Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Battery Club

 Battery Re-Use Club
 
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The power and current requirements of the myriad devices that use standard batteries are wildly different. High-draw devices, such as radio-controlled trucks, stop working even though a good amount of juice is still left in their array of 8 AA cells. But an AA cell that is useless for a radio-controlled truck could still power a low-current device, like a television remote control, for months.

I propose a trading club where you can buy and trade used batteries. The batteries would be tested as they come in, and rated according to their suitability to a particular task -- bins marked 'perfect for shavers' and 'remote controls' would allow people to pick batteries based on the expected life, getting big discounts on both price and landfill impact.

Eventually only people with flashguns and tasers will be buying batteries new at Radio Shack.

—FritzBenwalla, Dec 18 2002

[link]






       you can do this at home though, AA's not powerful enough for my camera will keep the radio going for ages.
—po, Dec 18 2002
   

       An interesting idea, but I think you have it backwards. By the time you get done with overhead, people will be paying as much for the used batteries as for new.   

       How about a rating system for battery operated devices that indicates the relative draw of the device? When your 'Level 1' device stops working, move the batteries into a 'Level 2' or 'Level 3' device. This saves me a trip to your store as well as giving me another way to rate a potential electronics purchase.
—phoenix, Dec 18 2002
   

       Like the Level 1, Level 2 thing, but the thing I've found is that it's tough to do just in your household. My RC truck is going through 8 AAs a week, but my remote goes through 4 every six months, so storing them myself is hard. So I throw them away.   

       As for rechargeables, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't rechargeables put out a collectively lower voltage than regular batteries? So I don't think they're suitable for everything. And anyway - the main problem is that people just don't use rechargables on the same scale. Dunno why, but they don't.
—FritzBenwalla, Dec 18 2002
   

       I bought nice RC car as a gift last year and the person who sold it to me highly recommended rechargeable batteries saying the performance of both the car and the batteries would be considerably better. This was at a hobby shop that sells only RC cars and accessories.
—bristolz, Dec 18 2002
   

       So we know what the second rule is then.
—angel, Dec 19 2002
   

       Depends on the manufacturer of disposable batteries - Panasonic cheapies far outlive their more famous counterparts. Rechargables in a large keyboard have to be charged for a longer period of time than they *live*.
—thumbwax, Dec 19 2002
   

       An important feature of nickel cadmium batteries is that they should be completely discharged before being recharged, otherwise they don't recharge completely. Modern rechargeables (lithium ion) don't suffer from this problem.
—angel, Dec 19 2002
   

       I'll give you a croissant just for using the word "myriad" correctly.
—sild, Dec 19 2002
   

       If I use it correctly, do I get a croissant as well?
—angel, Dec 19 2002
   

       Well you know I'll take my croissants any way I can get them, but just for fun's sake. . .   

       From the American Heritage Dictionary as portrayed on dictionary.com:   

       "Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Myriad myriads of lives.” This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mrias was used only in poetry."   

       Next discussion will center on the irony in the title "American Heritage." Mmmm, croissant.
—FritzBenwalla, Jan 03 2003
   
      
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