn't get anywhere near 3500mAh out of them and was only expecting to get not much more than half that so I'm genuinely puzzled as to why you bought them instead of paying maybe a little more for some branded ones from a proper retailer which you knew would give you somewhere near the performance they quoted? :shrug:

Just doing a google search for 3500mAh AA makes you suspicious, names like 'Star Power', Ultra Fire', 'Superpower'....Who? :shrug:
 
I suspect that the AA seller may have been "clever" with the wording.
Some sellers will advertise a 750wS, 3 head flash kit when referring to 3 x 250wS heads. Your 3500mAh AA's have been sold as a set of 4 and just about reach the claimed capacity.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
I suspect that the AA seller may have been "clever" with the wording.
Some sellers will advertise a 750wS, 3 head flash kit when referring to 3 x 250wS heads. Your 3500mAh AA's have been sold as a set of 4 and just about reach the claimed capacity.

Bob
Click to expand...

Hehe, nice theory Bob but no, the seller claims they're the best on the market and have the highest capacity available.
The seller also has a website and is selling them for only £3.29 for a four pack now so get 'em while they're hot. :LOL:
 
I had a similar experience and I suspect they are the same type of charge in them.

Anyway, I bought some hahnel 2800 and they are really good. Even the jessops 2100 I found are pretty good, definately exceeded my low expectations!
 
I use the 7dayshop own brand 2900Mhz AA's and they are fantastic. I took over 600 flashes with a Nissin Di866, 400+ on 1 night and 200+ the next at 2 concerts, and they were still cycling at under 3 seconds. I got about 800 shots altogether on the 1 set before they became too slow to recycle.

I've got about 6 or 7 sets in my bag usually, some of them have been in the bag over 6 months and I checked them recently to see how they had held the charge and they were still over 85% charged.
 
gadgeteer said:
I've learned the hard way that when it comes to flash batteries and SD cards, not to save that couple of quid by going unbranded. It's Eneloops and Sandisk all the way for me. And only from reputable dealers.

The risks simply are not worth it.
Click to expand...

Same here although i had a sandisk card go wrong a few weeks ago, contacted them though and i had to send it back to Czech Republic, still waiting to hear back.
 
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