Hi Sandi,
The worst thing you can do to a rechargeable battery is not use it. They do not last forever but you cannot really estimate the time remaining because the industry does not require an expiration date per se.
It is common to have a rechargeable battery that has not been used for a long time get so low in terms of charge that when you put it into a “smart charger” the charger detects that the battery charge is below the minimum voltage and then the charger tells you it is “bad” or just will not charge it at all.
Sometimes you can put the battery into a “dumb” charger – i.e.- a charger that is on when it is plugged in and off when it is unplugged, or a charger that is timer based. These charger types do not have the built in feature of “bad battery detection” that a typical smart charger has so you can sometimes rescue a battery that is still good but is just very low voltage because it has been sitting for a long time.
Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Curtis
From: Sandi
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 2:20 PM
To: curtis@greenbatteries.com
Subject: Batteries are dying
| My batteries are over a year old, but suddenly four of them have failed. Two were in my ipod speaker case as backups. I pulled them out to use them and they were dead, I tried to charge them, no go, so I tossed them. This week, similar situation. I had two batteries in my mini tape recorder which sat unused for a long time. When I tried to charge those batteries, they also would not accept a charge. This is getting expensive. Are the batteries failing because they are sitting and losing all their juice? Should I let them sit in the charger for hours to even show one bar of charge? Should I never leave batteries sitting for any length of time? Sandi |
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