Lithium AAs and the Vista HCx

[Sergeant Pluck]

Is there any contraindication to using these AAs in the HCx?

I want to keep a couple of spare AAs more or less permanently stashed in my saddle pack and the lithiums seem to have a dependably long shelf life and reputedly high  capacity.

What is the capacity anyway? There is no info on the packaging of the Energisers I have here. What kind of run times have HCx users been getting with these lithiums?

S

[scottlington]

I know Greenbank uses Lithiums on his GPS and he gets some stupid runtimes (about 60hrs iirc) - easily gets round a 600 anyways. I haven;t used them myself but will be doing. They are also lighter to boot!

[Oscar's dad]

I started using a pair of Energizer Lithium AAs on 6th October.  I don't use my Vista HCx a great deal, normally just 2 or 3 hours each weekend but the battery indicator still shows a full charge. So far they are doing better than normal batteries.

[The Mechanic]

I use lithiums in my HCX as well.  They do last a long time.  However, having read an article in Arrivee which said to use the alkaline setting when using lithiums, duly did so and the HCX told me the batteries were dead after only a few hours use.  A new set was the same.  change the battering type to lithiums and hey presto!, full charge again.  (good job I didn't dump the others.) Must be somethng to do with the voltage I guess.  I tend to keep half a dozen in my rack pack.  They are very light compared to alkalines and the ones I have say use by 2020.  I am sure we with all have nuclear lights by then.  I got a battery case from Maplins that holds 4 AAs.  Not waterproof but better than the clister pack the batteries come in.

[frankly frankie]

What is the capacity anyway? There is no info on the packaging of the Energisers I have here. What kind of run times have HCx users been getting with these lithiums?

50 hours plus.  One loses count after a while.

[edit] that's odd about the alkaline setting.
Some (mostly older) units don't have 'lithium' as an option (depends on which firmware installed).
In any case its a little unclear what the battery type setting actually does.  Some people reckon it just alters the way the bargraph displays.  If that's the case then of course it wouldn't matter which setting you use.

I reckon it alters the low-voltage cutoff point (and hopefully disables cutoff altogether in 'alkaline' mode).  If this is the case, and since lithiums are non-rechargable and so can be flogged to death, then 'alkaline' should be as good a setting as any.  (I should add I never look at the bargraph, I just carry spares and change bats when I have to.)

Voltage-wise, lithiums will always be higher than alkalines, by some margin. 
They're higher than NiMHs most of the time, but in the last 25% of their respective runtimes NiMH will be higher than lithiums.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Sounds good, thanks all. How much charge do they hold then?

OK. Sorry for the very basic query here but I think I am getting my HCx battery level meter confused with that on my phone:

When the battery is full, what do you see? Black bars? Green bars?

[The Mechanic]

I can see a outline of a battery with 4 black bars indicating full.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Ah. Thank you.

And what do you see when it starts to run out? White bars indicating empty?

[The Mechanic]

Correct.

[Sergeant Pluck]

 

So, it's not that I have batteries that never even register on the meter, I have batteries that are so zealously charged and pre-emptively changed that they show less than 4 bars so rarely that I've forgotten what it looks like.

That's much better, thank you.

[Manotea]

I've been thinking of a using Lithiums as well, as the HCX is noticebly more 'juicy than the Cx. So the next question (after all the chat about the BL700 for NimHs), is which charger?

[The Mechanic]

lithiums are not rechargeable.  For that you need a lithium ion or lithium polymer battering.  They don't come in AA size as far as i know. 

[Sergeant Pluck]

I want to keep a couple of spare AAs more or less permanently stashed in my saddle pack

One thing I hadn't realised was just how light the lithium AAs are - compared to an Ansmann 2850 NiMH they weigh nothing. Good for stashing away.

[simonp]

It's going to be a hell of a lot cheaper to use NiMH rechargeable batteries over the long term.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Definitely - but I wanted to try a couple of lithiums and, as I say, keep a couple for emergencies.

