Leaking batteries. A reminder, a warning.

[ppalped]

They (PP3s) might become hard to find, but I don't believe they will become no-avail - there will "always" be someone manufacturing them. But I must agree that PP3 will have a similar faith as PP9s - they are still obtainable, but only from a few brands. EverReady and Panasonic are the only brands that I can find for PP9s.

Alex

[The Philpott]

Last batch of PP3 that I bought were from espares, a month ago. Panasonic.

By and large I think that the 10 year credo with smoke alarms (those that have replaceable batteries, at least) harks back to statistics from research in the US (Minneapolis? Minnesota?) which revealed most alarms were inoperative after this period. Looking closer though, the data indicated that almost of the failures were attributable to batteries that were missing...dead...or leaking. Americium has quite a respectable half-life. Both of my ionisation detectors have got MORE sensitive with age for some reason.

Note to self- check PP3 in metal detector for condition.. This is another application that should keep PP3 widely available for a while. (a lot of older ones are still in service)

Dave

[G6Tanuki]

Bought a pack of AAA Panasonic EVOLTA today, still made in Belgium. These have always been reliable for me, in things like wireless PC keyboards and the outdoor sensors of wireless weather stations.

[The Philpott]

Thinking about it, our wireless microphones and decibel meter are also PP3.
One of the cheaper designs of LED clock/radio combos popular in the 'nineties (I think it was Morphy Richards or some such) applied current to its memory PP3, presumably through a design error. The dry battery didn't like this at all and leaked.

Dave

[Jez1234]

Well I bought a Morrisons own brand PP3 yesterday and it was £3.50! IIRC when I last bought a twin pack of alkaline PP3's from Lidl (their very good own brand ones) about 8 months ago they were £2.50 for two. I planned to get 2 -3 as spares for the various DMM's, LCR meter etc I have but not at that price. At least I have one for my main DMM (it was flashing up "Batt" when I used it continuously to monitor a voltage for a couple of hours a week or so ago but seems OK for the time being now) and when I change it I'll put the old one in my alarm clock radio. I know the thread is mainly about leaking batteries but this is a phenomena that seems largely in the past to me. I have seen a very few cases over the past ten years but only 2-3 times. I remember back in the 70's with zinc carbon batteries they were really terrible for leaking!

[DrStrangelove]

Not forgetting the curious habit some PP3 batteries have of exploding the end cap off the bottom quite vigorously.

[Jez1234]

I've never seen or heard of that before.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by DrStrangelove

Not forgetting the curious habit some PP3 batteries have of exploding the end cap off the bottom quite vigorously.

That usually happens when the battery is made out of the cylindrical AAAA cells, which vent - but the outer case of the battery is unvented so the emitted gases can't escape.

I have seen CO- and smoke-alarms where the PP3 has blown its bottom.

This usually results in the battery becoming wedged into the holder in a fashion that makes trying to extricate it rather tricky and with no guarantee that you won't in the process cause damage to the holder that makes the new battery a sloppy and unreliable fit.

In such cases a replacement smoke-alarm is the path to easy living.

[Maarten]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Smoke detectors these days seem to be 'sealed for life' and intended to last 10 years, with a Lithium battery instead of the old replaceable PP3.

I gather that the 'replace after 10 years' thing is because the amount of Americium-241 in the detectors has been reduced and so they become rather more marginal in operation if there is a few years of accumulated dust/thunder-flies and suchlike in the detection chamber.

They're usually optical. Accumulated dust is probably one of the reasons for the fixed replacement date.

[factory]

Originally Posted by Jez1234

Well I bought a Morrisons own brand PP3 yesterday and it was £3.50! IIRC when I last bought a twin pack of alkaline PP3's from Lidl (their very good own brand ones) about 8 months ago they were £2.50 for two. I planned to get 2 -3 as spares for the various DMM's, LCR meter etc I have but not at that price. At least I have one for my main DMM (it was flashing up "Batt" when I used it continuously to monitor a voltage for a couple of hours a week or so ago but seems OK for the time being now) and when I change it I'll put the old one in my alarm clock radio. I know the thread is mainly about leaking batteries but this is a phenomena that seems largely in the past to me. I have seen a very few cases over the past ten years but only 2-3 times. I remember back in the 70's with zinc carbon batteries they were really terrible for leaking!

I gave up buying PP3s locally some years ago, when Morrisons dumped the Panasonic range. Now get them from Granada here; https://www.granadabatteries.co.uk/b...atteries.html?

