Leaking batteries. A reminder, a warning.
 

This is something we all know about, but if you're like me, it can still happen. I'm talking about leaving batteries in sets whilst they're not in use. I went to have a play with one of my nice big transistor sets, went to switch it on, nothing happened, opened the back up.. white powder everywhere. Luckily on this occasion I was able to completely remove the offending oxide and the terminals were not damaged, they cleaned up lovely with a fibre pen and then given a wipe with a cotton bud soaked in Servisol Super 10 contact cleaner.

I've now gone through all of my battery trannie sets and removed the batteries. Don't hesitate, do it now if like me you have trannie sets with batteries in them!

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

It is a warning worth taking note of. But I have a lot of test equipment with batteries that only gets used infrequently. My answers is to only use lithium batteries. In my experience they don’t leak at least in the 10 years I have been doing this.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

The batteries mainly used in my large trannies are 1.5V D cells. Firstly I don't think they're even available in Lithium, and secondly the cost would be prohibitive for up to six at a time for just one set.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

A good example of the damage that can be caused is from my recent Uher 4000 Report Monitor tape recorder purchase. The seller said they had cleaned up the leak.

The damage to some of the battery contacts is worse than it looks in the photo and is not easy to clean up properly.

David

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

David, try to stick to mechanical means of removal, ie a stiff brush at first, then a fibre stick and if necessary a bit of very smooth wet/dry paper, trying not to remove the shiny plating. Neutralising liquids only spread the stuff. I've got a collection of toothbrushes and that kind of thing that I use, plus a powerful battery powered blower. Then like I said above, use a contact cleaner to 'prime' the contacts once they're clean and gleaming. Apologies if you're an expert on this kind of stuff! But I've done quite a few in my time. Oh, and I never believe what people on auction sites say. I guess he meant he'd got rid of the excess..

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Another caution- don't forget those things you use once in a blue moon. e.g. I have a flea zapper I use on odd occasions on my dog. I'd had it out after latest one showed signs of possibly activity ,which fortunately turned out to be a false alarm. Swimbo got to it before I remembered the batteries. Fortunately next time, bulging batteries, but no leaks.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Hi Steve, Thank you for all the inputs, I am no expert, hard toothbrush no good for the really bad ones, apart from removing the loose stuff, had to resort to abrasives including wet and dry. I do not have a fibre stick, I must get one.

Difficult when they are really bad not to remove some plating, was wondering if a metal (one of the brass type softer bristles) suede cleaning brush might be useful for this.

Yes know not to believe much of what some online sellers say, it was a lady by the way and I am sure she did what she could to clean it up.

David

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Mmmmm, Duracell....

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I find household vinegar works a treat. At school fetes my daughter used to pick up expensive toys such as Furbys for a few pence because they had corroded batteries in them, safe in the knowledge that daddy could fix them, and was never disappointed.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Yes, acid neutralises alkali, but there's two schools of thought on this. I prefer to not introduce another wet, corrosive chemical into the tight, awkwardly shaped cavities that are called battery compartments. Liquids can leak through holes in the compartment and find their way onto PCBs and components.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Timely reminder.

I just opened a box with Tape, CD Minidisk players and one of the Philips portable tape players had some very nasty looking Alkalines lots of white powder and split casings

Fortunately there seems to be no damage.

They have been boxed up for at least 3 years and last used 15 years ago (they belonged to one of my sons and he moved out 15 years ago) so I have been very lucky.

Normally I would not have even looked.

Cheers

Mike T

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

For long lasting or infrequently used stuff I give the cells/batteries a good slavering of Vaseline. It won't stop corrosion but will enable easy removal and much less will be damaged.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I am not that organised but I can see a use here for all those electronic calendars and reminder systems that increasingly pervade our lives, "Alexa remind me in two years time to check the flea Zapper batteries. Probably no use if you left it switched on though and the batteries are dead in a week.