[simonp]

Ah.  As an emergency back-up the shelf-life should be good, probably years.

I'm using Lithium AAs in the GPS tracker (the manual insists on this but I think that's because it's meant as an emergency beacon, rather than for any particular reason to do with battery compatibility); first used for the Fred Whitton Challenge.  At some point I'll have to swap them...!

(of course there is no display to power on that device, which is why it's capable of 14 days of continuous tracking on one set of batteries).

[Biggsy]

Shelf life of Energizer Lithium is 14 years.  They are absolutely ideal as backup batteries for anything that takes AA or AAA.

Get them from 7dayshop, Jessops, or Tescos when on special offer at £4 for 4.

[Manotea]

What is the difference between Lithium batteries and Lithium Ion batteries?

There are several important differences. The practical difference between Lithium batteries and Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is that most Lithium batteries are not rechargeable but Li-ion batteries are rechargeable.  From a chemical standpoint Lithium batteries use lithium in its pure metallic form.  Li-ion batteries use lithium compounds which are much more stable than the elemental lithium used in lithium batteries. A lithium battery should never be recharged while lithium-ion batteries are designed to be recharged hundreds of times

Are Lithium Ion batteries available in standard sizes like AA , C or D cell size?

No, Lithium-ion batteries are not available in standard sizes. We believe this is because it would be too easy for users to inadvertently put them in a charger not designed for Lithium-ion batteries creating a potentially dangerous situation. (If an alkaline battery is put into the wrong charger it might leak or even burst, but a lithium-ion battery put into a NiCd or NiMH charger not designed for lithium-ion, might ignite. Also, because Li-ion batteries operate at much higher voltage (typically 3.7V per cell)  than the 1.2 to 1.5V of most cell batteries, designing a 1.5V lithium-ion cell would be expensive.

Bugger.

[Biggsy]

That's not correct, Li-Ion is available in AA, 3 to 3.7V.

See Battery recommendations if you please - reply #17

Just one cell could be used in a device designed for two in series by using a "dummy" cell (Maplins etc).  You'd need to make sure 3.7V wouldn't be too much for your equipment.

[Biggsy]

...I was wondering about the 14500 capacity.  If it's that low then of course you wouldn't want to use one.  Bang goes that idea!

[frankly frankie]

That's not correct, Li-Ion is available in AA, 3 to 3.7V.

Yes they are - but that's very naughty, surely. 
I don't know that the AA standard is actually anything other than dimensions, but surely there's also a very strong implication of a nominal 1.5V (in this and most other common standard cell sizes). 
Chemistries that deliver voltages widely different from the 1.5V standard really should only be supplied in different and non-compatible packages.

Obviously where the Li-ion is packaged as an inseparable pair of AAs delivering 3-3.7V - that's OK.  But as single AA-sized cells, I say that's no fair.

[Biggsy]

Well, they're not widely available.  Those buying obscure batteries from specialist dealers are likely to know what they are doing.

Naughty can be nice.  You might want to use them in a device that you know can tolerate the higher voltage, or put them in a standard AA battery box instead of needing tagged cells or a special box.

[harrumph]

Quite apart fom their unrechargeability, aren't lithium AAs environmentally unfriendly?

(I am one of those people who thinks of cycling as virtuous, and tries to avoid doing unneccessarily things that make it less so)

[Charlotte]

When the NiMH cells in my GPS (Legend, not Vista - so lower power drain) ran out in the states on holiday, I slapped in a set of Lithiums I'd bought along.  Remarkably, they lasted the rest of the three week holiday. 

Some days, we only had it on for a couple of hours a day, some days it was on all the time we were riding. 

Lithiums are The Shizzle.

[saturn]

Recalling FF's recommendation read somewhere, I looked at a pack of lithium AAs in Wilko this morning when buying some NiMHs for Etrex use. I wasn't sure about how long the lithiums would last so thought I'd consult the YACF oracle first. They were certainly very light so I'll get a pair next time I pass if only to keep as spares.