They have loads of brands including Duraleak Proleak intense, Proleak constant and 200+ bulk packs of Proleak. I bought the Panasonic Pro at £2.15 each, postage is very reasonable, wonder what part of the consumer range the Panasonic Powerline Industrial compare to?

Found this crusty GP Golden Power* AA in a Rapitest AMM my brother asked me to have a look at, it's eaten the wiring to the positive terminal.



*No relation to GP Gold Peak batteries that I know of.

David

[The Philpott]

My last lot of (six) PP3 from SNL Dynamics (Amazon) came out at £2.50 each. I think that their vulnerability to being shorted out (thus consigning them to individual blister packs of 1 or 2) gives a general reason and/or excuse to suppliers/manufacturers to boost the price.

Dave

[stevehertz]

Surely they're more expensive because they're 9V not 1.5V and contain more cells.

[DrStrangelove]

Originally Posted by Jez1234

I've never seen or heard of that before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1egCYjCrs

[bigfathairyvika]

Originally Posted by Maarten

They're usually optical. Accumulated dust is probably one of the reasons for the fixed replacement date.

Actually it is the Lithium battery's expected life.
The amount of Americium would be fine for at least 100 years plus in the ionising type.
Sealing the devices is a reliability thing as having the user replace a battery is considered unreliable considering the reliance of the device to protect life.

[ppalped]

Just in case someone is tracking brands / shelf life data, last week I spotted in my spares bin another leaky from Golden Power, unused, that should have held its guts until 2027/07. Unsure when it was manufactured, but it could have been from 2022 (5 years shelf life? I'm not certain) as I recall that they are pretty recent in that spares bin, just don't remember exactly when I've put them there, but certainly less than a year.

It would be interesting to know in which factory these were produced, but the only reference present is "Made in China".

Alex

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by ppalped

Just in case someone is tracking brands / shelf life data, last week I spotted in my spares bin another leaky from Golden Power, unused, that should have held its guts until 2027/07. Unsure when it was manufactured, but it could have been from 2022 (5 years shelf life? I'm not certain) as I recall that they are pretty recent in that spares bin, just don't remember exactly when I've put them there, but certainly less than a year.

It would be interesting to know in which factory these were produced, but the only reference present is "Made in China".

Alex

With respect sounds a bit of dodgy brand to me, only to be expected.

[stuarth]

For tracking brands, it’s the ratio of leaky cells to not leaky cells which is important.

It’s all a numbers game. Any cell could leak, so it’s very good advice to remove cells from equipment which is not in use, but that’s not always convenient, batteries in clocks, remote controls and torches, or test meters and occasionally used radios for example. For those applications, you want to avoid brands with a leakage problem.

I’ve been collecting data on significant numbers of four different brands of cells from many sources for several years now. Three brands had leaks on less than 1 to just over 2 cells per hundred. Duracell’s had 18 leaks in 110 cells. Guess which brand I no longer leave in equipment?

Anecdotally on here we get reports of leaky cells from many brands, for example, Varta have been mentioned a couple of times lately, but without knowing how many of each brand are in use, it’s hard to know if they’re a problem to be avoided.

If folk on here who get to replace significant numbers of cells of any particular brand could collect data on cell numbers, leaky and not leaky, it could help identify problem brands we should avoid, or give early warning on brand changes, for example a previously good brand could have gone bad.

Stuart

[Phil__G]

I've made a few 'free' PP3's from discarded vape cells, its 2S so only 8.4v fully charged but they hold this voltage well under a light load, and anyway commercial lithium PP3s like my EBLs are also 2S:

[ppalped]

Originally Posted by stevehertz

With respect sounds a bit of dodgy brand to me, only to be expected.

Indeed. These are actually the ones that now seems that fail the most in the bin - last week was just another occurrence. From 2 packs of 4, 3 failed (one in one pack, two in another) just in the last year.

These are common to come along with cheap gadgets from eBay - I never use them, but I keep them in the spares bin for emergencies.

Alex

[ppalped]

Originally Posted by Phil__G

I've made a few 'free' PP3's from discarded vape cells, its 2S so only 8.4v fully charged but they hold this voltage well under a light load, and anyway commercial lithium PP3s like my EBLs are also 2S:

This is actually quite nicely done - great idea! The dimensions are identical and 8.4V is good enough for almost all use cases that depend on a 9V battery.

Alex