Make Your Old Rechargeable Batteries Last Longer
When you are using your cell phone, digital camera, or working on a project requiring a cordless drill, there are few things more irritating then when the battery goes dead. Over time rechargeable batteries begin to lose their ability to stay charge as long as they used to. Some batteries can even lost the ability to hold a charge at all.
However, there is an incredible trick that I discovered quite a while ago that allows you to make your batteries work like the day you bought them and sometimes even better. I have even taken batteries that were completely dead, wouldn't hold a charge, and made them work again.
Certain types of rechargeable batteries carry a accumulated memory that builds up if you don't fully discharge your rechargeable batteries before you recharge them again. This is caused by internal heat buildup which can, over time, cause the battery to stop taking a charge at all. You can almost always force your batteries to take a deeper charge just by leaving them in the freezer over night.
You may have also noticed that your batteries may not hold a charge over a long period of time. I often don't use my digital camera for months. It can really help the life of the battery if you put it in the freezer before topping it back off.
You can even leave your batteries in the freezer for extended periods of time. I have forgotten about some batteries I left in the freezer before and to my surprise they still worked just fine. They may have even worked better than they did before.
The only thing you might notice about batteries that are frozen solid is that they take longer to charge. If you are used to charging your cordless drill batteries in an hour it could take an hour and a half to charge them if they are frozen solid. However, the battery will often hold a much deeper charge.
If one of the batteries to one of your electronic devices ceases to hold a charge all together you might be able to make the battery work again just by using this trick. It usually takes a long time for batteries to get to this point, but it can happen pretty fast with some electronics that we use often.
It will also not cause any damage to batteries in my experience. I was worried for a while that they might meltdown or even catch fire but this has never happened-these are heat related problems and by freezing the batteries you are preventing them.
John Dallinger has been working in the electronic industry for years and commonly writes useful articles online. To see more of his recent work please see Best Rechargeable Lantern Batteries as well as Best Xenon Rechargable Flashlights
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