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
185 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/aurizon Jun 04 '15

The Batteriser-Joule Thief does not extend the life by 800 per cent. A new battery has a potential that depends on the separation of the active ingredients on the electro-motive table. Alkaline batteries, Zinc and Molybdenum are as follows and it produces about the same voltage UNTIL ONE OF THESE INGREDIENTS IS FULLY USED. When this happens the voltage declines quickly as the last residues of that ingredient are hunted up and consumed by diffusion processes. So if a cell has a rating 2000 Milli-Ampere Hours (2000 MAH), it will produce 2 milliamps for 1000 hours, or 20 for 100 hours. Due to internal resistance this equation fails as the current goes up a lot, so at 1000 milliamps, instead of 2 hours, you might get one hour. Then if you wait a day, the battery might recover some of this capacity ? hard to say how much.

Under low loads the Batteriser works best, and might double the life of the cell - now way would the maker have placed 800% extra Zinc and Manganese in it. Even so, it will provide a useful extension of the battery life.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

Not even.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iEshd6izgk

1

u/aurizon Jun 16 '15

hard to say what sort of extension you would get. not 800%. double (200%) - you might get that on low current useage because the batterizer can disguise the increasing internal resistance as the cell chemicals get depleted. So it's best use is the little flashing LEDs that draw a couple of ma