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Old 1st Feb 2019, 7:52 am   #81
Radio Wrangler
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rambo1152 View Post
Written a quarter of a century ago:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...d-1494225.html

"The Hanson managers found themselves facing the dilemma that Ever Ready had side-stepped a decade before: how to sell alkaline batteries without cannibalising the other products.
If there is a newer and better technology arising, and the managers of a company shy away from cannibalising their existing products, don't worry! There will soon be a competitor along to do it for them

The one certainty is change. The long-term survival of a company and the people involved in it depends on that company being able to handle, instigate and exploit change.

The original Ever Ready management failed to see that the fundamental difference between cannibalising your own product and letting someone else do it was whether you had a chance of still having a company afterwards. Ever Ready's fate was sealed at this point.

Hanson were just asset strippers. They bought a company and then did whatever would turn it into the greatest amount of cash, with a preference for cash today over cash tomorrow.

I went to the same school that Jimmy Hanson did, and it came as a surprise to find out years later that he was an old boy. Normally schools crow a bit about billionaire head-of-multinationals as ex pupils. This was a school that business owners in the area had long sent their kids to, so maybe a predatory businessman was considered a threat rather than a trophy.

In the fifties/sixties, I wanted Ever Ready batteries for my toys. Exide seemed a bit second-best, Ray-O-Vac seemed alien and dodgy. Ming the merciless probably used that brand in his ray gun. I remember getting a small 'Shira' transistor radio for a birthday and it came complete with a 'Flying Bomb' brand battery. Odd name... I was a bit concerned about whether it would explode. The kid next door suggested I listen to it to see if it was ticking...

In the sixties, Ever Ready seemed immense and immortal.

Here in the 21st century, there is just a little bit of Ever Ready left.
Ironically, there is also only just a little bit of Hanson left. You only see the name occasionally on quarrying and cement trucks.

Companies seem to do best while steered by their founders, things go to pot when career managers take over, and as for when companies get traded as commodities... run away!

As they say about breakfasts, the chicken was involved, but the pig was really committed.

David
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Old 1st Feb 2019, 2:55 pm   #82
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I'm sure there was a radio programme on one saturday afternoon about the rise and fall of Ever Ready, maybe a couple of years ago. The co-op sold Ever Ready but our local shop sold Vidor.
The rise and fall of many large companies who seem to have the world in their lap is a mystery to me. Do we have many truly historic national companies left now who haven't already been broken up, 'de-merged', 'asset-realized' or whatever they call it? In our world, I'm thinking about GEC, EMI, Thorn, Rank etc. We are told that multi-national conglomerates are the modern way, after all.
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Old 1st Feb 2019, 5:09 pm   #83
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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We are told that multi-national conglomerates are the modern way, after all.
They certainly were the rage, but became perceived as mediocritising and excessively "Anglo-American" (predatory, asset-stripping, monopolistic) in their approach, hence the popularity of re-branding with apparently Latinate names (Diageo, etc.). As this is part of a highly "live" and divisive debate, I'll leave it there!

Were Ever Ready Ni-Cads mentioned earlier actually made by them, or were they made by someone like Saft? It seems to be the way that battery technologies are sufficiently specialised and investment-intensive that there aren't that many companies on the planet that get involved with batteries altogether, and different companies specialise in each market sub-division of battery technology- lead-acid gel, lithium, NiMH and so on.
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Old 1st Feb 2019, 5:38 pm   #84
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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I did try the Alkaline (orange) HP2 ones when they came out, but the voltage (or internal resistance?) of a fresh set was too high (low?) for the speed regulator to cope with, so I never used them, despite their longer running time.
I'm certain that the HP series were carbon-zinc, similar to the U series and the SP series, maybe with higher-purity materials, etched zinc, or maybe zinc chloride mixed with the depolariser to give lower internal resistance and lower self-discharge rate. I used to take them apart for the carbon rods. Alkaline is quite different, and a technology that Ever Ready ignored.
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Old 1st Feb 2019, 5:49 pm   #85
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Another conglomerate - Owen Green's BTR - bought a big slice of the business a family-member was struggling to keep afloat in the face of Chinese competition (yes, even back in the late-1970s). They paid over-the-odds for it; we were all happy because my relative had no more stress (which was killing her) and she could pay back all the debt she'd taken on trying to keep the thing afloat, and retire with a few millions in the bank.

Businesses rise, businesses fall.

(BTR shut the unit down a couple of years later because they couldn't make a go of it either)

I don't see a problem with Ever Ready's demise. It had become a 'zombie' company; to me their strategic goof was in the 1950s/early-60s when they continued pushing the 'layer' batteries [PP7/PP9 type things) for UK-designed/manufactured transistor-radios etc when the rest of the world had adopted cylindrical AA/C/D-cells - as the UK radio-manufacturers of radios lost market-share to lower-cost manufacturers in Hong Kong/Japan/China, Ever-Ready's dependence on layer-batteries dragged them down and they were late in adopting the idea of cylindrical-cells-in-a-PP9-case.
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Old 1st Feb 2019, 8:40 pm   #86
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In answer to post 77. the age of the ever Ready Rechargeable batteries From 1971 is remarkable, I can only say that the insulation between plates must have been more robust than is general, I have found that when Ni Cads were the rule if they were run fairly hard they seemed to go well, I used to have a small electric remote control car and was fairly hungry for batteries the AA Size, I have no theory why some last and in the same batch one goes short circuit,
I have found them to be fickle in this respect.
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Old 2nd Feb 2019, 11:50 am   #87
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I remember well the day when Hanson paid a visit to Ever Ready's Battery plant at Ely Estate (Edmonton N. London).

