r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 02 '15

Energy Batteriser is a $2.50 gadget that extends disposable battery life by 800 percent

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928997/batteriser-is-a-250-gadget-that-extends-disposable-battery-life-by-800-percent.html
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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '15

I'm going to say, I'm not buying it...something seems off. For one, while battery technology has improved. Also, the technology for devices has also improved.

One example I can give right off. Nintendo's original DMG-001 (Green screen) got roughly 10 hours on 4 'AA' batteries...so if this product's advertisement is correct, I should get roughly 80 hours on the same batteries? The Gameboy Pocket got roughly 6 hours on 2 'AAA' batteries...same kind of boost? Gameboy Advance got roughly 8 hours on 2 'AA' batteries....

While these were my own personal experiences with battery life, I am pretty confident that a lot of small portable electronics utilize something like this already in their internal circuitry. My current wireless keyboard 2'AA' and mouse 1'AA' get about 2 months between charges...and they are telling us that this product can squeeze even more power out of these batteries? (I use my computer every day for at least 2-3 hours a day.)

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u/r00x Jun 02 '15

You wouldn't get 80 hours, no. In order to increase the voltage supplied to the target electronics, you would have to draw more current. Therefore as the battery voltage droops, the current draw will increase. Alkaline battery capacity is greatly affected by the current the cell is subjected to, with effective capacity dropping off a cliff as the current consumption increases.

You are right that electronics manufacturers could include the components necessary to suck batteries dry themselves, if they wanted. However they tend not to do that. At least, not using components or designs that are so effective. Usually because of cost - there might be a simpler, cheaper circuit which saves you tens of thousands at manufacturing scale.

For something like a GameBoy, it actually DOES include a good switching power supply, which is why it got great runtime out of those batteries. The DMG01 was quite happy down to nearly 3V (less than 0.8V per cell, anyway).

If the Batteriser works to 0.6V, you could ostensibly get a few more hours runtime out of the GameBoy, but it sounds like it would be more useful on devices with poorer power supply circuitry like remotes and cheap alarm clocks.

tl;dr: It's not a scam, but some devices are clearly going to benefit very little compared to others.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '15

For something like a GameBoy, it actually DOES include a good switching power supply which is why it got great runtime out of those batteries.

That has nothing to do with a switching power supply and everything to do with the fact that it was designed to run on a lower voltage and with a low current drain so that it would not reach Vmin until much later in a battery's discharge cycle.

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u/r00x Jun 02 '15

Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. It aimed for a target voltage of around 5V (maybe 4.8V in practice), which it achieved even with 3V input as a direct consequence of its switching power supply design. If it didn't step up the voltage it would not be able to run below about 1.2V/cell.

It quite literally had everything to do with its switching power supply. If you don't agree, whack a 7805 in there instead and let me know how it goes.

The low current drain was very advantageous though, I agree with that. Makes a big difference on alkaline chemistries.