Alkaline batteries are obsolete, but their predecessor isn't
Or at least that's a pretty reasonable way to describe my thesis in one line.
YT Link:
As often happens, I fell down quite the rabbit hole here. This video ended up becoming part 1 of two, as it got incredibly long. It turned out cutting it in half also fixed the narrative quite a lot. The question posed at the end of this one would have been at the mid-point, and then it would sort of undermine the entire existence of this first half!
But, the good news is that while I spent way too much time on this, part 2 is already written. The only work it needs is the creation of an intro, a callback to part 1 to make the final conclusion make sense, and some general tidying up.
That bad news is the first No Effort November video needs to happen very soon. You'll discover why shortly. Hopefully... very shortly! But the exploration on Ni-MH vs. the newfangled things teased right at the intro will have to be delayed until December.
I can't promise when captions are going to be done. In a series of very unusual circumstances for me, three videos have been in production at the same time. That's part of why a live stream didn't happen this month. And I have a hard deadline fast approaching so tomorrow needs to be spent there and I may not get to captions until the evening. My apologies, but for now I hope you enjoy!
Comments (39)
I see that lithium-ion batteries are useful for flashlights. But last year I tried a set on one of those timer (on at the time you turn them on, off x hours later, automatically repeating thereafter) string Christmas lights. It lasted only a couple of days, whereas a typical set of alkalines lasted for weeks. I have to assume something in either the number of lights (12-15?) and/or the chip controlling the on-off cycle draws more than a lithium-ion AA battery will comfortably handle. Anybody know what's going on? I would love to swear by rechargeables and do away with single-use batteries, but I guess this is not always going to work.
The reason that the testers have separate voltage and amp terminals is so you can avoid measuring after the voltage drop in the leads, by implementing 4-terminal or Kelvin sensing (which is possibly worth a mini-episode). A voltmeter has a very high impedance, so essentially zero current flows - which means no voltage drop. This is via V = IR. In short, had you connected the v+ and v- terminals to the battery pack via separate leads, you wouldn't have had to guesstimate or compensate for the drop.
I thought the predecessor battery was gonna be lead acid. I remember my mom being horrified bc a little RC car they got me required 8 AA's. but considering their power density, no wonder!
The worst thing about alkaline batteries isn’t even the leaking, it’s the swelling. I’ve had multiple devices ruined when the batteries swelled enough to become stuck inside with no way to remove them without destroying the device.
This sparked my curiosity, as I never thought about the prepackaged included batteries. I checked the new AVR I recently bought (Onkyo released in 2025), and it's remote did already come with Panasonic zinc carbon batteries (R03(NWC) AAA). So, maybe some manufacturers have already switched to something that makes more sense?
I joined here only to say this, because the repeated mentions of alkaline cells being obsolete annoyed me as a little too generic: there are legitimate cases for the use of alkaline batteries. Cave and technical divers favor alkaline cells in backup lights because of their reliability, stable chemistry and linear-ish discharge curve (which makes it easy to test the cells with a simple voltage tester). A typical backup light will use 2 or 3 C-cells and is a high drain device, but it's a device that is not used except for emergencies, so the battery typically lasts through a year of "use" (as in, being carried as a backup). I could imagine other use cases where the capacity and power is important but where rechargeable batteries are not a good fit.
I'm glad you brought up how weird it is that buying disposables in 2026 is, well, WEIRD. I only use NiMH cells now. Over this last year as cells have depleated in things like a bathroom scale or kitchen timer, I charge up a set of NiMH cells overnight and voila. This all started because I have a bunch of music equipment from the 1980s that require rechargeable cells to keep their internal memory alive, and their old cells have either been snipped out and replaced with a battery holder, or they required cells from the factory, like the FIVE D-cells in my Casio SZ-1 (a frustratingly odd number).
Yet another great video! I have been bitten SO MANY TIMES by leaky alkaline batteries. On the one hand I've gotten very good at fixing damaged battery terminals, but it'd be great if we could just, you know, not have leaky batteries. And you're right - 98% of what I'm putting disposable batteries into these days are super low drain devices. I've mitigated the leak issue by buying "those weird lithium" single-use batteries. They're intended for high drain devices but they last FOREVER in low-drain devices, and I have yet to see one leak. But they're expensive and now I'm thinking maybe the right answer has been carbon zinc batteries all along!
i do remember using 12 AA batteries in a camera flash for award ceremonies, but looking back that was over 8 years ago, and using dated equiptment. That use case was enough to drain 12 batteries below usable levels in about an hour, not sure what more modern equiptment would use now, but then it was the only way to do it - except using a really old Ni-MH belt mounted pack that actually did a better job
I have a Nikon flash unit that uses, I think 4 AA batteries and it'll drain them faster than any other device I've ever used. I only put lithium batteries in that thing and it still seems to drain them quickly.