Pete

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I remember how decades ago battery manufacturers used to brag about their batteries being leak proof. What happened?! Truth is, I don't think they were ever leak proof.

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I recall that, circa 1960, Ray-o-Vac batteries (that I only ever saw sold in cycle shops) were cased in steel and were marked with a guarantee of replacing any cycle lamp damaged by a leaking battery.

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I also seem to remember battery manufacturers claiming to replace equipment damaged by leaky batteries.

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The old style that used the zinc electrode as the case dried out and became inert eventually. Another dodge was to introduce some water. Sealing all the chemicals in is asking for problems, no matter what is used for a seal. They're mass produced to a price, they tell you to remove unused batteries with good reason.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Hi.

I've lost count at the amount of equipment affected by leaking batteries. Radios, cassette recorders, RC handsets and worst of all test equipment. I have been caught out on several occasions where I forgot that I'd left batteries in test equipment. I recently started checking each piece of equipment to see if the batteries are within date. Some were showing signs of corrosion. Others that were out of date appeared to be OK so had a lucky escape there. I have now concluded that all batteries should be removed from equipment not used very often. It's better to spend the extra time fitting/removing the batteries than having to deal with the damage caused by leakage.

Many purchases from car boot sales and charity shops are often let down by batteries that have leaked. Several times I've seen leaking batteries in equipment that are within their useful life. I'd say alkaline batteries are significantly worse than zinc-carbon with regard to the extent of corrosion to the equipment. From experience, the AAA size is worse than AAs. I've not seen many problems with C and D cells.
I have however seen some pretty dire zinc carbon batteries that have severely leaked. I remember a blue Ever Ready PP9 that was virtually unrecognisable, it being totally rotten. There was significant damage to the radio as well including a badly corroded loudspeaker and a heavily stained plywood cabinet base.

OT but concerning leakage, an eBay purchase of an unworking Roberts R700 came complete with two nice new Panasonic PP9s. The radio was stinking of ruptured electrolytic capacitors, one of which could be seen to have blown open with white powdery deposits on the circuit board.

I'd also say that the problem is worse nowadays, Some of the reputable manufacturers don't seem to produce a reliable leak-free battery. It's funny, in one of my homebrew projects I found a Panasonic PP3 zinc-carbon (black/red colour case) with an expiry date of 1998. It showed no signs of leakage and was fit for use. I don't recall there being that many problems with Panasonic batteries.

Another source of trouble can be with rechargeable batteries. I have had a number of problems with NiCads causing nasty corrosion to circuit board copper foil and also to component leads. There doesn't appear to be obvious signs of leakage with these, perhaps they outgas corrosive gases?

Has anyone had problems with leaking NiMH cells?

Regards,
Symon

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Post No.18;

I have known green crystals to start forming at the +ue of ageing Uniross Ni-Cad D cells (These cells were never really much use, to be frank)

At this point in history i admit that Lithium Metal Primaries (and Lithium Ion rechargeables) make me rather nervous. The sheer pressure to supply greater charge density within a given package seems to have bypassed common sense and to some extent regulation. It's alleged in some quarters that in the last 14 years three airliner disasters have been caused by chain reaction (cargo) Lithium battery failures.

Because of this i think that the Alkaline battery destruction that seems to be worse than ever- is just being thrown into shadow, and effectively ignored.

Dave

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Yes indeed. They seem to be the worst for leaking. One brand I will never buy now.

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There have been several threads discussing battery leakage, and Duracells in particular.

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For some time now I've been using the Procell from CPC, they appear fine, no leakage and last just as well as a 'leading brand'. No sooner has the cupboard been stocked with a fresh batch of them, my kids have taken a load. What on earth they do with 40AA batteries, I'll never know.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I have just removed all the batteries from my radio collection , the only ones that were leaking were a Duracell and three I removed from a pp3 to squeeze in a miniature radio out of twenty six in total. Thank's for the reminder . Mick.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Those with a memory less leaky than certain battery brands will recall that I have been keeping records on battery leakage for several years now.