I was working in our Radio Service & Repair portacabin and emptying it of all equipment, parts and documents and placing them into boxes, to be sent to Dixons service department, (as they had been given the job of repairing/servicing the 3 Ever Ready Malaysian made transistor radios.)

Why? 'coz we'd been given our 'cards' and were to leave by the end of the month ! >((

In fact, it was impossible to ignore the moment the 'Suits' arrived...…...by HELICOPTER !!

They landed on a local nearby football pitch, close to the factory, triggering angry shouts from young mothers pushing their babies around the pitch and people walking their dogs.

The Hanson 'Boys' got out of the helicopter and walked across the pitch, looking like an out take from "Gunfight At The OK Coral"....two of them even wearing full length leather 'rancher' coats !!!!
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Old 2nd Feb 2019, 4:49 pm   #88
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Ive just bought a pair of Ever Ready pp9's for my Hacker radio, from online.. £9 the pair inc p&p so am happy
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Old 2nd Feb 2019, 5:35 pm   #89
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Funny how things like Ever ready seem to be eternal but vanish - I don't think I've seen much old equipment that does not name Ever ready battery sizes as the replacement first and other brands later.
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 8:33 pm   #90
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I've had this Ever Ready "Handylight" since the mid 1960s. I bought it after I saw my grandmother had one.

I was sorting out some paperwork today and found I'd kept the instructions for it. Can you still get the Ever Ready U7 batteries

Keith
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 8:50 pm   #91
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I had one of those. Does the tip of the pre-focus bulb peep out through a little hole in the front? I’m pretty sure I managed to squeeze in a pair of those new-fangled AA cells
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 8:55 pm   #92
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by KeithsTV View Post
I've had this Ever Ready "Handylight" since the mid 1960s. I bought it after I saw my grandmother had one.

I was sorting out some paperwork today and found I'd kept the instructions for it. Can you still get the Ever Ready U7 batteries

Keith
Nice!

Ever Ready were rather late to adopt 'standardized' battery-naming. Their U7 became their HP7 some time in the 1960s by which time the rest-of-the-planet had been calling them AA for at least a decade.

It always fascinated me as to why Ever Ready produced and promoted such a crazy diversity of batteries - particularly in the early transistor-radio era. Did the likes of the PP6 [sort-of like a quad-sized PP3] or the odd little PP4 - or the bigger lumps like the PP8/PP10/PP11 ever get seriously used in anything outside the UK?
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 9:22 pm   #93
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

The PP8 was used in electric fences.
Another old type was the HP1 a large 12 volt disposable battery. Used in the first dry battery powered fluorescent hand lamp.
There was, and may still be, one these lamps and an HP1 on display at the science museum, London.
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 10:02 pm   #94
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Ever Ready were rather late to adopt 'standardized' battery-naming. Their U7 became their HP7 some time in the 1960s..
Can't say I remember ever seeing a U7, I wonder just when it was introduced and when the designation changed: my memory from the mid '60s into at least the early '70s is of the U12/D14 as Ever Ready's standard blue offering corresponding to the higher power HP7 in orange livery.

Paul
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 10:15 pm   #95
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Did the likes of the PP6... or the odd little PP4 - ever get seriously used...?
I've got a Ferguson transistor radio that takes a PP6, and an FET tester made by Comark that takes PP4s. Conversion to take PP3s is usually possible, but sometimes awkward

Wasn't the Ever Ready 3 volt "penlight" battery actually two AA-size cells in series?
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Last edited by Phil G4SPZ; 18th Feb 2019 at 10:19 pm. Reason: Addendum
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Old 18th Feb 2019, 10:59 pm   #96
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I was born in 1970 and the nomenclature of AAA/AA/C/D was HP16/HP7/HP11/HP2 for some bizarre reason. (All orange, zinc chloride) The cheaper zinc carbons were available in SP11 and SP2 (blue, previously having been mainly white) but i don't recall SP16 or SP7- if they did exist our local shops certainly didn't stock them.

There was a blue 3v battery the diameter of a permanent marker, but slightly shorter. I can't remember anything that it would have fitted.

My Mother worked at the Ever Ready factory and says she lost some mid-range hearing as a result. A big price to pay for not being told to wear defenders.

Dave
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Old 19th Feb 2019, 12:29 am   #97
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Here's an old 15V EverReady battery I recovered from an old camera flash. It still has the seller's label and price on it. Might have been quite expensive in those days.
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Old 19th Feb 2019, 12:32 am   #98
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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My Mother worked at the Ever Ready factory...
Dave, would that have been the factory in Park Lane, Wolverhampton, by any chance?

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Old 19th Feb 2019, 6:00 am   #99
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by The Philpott View Post

There was a blue 3v battery the diameter of a permanent marker, but slightly shorter. I can't remember anything that it would have fitted.

Dave
That sounds like the 'No 8'. It was not Ever Ready specific, I think Vidor produced an indentically-sized battery under the number '2T10'. It was used in some small torches and it must have existed outside the UK as it was also the supply for the Ohms ranges in the (excellent) Italian multimeter 'Supertester 680R'

Of course that battery consisted of 2 cells fitted in a tube. The individual cells were not common in the UK, but a friend of mine has a piece of German test gear (I forget what) that takes 3 such cells side-by-side (giving 4.5V). So I guess they were available in Germany at one time.
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Old 19th Feb 2019, 8:32 am   #100
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ View Post
I had one of those. Does the tip of the pre-focus bulb peep out through a little hole in the front? I’m pretty sure I managed to squeeze in a pair of those new-fangled AA cells
Yes the bulb does protrude from a hole in the front. It's been a little temperamental over the years probably due to oxidation of some of the contacts causing intermittent connections but I've soldered some together and it's now working with some AA cells. I wonder if this would affect the guarantee

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