[pct-l] Battery Info

[terry.norton at gmail.com (Terry Norton)]

For AAA batteries:

Energizer AAA Alkaline: 11.5g each
Energizer AAA Lithium: 7.6g each

The total weight savings for a headlamp using 3 AAA batteries would be 0.4 oz.

Lithiums are great in high current applications such as digital
cameras, but one should  not expect the 3 -4 times life of alkalines
in a headlamp.  With lithium batteries you will not observe the
gradual dimming of the light seen with alkalines.  Lithiums perform
much like the nicad batteries...The output falls of very quickly when
the battery is almost discharged.  (Some newer LED headlamps have
circuitry to prevent the fall-off in brightness.  In this case using
the lithiums makes even less economic sense.)

For the geeks in the crowd, the Lithium batteries have a capacity of
1250mAh, and the alkalines have a capacity of 1000-1200 mAh at
discharge currents of 100 to 20ma.  The life differenct in a
relatively low current application such as an LED headlamp would not
likely justify the approximately 3.7 times cost of the lithiums.

(Walmart.com lists a 4 pack of AAA Energizer Lithiums at $9.83 or
$2.46 / cell.  An 8 pack of AAA Alkalines is $5.36 or $0.67 / cell.)

I will use AA lithiums in my camera since it is a high current demand
device.  The old petzel tikka will get generic AAA batteries from
Walgreens.

cheers,
terry

> Head lamp - just alkalines...but used a common AAA size, glad to hear
> that they now have AAA lithium!
>
> -Mountain Goat-
>
>
> And for all you ounce weenies the Lithium batteries are lighter. I weighed
> them but cnanot find the data. I think they are each 1/2 ounce lighter. If
> you look far enough you can find AAA lithiums also. Lighter and last longer,
> but they cost quite a bit more.
>
> Ken