My highly scientific method is to go through my jar of used cells before they go off to recycling, and note the total numbers of each brand and how many show signs of leakage. By this point, some cells may have some signs of life left, others may have been completely flat for a few weeks, just like forgotten cells in our equipment. I don't count cells which are past the date printed on them.

The latest results show

Panasonic Pro Power - 281 cells, 7 of which leaked (2.5%)
Duracell Power Plus and Ultra - 99 cells, 17 leaked (17%)
Lidl Aerocell - 65 cells, 1 leaked (1.5%)
Aldi Activ Energy 51 cells, 1 leaked (2%)

I come across a handful of cells from miscellaneous other brands, not enough for meaningful statistics, but none strike me as particularly leaky.

A well known consumer magazine shows life test for AA and AAA cells with the Aldi cells topping the Alkalines, and the other 3 not far behind.

Lidl and Aldi cells cost £1.99 for 8 cells (25p each), Lidl sometimes have Panasonic cells at the same price. Duracells are 4 to 5 times that at £4 to £5 for 4 cells.

So you make your choice, they're all quite similar for performance, the difference is in cost and leakage.

Lithium cells are worth considering for very high drain applications such as digital cameras, less so for low and medium drain applications. Lithium AA cells have a capacity of 3.0AH. Good alkalines have a slightly lower capacity of 2.7AH, but only at low drain. At high drain, the available capacity of alkaline cells (not just run-time) falls dramatically, so that at 1A drain the capacity is below 1AH. Battery manufacturers try to minimise this loss of capacity at high drain, but for anything with a short run-time, it's worth considering Lithium cells. With Lithiums costing 7 times the Lidl/Aldi alkaline price, it may be more about convenience than cost.

Stuart

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Re post#4.
You got off lightly! My Uher 4200 was rendered only fit for spares after leakage ate up most of the circuit board. Believe me, I tried to clean it but the tracks and the components just fell away. I'd lent it to someone and as a favour they had left the batteries in - pound shop specials. I didn't check and put it away.
Expensive lesson learned!

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Something else worth checking are the RTC Batteries inside Laptops.
The small ones that keep the On Board Clock and settings set.

I've had at least Two Vintage Laptops destroyed by leaking RTC Batteries.
These are miniature NiCads as I remember.

They seem to go green and the Corrosion travels up printed Tracks on the PCB
if allowed to go flat and left for a long time..
I had Tracks and adjacent Tracks eaten right through on the Motherboard rendering them spares only.




Ian

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Also worth a reminder: some Icom ham-radios from the 80s and 90s use a battery-backed RAM to store their operating-system (along with user-saved options/settings).

Battery goes flat after 20 years and your radio becomes a brick. Beware if you see an Icom radio from this era offered for sale at a suspiciously-low price!

There are ways to replace the battery without losing the operating-system - see http://www.icomcanada.com/techbulletin/tb1/ram_card.htm

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Hi.

There are some interesting observations on corrosion caused by Nicads in vintage calculators. https://www.rskey.org/CMS/index.php/the-library/42

As I mentioned in an earlier post, quite often there's no obvious leakage from NiCads but the corrosion can be quite severe in some cases. I had a suspicion that old NiCads may outgas corrosive gases.

Regards,
Symon

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I think outgassing could well be the issue with some Nicads: I remember that some of the early AA cells I played with actually had a small vent-hole punched in the centre of the positive cap, and the positive terminal in the usual moulded-plastic battery-holders often seemed to be selectively targeted for corrosion (the use of a brass terminal-rivet to connect to a steel spring didn't help either)

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

That was really bad Glyn !

David

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I've had at least Two Vintage Laptops destroyed by leaking RTC Batteries.
These are miniature NiCads as I remember.

They seem to go green and the Corrosion travels up printed Tracks on the PCB
if allowed to go flat and left for a long time..
I had Tracks and adjacent Tracks eaten right through on the Motherboard rendering them spares only.

