The best GPS batteries

Dragonfreys · Senior Member

The best GPS batteries

winnipegk5 · Veteran Member

Yes, I pretty much always use rechargables. Both the Energizer 2300 and the Sanyo 2100. Both work well and I have a 15 minute charger so I can charge the set I'm not using quickily.

One thing I did notice is how much longer my 60CS lasts when I don't have the backlight on. I used 1 set of batteries in 12 hours on Sunday without vs 2 or 3 sets when I have it on.

ertyu · Senior Member

I've got a bunch of Duracell NiMH they work fine. The big thing I've noticed is that the Duracells are vastly superior to the no-name stuff I have.

Dragonfreys · Senior Member

Strange that they didn't test the Duracells in the report.

. It would be interesting to see how they compared.

TurdleEggs · Senior Member

Hmmm, let’s see. I’ve got Rayovac, Nexcell, GP, Duracell, and one other brand that I can’t remember right now. The Nexcell and GP NiMHs have been very good to me; I’ve been running them for 2-3 years now.

Chargers are my big problem. I had a great one I got off e-Bay that charged the batteries right up, but it finally burned out. I haven’t been able to find a decent charger since. The Cheap Ray-O-Vac one from Wal-Mart only charges then to ~70%, and the Duracell one I got from Princess Auto is even worse.

Anybody have any NiMH charger tips?

ertyu · Senior Member

The Duracells are in there:
Duracell 1800 8.21 1707 112.0

Dragonfreys · Senior Member

Ah yes, I see them now, I had scanned for the classic copper top.

ertyu · Senior Member

Checking my batteries I'm actually using 2050mAh. That reference is great, but its out of date.

MHz · Veteran Member

I use Radio Shack NiMH 2000 mAh and I have the same problem as TurdleEggs with not getting a full charge. I think the problem is in the rapid chargers. If I put these same batteries to charge in Gord's much slower 1-2 day trickle charger, they seem to get a full charge and keep it longer.

Gord has some NiMH 2600 mAh's he picked up at I think the Battery Man out by the airport. They are very slightly larger in girth so they are a tight squeeze but they last much longer.

MHz

slippery_1 · Senior Member

MHz wrote:

I think the Battery Man out by the airport. They are very slightly larger in girth so they are a tight squeeze but they last much longer. MHz

Anyone got this suppliers address, phone number so I can contact them to get some to try out? Not much of a selection here in the North.

TurdleEggs · Senior Member

Another battery place I’ve had good luck with is Prairie Battery. They build batteries and cater to the robotics and model airplane communities in Winnipeg.

www.prariebattery.ca
(204) 633-3500

ertyu · Senior Member

I got batteries from Canadian Tire. Most camera shops carry all kinds of rechargeables now also. My brother got the top rated Engergizers from Walmart.

As for chargers I guess I lucked out. I bought the top of the line Radioshack NiMH/NiCD charger when they cleared them out. Doesn't look like they have anything nearly as good these days.

MHz · Veteran Member

The battery man is at 1390 St. James St. Winnipeg, MB and their phone number is (204)775-8271

MHZ

ertyu · Senior Member

Noticed that Princess Auto has Duracell 2300mah NiMH 2packs for $4.99. Quite cheap. The batteries might be a bit older, but should be a good deal, normal price is ~$20

Kabuthunk · Veteran Member

I use the Rayovac NimH, 15 minute rechargeable batteries. They easily do me for several days worth of caching, if not a week if I'm only going a few hours a day (but a minimum of two days of a general 'most of day caching'... but then, I also have my GPS on battery-saver mode). I love those batteries. I'm slowly in the process of converting anything battery-related (ie: remotes, clocks, etc) to that battery.

ertyu · Senior Member

Not all devices are suitable for rechargeable batteries. NiMH have a high self discharge rate, on the order of 1 month. Therefore they are not good for slow drain devices like remotes or clocks. NiCD isn't any better as the lower voltage means the device doesn't work as well and dies sooner, at least for remotes, clock might be ok.

TheStuntman · Senior Member

I was able to do the complete Mantario trail with one set of Duracell Ultra's. I can get up to 48 hours of run time (no back light, no elec. compass) If I'm just caching around town,hey will last weeks. They also seem to have a reserve capacity that allows time to get to the cache before having to swap out new ones.

I really should use rechargables just out of shear economics.

grnbrg · Senior Member

Kabuthunk wrote:
... but then, I also have my GPS on battery-saver mode.

Just be aware of what battery save mode does. Probably great for hiking or highway travel, but a questionable (IMHO) savings for caching...

WAAS mode is out, for starters -- WAAS in every GPSr I've seen is disabled in any of the battery save modes, as it requires considerably more computation than non-WAAS. This kicks your best-case accuracy from +/- ~3 metres to +/- 9 metres. After that, power is saved by reducing the amount of calculated position updates and screen refresh rate. Both translate into a significant degredation of accuracy.

Makes more sense to me to run at full power, and carry a couple sets of charged spares. You can get a plastic clamshell case that holds 4 AA batteries at London Drugs for about $5 after tax. The Source (aka Radio Shack) has the same cases, but for 1.5 times the price.

grnbrg.

ertyu · Senior Member

Ya, run full power mode. I carry several sets of batteries with me, but have never gone through more than one change an outing and thats because I leave the batteries in there till there are dead. Travelling to BC and back I've done it on less than 4 sets.

Kabuthunk · Veteran Member

Really? Odd... the GPS is usually sitting at +-4m accuracy at any given time... or is that somewhat inaccurate in itself due to the battery-save mode?

Eh, maybe I'll give it a comparison shot sometime and see how the two do.

But otherwise, I do still have spare rechargeables with me :P