This episode of Project Farm looks different…
I've had many NiMH leak just sitting in a box unused; because most of my devices are low discharge, NiMH's inability to hold a charge for long periods relegated them to the side lines.
Post-export this might not be worth it, but the voiced-over battery testing results made me crave a Project Farm style graph on screen to help with comprehension.
Didn't "Zinc-Chloride" come between carbon-zinc and alkaline? In fact, I suspect many of the "Super Heavy Duty" batteries were Zinc-Chloride. You may want to look into this--I'm pretty sure of this history. (I've been around a long time.)
You are correct, but zinc chloride is a subset of carbon zinc. It was just a swap of ammonium chloride in the electrolyte with zinc chloride, and that gave us the term "super heavy duty" Those Panasonic cells are in fact zinc chloride, but they're still labeled and classified as carbon-zinc.
I replaced something like 10 clock mechanisms in our house clocks over the years as a result of leaky Alkaline AAs ruining the previous mechanism. I didn't realise Carbon Zinc batteries were less likely to leak and I'm sure BigClive would also be surprised after seeing so many of his tear-down videos where he often criticises bundled Carbon Zinc batteries as being the worst to leak.
I remember Duracells as very badly-performing in anything that needed a bit power, especially digital cameras (remember when they still had AAs?)... NiMHs were much better there, let's see what you have to tell about them soon!
Carbon zinc batteries are still fairly ubiquitous here in the UK, in fact I'd go as far as saying they're still the default option in most stores, with Alkalines still being portrayed as the premium option. I remember when I got my first digital camera about 20 years ago, and had to spend a fortune on Lithium AA batteries to get it to run properly, as even Alkalines often weren't enough!
Where do Amazon’s battery brand fall? I heard a rumor when they entered the market they instantly took something like 60% market share from Duracell and Energizer.
This is fantastic - so much awesome info! Two potential additions: - It would be great to have a graph comparing capacity and voltage over time of the different battery types you tested - I would LOVE to see how disposable lithium batteries compare to the others, to see where their higher cost can be justified
It would be interesting to see environmental/sustainability differences between these two batteries. If carbon zinc also has lower ecological harm, then that would be a good reason to bring them back. however, at first glance the chemicals in both types look fairly common.
This is my first post that I receive from you as a Patreon and I appreciate you putting a YouTube link in the text so that I can get quickly to watching a video in a semi-competent player.
4:44 Might be a bit of a rendering error about "these four battery brands"; I see one, one partially and cropped to the wrong place, and presumably the others covered up.
I dislike keeping track of multiple battery types. And alkaline can leak, too often destroying whatever device they were in. So, trying to only use 1 type of battery, I use disposable Lithiums. I find the extra capacity of them helps to overcome their high price.
I have found that my discovery of disposable lithium batteries has actually saved some devices from being disposed off. An old milk frother has been given a second lease of life because it's much more powerful now (higher base voltage) and the batteries have been going for months. Also no other batteries have reliably worked for my emergency electric shaver with double A batteries in the car. Come winter or summer, the lithiums have now provided full power for more than two years.
"But so is November, and you know what that means!" Ah yes, the increasingly inaccurately named no effort November.
Yes, it means the release of Grand Theft Auto VI😁
I'm in my 50s and I've never heard of carbon zinc batteries before. It's always been alkaline for me. I am now questioning reality.
Really?? I'm 54 and I distinctly remember when carbon-zinc batteries were the norm (usually Ray-O-Vac "heavy duty" batteries) and how big a deal it was when alkaline batteries like Duracell and Energizer hit the market in the 80s. Of course I was a weird nerdy kid who was really into electronics (and nothing has changed in the intervening decades except my age), so...
I know there are some companies who started making cassette players again, so i went looking and found the Fiio cp13, which actually does have an internal battery. So for the exact use case you mention, there really is no more need to get those alkalines.
The Gritty got a great laugh out of this Philadelphian.
Looking forward to learning about The Secrets of NiMH in the follow-up! That was a fun video for sure. (I've got a Panasonic remote with a pair of those same Carbon-Zinc batteries still working after almost a decade, too.)
Hey! That joke is already in the script. Spoilers! 😛
NiMH batteries still worth a mention. Very affordable nowadays.
Power density, AKA the Wiimote Coefficient
"The Wiimote Coefficient" Perhaps a lost Robert Ludlum novel?😉
“Too basic”. I heard that.
I heard it too, and I was mad about it. I'm glad I was not alone ;)
Keep on truckin'!