Very similar after having stored my old Amiga 600 computer for many years in the loft, several years ago I got it out to check operation and found its RTC battery had badly leaked, seriously damaging loads of the fine track artwork.

Tried repairing it but trying to work out where all the complex double sided tracks should connect to, turned out to be too time consuming so eventually it went to the PC heaven.

David

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Costco Kirkland batteries can go on the list of batteries not to trust to be left in.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Hi.

I've just been caught again with leaking batteries. I unearthed a nice old TES Type MC661C signal strength meter from a storage unit. I feared the worst as I hadn't had a chance to check it over. The previous owner must have replaced the flat type 4.5V battery with a makeshift 4 cell plastic holder with one of the cell positions shorted across to effectively make a 3 cell holder. One of the three alkaline Duracell AA cells was all very sweaty and manky looking. The cell holder was corroded but luckily no damage to the meter. They had a 2014 date code on them.
I've only got myself to blame. In future, any purchase of battery powered equipment will be opened and checked for any installed batteries and any that are present will be removed.

Regards,
Symon

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

You can get lithium rechargeable in in AA C and D and run at 1.5V, they charge either by built in USB, or external charger. Expensive but very very good.

Amazon carry quite a few.

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Thanks. I'm going to look into getting some rechargeable D cells. Anyone know of a commercially available charger?

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Nooooooooo! >:(

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Typical. Always tricky inside a confined space like a remote control, best option opening the clamshell if possible, and removing the board to avoid any remedial chemical application getting to where it's undesirable!

Dave

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

May I make a request for the title to be changed to "Batteries (/cells) a reminder, a warning" because every time I see it in "new posts" I panic* until I remember what it is about.

*Well not quite but it does disturb the mind a bit.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Agreed. I levered the cells out last night, and the encrustation appeared (mercifully) to be quite dry. One of the spring contacts looks to have suffered some corrosion.

The control has screws (:)), so hopefully I can crack it open relatively easily to clean up any hidden contamination.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Another thing to check, watches! Especially, if like me, you have many of them... I’ve just last week discovered a watch that has great sentimental value to me has been destroyed by a leaking 1.5v button cell. I haven’t used the watch for years, and when I got it out of the box I noticed 3 of the glow in the dark blobs on the dial had gone black, as had the silver dial around them. The watch is a Seiko with a screw on back, and the only reason I hadn’t replaced the battery was because I haven’t got the right tool to open it. I’m afraid I went at it with a pair of pliers in the end! I was very careful, and didn’t cause any damage to the back or the case, but once the back was off you could see the damage, the movement has a normally shiny metal plate covering the electronics, this had a black blob in the middle, and the battery was all crusty too, with the same white powdery stuff as mentioned in this thread. I cleaned the contacts and stuck a new battery in, but sadly the watch was dead. I popped the metal plate off the movement, and removed the PCB, which once turned over you could see it was totally encrusted in green crystallised corrosion. The coil looked good, but was open circuit. I cleaned it up as best I could, the coil was rotten where it connects to the main PCB, the corrosion has crept under the epoxy that covers the connections, I managed to repair that, and got continuity back, so that when prodded with the meter the movement would actually tick over! But despite my best efforts with the PCB, I couldn’t get it to run, so I’m now waiting delivery of some old quartz movements to use as spares. Hopefully il get it going again! I have to get it going, it was my Grandads watch that he bought just before he died in 1995, and I’ve had it ever since then, I even wore it to my first job interview (and I got the job!).

I also found leaking batteries in my dads old 1970’s Avia LCD watch, I was able to save that one mostly, but the PCB has become sensitive to moisture! Just the slightest bit of humidity in the air is enough to stop the crystal oscillator running, which has made it kind of useless as a watch, but left with the back open somewhere warm starts it running again.

Regards
Lloyd

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

A very good point. It's fortunate that many of the small 1.5v alkaline button cells have a 1.55v silver oxide equivalent. Many people aren't aware of the distinction, and i'm sure some have been fooled by the alkaline nomenclature of AG10, AG4 etc and assumed they were getting a silver cell rather than a nasty alkaline.

