BATTERY REVIEW: Sanyo AAA 1000mah rechargables (WORLD'S BEST BATTERY)

Being new to lasers and laser pointers, I thought it would be a good idea to stock up on AAA rechargables, as it seems these are the most common battery used in pointers.

I personally was running a 5mw green to fuel my "laser lumia" show. To keep the pointer running, I taped down the "on" switch and left it running all night, every night, to enjoy my show.

Naturally, this meant I was constantly running down the batteries and wanted to make sure I always had a fresh set of rechargable AAAs on hand. You could say I was constantly "torture testing" my batteries, trying several different brands and mah (milliamp hours) until I finally hit upon what is easily the BEST battery i've ever used.

SANYO-GES-NH1000-BP.

Catchy name, huh?

Here is the link to where I picked them up:

Sanyo 1000mah AAA 4/pack NiMH Batteries 1000 mah *WORLDS BEST BATTERY*

When I first saw the listing said "world's best battery" I laughed and figured it was just some marketing hype. Give me a break!

But now I am a believer. Here's why...

See, most rechargables (or really any kind of battery) will give you peak output for a while, then they slowly die down. In my laser pen, this meant for maybe 30-45 mins I'd get full, 5mw brightness, then the light would get dimmer and dimmer over the next 2-3 hours until it got so dim it was pointless to keep it running so I'd switch them out for a freshly charged set.

Truth be told, after only 2 hours the beam was dim enough that I usually wanted to replace them (no point in a dim laser light show, right?).

This was essentially the same result in every AAA I tried, ranging from 800-1000mha (in fact the high mha didn't really seem to make any appreciable difference).

Then I got these Sanyos in the mail.

What makes these batteries so radically different is they KEEP GOING AT FULL POWER for as long as they can, then they just quickly die out. This meant that for a good 2-3 hours I was at pretty much FULL BRIGHTNESS, then, before I knew it, the light was completely out.

I much prefer this, since who wants a laser that slowly gets dimmer and dimmer? If you're like me you probably replace the batteries the moment you notice a dim beam.

Well, these Sanyos brought an end to that. I don't know what the new technology is in these things, but I welcome the idea replacing 3 hours of slowly dying with 2 hours of "full power."

I really was amazed the first night I used these... I mean I don't sit there and watch the lumia show all night, it just sort of runs in the background while I do stuff at home... but after an hour or two, when all my other batteries had gotten 50% dimmer, I noticed the sanyos were still at full power. I was shocked! And it really was 2 or 3 hours later they were still keeping the laser plenty bright... and after that, I left the room for a few minutes and came back and the laser was OUT.

At first I thought it had overheated and died, but as soon as I popped in a fresh set of batteries it was back to normal.

Several more run-down tests revealed the same performance.

I don't know if Sanyo's other size rechargables in this same line do the same thing, but if they do I have definitely found the best battery for a laser I have yet to run across.

PS: And no, I have nothing to do with that site - buy them anywhere you like, I simply provided that link as reference.

I'm pleased that they worked out for you

Thanks for sharing your experience

For others thinking about replicating Mojo's experience, it is NOT recommended that you leave your pen-style pointer on with the button taped down. Mojo is a lucky man. MOST of the small pen-style pointers would have overheated and lost crystal alignment (or one of a couple of other possibilities).

Mojo has moved on to a lab style, powered by mains, now. You can pick up a low powered labby for little money (he might even share a link to the one he is using now). If you want to set up a lumia wheel like Mojo's, I highly recommend that you go with a small labby. It doesn't take many mW of green to make a really good lumia show. This is especially true in a small venue

Peace,
dave

Interesting find there MojoLA.
AAA li-ion's are horribly over rated a lot of times. Many rated 600ma will barely do 450ma+.
I use a few NiMH and will have to give the a shot.

Appreciated.

daguin said:

I'm pleased that they worked out for you

Thanks for sharing your experience

For others thinking about replicating Mojo's experience, it is NOT recommended that you leave your pen-style pointer on with the button taped down. Mojo is a lucky man. MOST of the small pen-style pointers would have overheated and lost crystal alignment (or one of a couple of other possibilities).

