You are doing a lot of work to get these batteries to work properly in
your solar lamps - a challenging and frustrating process to say the
least. ;-) Almost no one that I have ever talked to gets satisfactory performance out of
these lights for very long because of the inherent flaws in the
overall design i.e.- solar charging is very inconsistent and the
limitations of battery technology, memory for NiCD, self discharge for
NiMH and limited life for rechargeable alkaline.

Here are a couple of things that may help you to get better results overall.

First - a charger that charges the batteries in pairs will not be as useful as
one that will charge them individually. Your batteries are probably not being
fully charged and I believe that is your main challenge - to get them
at their full capacity before you start using them. If your charger is older than a
year or so it needs to be added to your "suspect" list. Most chargers
cease to function as well as they used to and can give false and confusing
readings as they age. i.e.- they say that the battery is full when the
battery may or not be full. Also the usable capacity of the battery is
greatly diminished due to its age and most chargers have no way to
tell you this. A battery tester and/or charger/analyser will help if you need
this type of detail from your batteries. See this page for many
options. http://www.greenbatteries.com/batterytesters.html

Second - a VOM will not give you useful information because voltage is
not a good reading from the useful life of a rechargeable battery. The
slight difference in voltage is not going to help you to diagnose and
make adjustments in your rechargeable battery efforts with solar
outdoor solar lighting. A VOM is one of the worst ways to diagnose
the useful capacity of a rechargeable battery.

Charging the batteries once and then
testing them on the VOM will just not be a useful way to get what you need out of the lights.

The higher the rated capacity of a NiMH battery the higher the self
discharge. Particularly with the battery not being charged and
discharged fully from 3-5 times.

You need to use a charger that has individual charge channels and/or
get a tester that will allow you to see the charge state of the
batteries under an actual load with an idea of the current state of
the battery.

The greenbatteries.com batteries are probably performing as they
should but you are still welcome to return them - regardless of your
reason.

Sincerely,

Curtis

Responsible Energy Corporation
Curtis Randolph - CEO
3170 Eugene Way
Fallon, NV 89406
775-722-9901

mailto:curtis@greenbatteries.com

Thursday, March 5, 2009, 11:51:30 AM, you wrote:

New Reply: FW: order greenbatteries-store-41337 from Greenbatteries Store

Hi Curtis,

Thanks for the questions...

I use a Digital Concepts recharger CH-2600N which is selectable for charging of Ni-CD and Ni-MH; although only using the Ni-MH settings these days.

All new batteries I get are always charged first before using them. I've found that the GB batteries charge to about 1.37V while some of the older batteries (4+ years old as I mentioned in my note) will recharge a bit higher even today (about 1.42V) which is surprising.
I am using a VOM to test voltage levels
I am using the GB batteries in 18 solar lamps in our garden. Uses qty 3 AAA per unit.
At the beginning of dusk the lamps turn on and the light intensity is very similar among all 18 units. At pre-dawn I check to see which ones are the most dim. Many lamps are still running pretty bright before sun-up. I have opened up the dimmer ones and have found the voltage levels of and check voltage levels of all three batteries (per unit) individually. The voltage of some of the GB batteries (remember I am only checking on units with dimmer lights after being on all night; not all the units). These tend to have dropped to 1.02-ish levels while the older batteries are still at 1.18-ish levels. That says although the GB started out about .05V behind to after charging, they dropped more over night then existing batteries. The older, existing batteries are rated at 600mAh whereas the GBs are rated at 850mAh. (and not to confuse with my earlier comment that I did get some 700mAh at Radio Shack a couple of days ago to make up for the issue with the GBs).
One of the GB batteries is reading 0 volts. I will do a recharge of the other 4 GB batteries and advise their completed voltage level for each battery. That may take a day or two as the recharger handles only two pair of batteries at a time and I am already charging some others. It takes about 6-8 hours to charge each pair.
Once the four GB are recharged (note that I am assuming at the moment that the one GB reading 0V is really dead) I will reinstall in the lamps and see if they again drop in power faster then the others and advise back to you.

Best regards,

Bridge