In my experience the silver oxides aren't much better capacity wise, but are more reliable regards leakage. They also have a better shelf life. The alkalines can be (and often are) suspect from new.

Dave

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

Maybe the message of Leaking Batteries is finally
sinking in with the Manufacturers?

We can hope!

Just picked up a pack of Energizer AAA's today and
found a Label stating:

"Protects Your Devices from Leakage of fully used Batteries up to 2 Years"

Time will tell.
Hopefully at least Two Years!




Ian

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

The amount of used test gear I've bought which 'works well' and has a gooey mess of a battery (usually a D cell) at least several years old inside must be legion. Fortunately often the battery compartment (eg in Avos) will limit the spread of goo/rot/corrosion and in the worst cases replacement terminals will give reliability I always try and scrape out any green muck on the plastic and use a damp cloth with bicarb on it for final wipe before drying. However VTVM with D cells housed in the middle of the electrics are always bad news - either the tracks go or the mounting bits are covered in white corrosion meaning rebuilds.

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I posted some pics ages ago of refurbing corroded Avo battery contacts (The 15 volt ones)
Of course with older equipment you have better options for undoing or drilling out the contacts allowing them to be immersed. Lemon juice, brush off any remaining verdigris then oak in distilled water, then wipe with petroleum jelly. I was surprised how well a 20 minute soak in lemon juice removed the green stuff- it penetrated right into the pitting.
Dave

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I was sorting out a WiFi Keyboard and mouse that had been in store for a couple of years and yes you guessed it the the AA Duracells had disgraced themselves fortunately causing minimal damage.

It took me a good thirty minutes to mop up the mess which had just started leaking past the battery cover as sort of a yellow stain there was a surprising amount of liquid.

So far it has not affected their operation with a fresh pair of IKEA's each.

Teach me for not removing the batteries when putting them into store.

Cheers

Mike T

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

As the starter of this thread I find myself currently having a look at my portable sets. And guess what? Not a battery in sight! Practicing what I preach - for once!

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There are some Retro Gameing cartridges that use a battery backup for game saves etc and these can ruin a cartridge too ,some of them being very expensive and rare!

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It is worth keeping an eye on sets with older NiCads in.

Nicads do seem to lose a liquid. I am currently looking at a Eddystone Post Office Noise Measuring Set 31A. This has a NiCad pack in a (nearly) sealed case.
It seems that a liquid has leaked out of the grommet where the cable comes out and corroded a hole in the case of the 25 MHz IF. This has then gone into the case and there is corrosion on the board to the extent that the bodies of some of the resistors have just fallen off as the wires have corroded.

When I got into the battery pack there was quite a lot of liquid inside. The fact that the set has stood on a shelf in the store for about 15 years may have some bearing but I am not sure!

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

The lead acid jell battery in my burglar alarm leaked some spray or something and corroded a couple of circuits. luckily there were 2 spare I could change over to.
Mike

Re: A reminder, a warning..
 

I recently brought an Audio Technica wireless system and on inspecting the beltpack found it had some crusty batteries still fitted, upon inserting a new set it naturally did not work and required the contacts cleaning, you would have thought they'd done a final test of it before shipping and removed the batteries.

One piece of kit to always check for leaking batteries are synthesizers/keyboards. A lot of the older ones use rechargeable batteries combined with SRAM for internal storage and can be killed by a leaking battery, also some other have standard non-rechargeable batteries for the same purpose and can easily get forgotten about with the same results, although depending on the style of the battery holder usually do less internal damage when they fail.

OT but another wireless system I recently purchased confused me a bit as they had flat contacts one side of the battery compartment and spring contacts the other side despite the batteries being inserted in the usual way to make 3V, it works but for something built in Austria from a decent brand (AKG) you'd have though they would know how to design a battery comp.artment