I sincerely appreciate your email detailing your professional experience with NiCD vs NiMH batteries and your support of our efforts. We try hard to communicate useful information to everyone so they can get the most out of their battery investment.
The challenge is to address the concerns of each customer and give just the information that would help them in their situation and not burden them with too many facts and details about all the many variables in the battery world.
Personally though, I love the technical details because I enjoy solving problems and there are so many more battery chemistries and solutions in the commercial and industrial realm - as compared to general consumer products that we have traditionally focused on at www.greenbatteries.com.
We do have some NiCD batteries currently available on our other battery site www.portablebatteries.com and we will have other chemistries available soon on both our battery sites as Responsible Energy Corporation gets more involved in commercial battery management and battery recycling`services.
Sincerely,
Curtis
Responsible Energy Corporation
Curtis Randolph - CEO
16157 Galena Meadows Drive
Reno, NV 89511
phone 775-852-3883
fax 815-301-3958
cell 775-722-9901
www.greenbatteries.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Stan [mailto: XXXXXXXXX
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 8:27 PM
To: info@greenbatteries.com
Subject: NiCd BatteriesRe FAQ: Which are better, NiCd batteries or NiMH batteries?
I admire your honesty in admitting that there are some applications where NiCd batteries are a better choice than NiMH. As a former two-way radio manager for a large public safety agency that used thousands of batteries 24 hours a day, I can testify that NiCd batteries are far superior to NiMH when used in a high current demand application in a hot climate.
We tried to use NiMH batteries in place of the NiCd several times because of the hazardous waste disposal cost and the size/weight per Amp hour advantage but it just didn’t work out in our application (5 Watt VHF conventional portable radios). The problems were primarily heat related.
When the ambient temperatures are already high and more battery heat is produced when transmitting and the radio is in a protective carrier that retains the heat, the NiMH batteries do not perform well and they self discharge at an extremely high rate. A fully charged spare NiMH battery left in the trunk of a car on a hot day would be dead by the end of a shift. If left there for a week or two, the battery would lose substantial capacity.
The users also put batteries in chargers while still hot and let them "cook" to long which didn’t help. Then there’s the charger issue. Motorola, Kenwood and others now make chargers that will accept bi or tri chemistry but many "legacy" chargers were still in use and it was impossible to make sure the correct charger was being used all the time.
Economics also came into play since we found the NiMH batteries required replacement at twice the rate of the NiCd type (80% or rated capacity). We were paying about $0.80 a pound to dispose of the NiCd’s which were then recycled so we were also "green". We collected enough batteries to fill a 55 gallon drum (about 400 pounds) every month.
I know that isn’t the case with the average user of AA or AAA cells but there are still applications where the NiCd batteries are hard to beat. They can take more abuse and misuse and are cheaper to use in some cases. Also should mention that NiCd battery technology has not stood still and today’s products use much less toxic metal and do not have the "memory" effect of earlier designs.
P.S. Just noticed that the only portable radio battery you sell (B8002 for Motorola Saber) is a NiCd.
Keep up the good work!
Stan
by Greenbatteries.com - Responsible Renewable Energy
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