Mojo has moved on to a lab style, powered by mains, now. You can pick up a low powered labby for little money (he might even share a link to the one he is using now). If you want to set up a lumia wheel like Mojo's, I highly recommend that you go with a small labby. It doesn't take many mW of green to make a really good lumia show. This is especially true in a small venue

Peace,
dave

Click to expand...

its if you got pen-sink on it ,but maybe not for 3hours :gun:

Daguin has a good point, most pens wouldn't withstand that sort of duty cycle. However, I also kept a small desk fan aimed at the pen the entire time it was on, and I verified that it remained cool to the touch the entire time (fry's has a great deal right now, I think its a new item, a small oscillating desk fan (maybe 6-8 inches high) that is either battery or USB powered) for $15. It's a GREAT way to keep a small array of gear cool (like a pen laser and lumia wheel motor

And it's pretty quiet. The oscillator feature came in really handy the other day, as I wanted to have the laser a little further from the motor than usual, and the rotating fan allowed me to keep everything cool at once (try that with a computer fan).

Anyway, these batteries are clearly great for any AAA powered laser, even if you're not keeping it on for 3 hours at a time - it means you'll stay at max brightness for much longer before its time to replace them.

I figure they're also ideal for something like a flashlight or remote control car... Anything you don't want to see slowly loose power as the batteries fade.

I'd be really curious to know what these are doing differently from most rechargeable.

Vaproizor: I agree, before the Sanyos I tried a set of 1000mah batteries from another manufacturer, and they didn't perform any better than a set of average 800mah. These are the first batteries ive ever had that performed NOTICABLY different from the rest.

I'm eager for someone else to give them a try!

Most batteries won't be able to produce as much total power when the current draw is high. A battery might well be able to generate 800mAh when the draw is only a couple of milliamps but will preform far worse when the current load is high. Another important factor is voltage depression. An alkaline battery is rated to 1.5v, but that's only under a no-load condition. Draw several hundred mA, and the voltage of even a fresh battery will sag to even below a volt.

NiHM cells preform far better than alkaline in all demanding cases. It takes a far, far greater current draw to drop the voltage for a good rechargeable cell. Alkaline batteries really do suck. As the cell drains, the voltage decreases more or less linearly, so you get continually decreasing brightness. NiMH are better, since their voltage v. time (for constant load) is more even; decreases a bit, decreases very slowly over the run of the battery, then drops steeply.

Sounds like MojoLA found this pair has a very flat discharge curve. I'm personally a huge fan of Sanyo Eneloops for their stable behaviour under high load as well as low self discharge. However, for a short-term use where stable output is required, I'll keep these in mind!

I've been reading that Sanyo are known for making some of the best rechargables out there, and as Zero said, the Eneloops are excellent batteries (especially for slow discharge devices) and now these seem to be the best for high discharge devices.

I'll run a few more "rundown" tests and make sure I keep getting similar results.

Here is a description of the battery from that site:

"The Sanyo Rechargeable Battery uses a new structural negative electrode material "Superlattice Alloy" which enables Ni-MH rechargeable batteries to have higher capacity and higher performance. Rechargeable batteries like the Sanyo Ni-MH rechargeable batteries have excellent output characteristics such as stable voltage with continuous high-rate current. Furthermore, compared to dry cell batteries, Sanyo Rechargeable Batteries are environmentally and economically friendly products that are recyclable and able to be charged /discharged repeatedly."

Do you have an DMM? If so what current is the laser pulling from the batteries?

The best information on relative performance of different batteries comes from over at CandlePowerForums (a flashlight enthusiast community). I've not seen a policy limiting newbies from posting links, so I'll go ahead and say that the shootout threads for Alkaline Batteries and NiMH Batteries are well worth a read. Especially interesting are the the behaviours of the curves both as a function of time and how the curves change as load increases.

I think Ill be buying some of these, its cheap enough to get 4x at around $11.95.