Posts Tagged ‘AA NiMH battery

The 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries are one of the best rechargeable AA size batteries out there for more serious tasks including higher current loads and use in low temperatures. Normally in our tests of AA size NiMH batteries we test up to 2.0A discharge and that is already considered pretty high current load, but this time we are going higher for the Panasonic Eneloop Pro to see what you can get out of them at 1.0A, 2.0A, 3.0A, 4.0A and even 5.0A… and this is form a single battery, not from a pack of 4 for example. You can check our initial test of the 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries where we tested at 0.2A, 0.5A, 1.0A and 2.0A – our usual settings. The graph below is for the higher discharge currents we tested at and you can also see the results in mAh and Wh after that…


It seems that 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries manage to handle really well up to 4.0A constant current discharge, managing to provide a little over 1500 mAh capacity. Going for 5.0A however significantly reduces the usable capacity in a constant current discharge situation at ust a little over 112 mAh before reaching the 1V output voltage from the battery. Do note however that in a variable discharge load with peaks to 5.0A for example the situation should be much different, for example using these batteries in a flash for a digital camera. So if you need AA size rechargeable batteries that can really handle high discharge current loads, not only peaks, but constant ones, then you should definitely look for the

High Current Load of 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries:

– 2388 mAh at 1.0A load
– 2322 mAh at 2.0A load
– 2064 mAh at 3.0A load
– 1527 mAh at 4.0A load
– 112 mAh at 5.0A load

– 2.870 Wh at 1.0A load
– 2.601 Wh at 2.0A load
– 2.224 Wh at 3.0A load
– 1.591 Wh at 4.0A load
– 0.116 Wh at 5.0A load

We got a pack of the latest generation Panasonic Eneloop Pro AA NiMH batteries with 2500 mAh capacity to check out and see what you can expect from what are considered as one of the best rechargeable NiMH batteries out there. These batteries come pre-charged with solar energy and are low self discharge, meaning that they are capable of retaining up to 85% of their capacity in a year. The Eneloop Pro are great choice for use with devices that require higher current and are also suitable for use in low temperature conditions of up to -20 degrees Celsius with good performance. According to the specifications they should be good for 500 recharge cycles. Looking back a couple of years back when we have tested an earlier generation Sanyo Eneloop XX AA NiMH batteries it seems that things have not changed that much in terms of rated capacity or battery specifications.

The 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries are rated at minimum 2500 mAh capacity and our discharge tests have shown really good results with very close to that capacity usable at constant current loads of 0.2A and even 0.5A. Going for a higher discharge load of 1.0A and even 2.0A and the batteries still manage to perform surprisingly well at over 2300 mAh usable capacity in both cases. We remind you that these batteries are intended to be used for high drain devices, so we expected to see good performance with higher current loads, but we are also going to be testing them at even higher loads in a separate test to see where is the limit. So it seems that not only the specifications, but also the usable capacity of the newer Panasonic Eneloop Pro is very similar to that of the older generation Sanyo Eneloop XX that we have tested a couple of years ago. The good news is that there is no drop in quality and the new Eneloop Pro rechargeable batteries are still one of the best NiMH AA batteries you can currently get on the market.

The performance of the 1.2V AA 2500 mAh Panasonic Eneloop Pro NiMH batteries in our tests:

– 2472 mAh at 0.2A load
– 2453 mAh at 0.5A load
– 2388 mAh at 1.0A load
– 2322 mAh at 2.0A load

– 3.080 Wh at 0.2A load
– 3.015 Wh at 0.5A load
– 2.870 Wh at 1.0A load
– 2.601 Wh at 2.0A load

1-2v-aa-2500-mah-gp-rechargeable-nimh-battery

The 1.2V AA 2500 mAh GP Rechargeable NiMH batteries are supposedly from the higher capacity rechargeable models from GP and we had high expectations when we started testing them. They are rated at 2500 mAh typical and 2450 mAh minimal capacity, though our test results show a bit different picture and in order to avoid a possible mistake we even repeated the tests 3 times and got pretty much the same results. So take a look below to see what you can expect from these NiMH batteries from GP. We’ve already seen that different GP models can provide different results and apparently not all models are as good as you could expect them to be.


1-2v-aa-2500-mah-gp-rechargeable-nimh-battery-capacity

We have started the test of the 1.2V AA 2500 mAh GP Rechargeable NiMH batteries as we normally do with a low constant current discharge rate of 0.2A and the result we got was 2223 mAh as capacity and that is a bit of a disappointment. With more than 12% less than the advertised capacity and with repeating the tests multiple times just to be sure we are a bit disappointed, though the batteries did manage well at 0.5A and 1.0A, the results at high load with 2.0A were also disappointing. Hopefully the even higher capacity GP NiMH batteries will be able to provide better results than what we’ve got from these.

The performance of the 1.2V AA 2500 mAh GP Rechargeable NiMH Batteries in our tests:

– 2223 mAh at 0.2A load
– 2037 mAh at 0.5A load
– 1808 mAh at 1.0A load
– 66 mAh at 2.0A load

– 2.769 Wh at 0.2A load
– 2.388 Wh at 0.5A load
– 1.987 Wh at 1.0A load
– 0.068 Wh at 2.0A load


top