Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Frozen Batteries

And how do you avoid it? I commute/ride year round and last year I had regular batteries (alkeline) freeze a couple of times and ruin the flashlights/lights I was using. Trying to avoid that if possible this year...
It gets down to about 0 and some weeks into minus degrees F and I can be out anywhere from an hour to four hours.

Any tips? I did a search but came up with nothing...

Thank you!

edit= I should run a dyno but checking for possible budget solutions first.

Get a light that has a head on the handlebars and a cable going to the battery pack, like a water bottle battery. Make the cable long enough to carry the battery pack under your coat. It works.

It will also warm up (temporarily) batteries that got too cold on a ride. That will get you going again untill they get cold again.

Alkaline are worse than all the rechargeable batteries ion the cold. Also you can try and insulate your light. Possibly a chemical hamd warmer under the insulation and near the batteries will keep you going.
Not right on them.

Thank you. I hadn't even thought about using the hand warmers!

#1 thing I'd do: stop using alkalines. Try some NiMH rechargeables. They've got better characteristics for high-current use anyway, regardless of temperature, and obviously will save you money over the long run.

In addition to using NiMH (I recall someone on this forum said the Sanyo Eneloops are relatively better at lower temperatures) or Li-ion batteries, you might try insulating the batteries from the cold. If the battery starts out at room temperature, it will then take longer to cool down. In addition, depending on how much current you use, the batteries generate some heat.

The trick would be how much insulation to use for what temperature so that the batteries stayed warm but did not get hot. If you use flashlights or separate battery packs, wrapping them with plastic foam sheet packing material should insulate them and allow you to adjust the amount of insulation by the number of layers you wrap. Plastic bubble wrap (small bubble type) might also work.

Another approach would be to cover/surround most of the battery with a leakproof container of water in addition to some insulation. The phase change from liquid water to ice gives off quite a few calories per weight; even heating water takes relatively a lot of calories because it is a polar solvent that forms hydrogen bonds between the water molecules LINK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water). Thus water could provide a thermal buffer (or thermal mass) against below freezing temperatures as well as minimize overheating. A water bottle (the rubber bag type in drug stores that holds ice for icing an injury) or maybe just a plastic bottle of water plus the battery in an insulated bag might be worth trying.

Please let us know what you try and how it worked.

Thank you. I hadn't even thought about using the hand warmers!
That could work very nicely, particularly with a bit of insulation. Note that the chemical handwarmers use oxygen in the chemical reaction (which is basically rapid rusting). You can sort-of control the amount of heat generated by limiting the available oxygen with a plastic bag and even save them between uses by putting them in a really air-tight plastic bag or bottle.

Here is a tip for free insulation. So to big box stores (like Best Buy is a good one to go to) when they setup a laptop for people they tend to take out the insulations and such that are not all nessassary to the user. Check around in electronic departments as well. Ask for the thin insulation they use for TV screens/LCD screens.

Now that you have that awesome stuff wrap your battery a couple times then as mentioned before use a chemical hand warmer then wrap some more insulation on top of it. You can also use bubblewrap.

I was going to suggest using a chemical stick hand warmer which you light one end with a match then put into a warming case but wasn't sure the battery vents and if any gases would cause an explosion.

I'm sure if you're using a helmet light with battery pack in the back pocket of your jacket you should have no problems.

Something like this makes accessing the battery easy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/TRIATHLON-BIKE-FUEL-BOX-TOP-TUBE-NUTRITION-BAG-NEW_W0QQitemZ310079959967QQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

great suggestions all! Thank you and I'll let you know once the weather hits the fan....

my lights use rechargeables and when they are running they produce thier own heat and won't
freeze. if the light croaks i will stick the batteries in my pocket

lithium batteries although expensive do better in extreme cold than the others. Check it out.

lithium batteries although expensive do better in extreme cold than the others. Check it out.

yesa but NiMH beats lithium in super cold. lithium should be great in super cold but NiMH wins hands down

#1 thing I'd do: stop using alkalines. Try some NiMH rechargeables. They've got better characteristics for high-current use anyway, regardless of temperature, and obviously will save you money over the long run.

Have you read about, or used the Eneloops yet? They are fanatastic. You can leave them for 2 years and they still have a pretty good charge. I have a few. I think Dura Cell has a similar product now.

"yesa but NiMH beats lithium in super cold. lithium should be great in super cold but NiMH wins hands down "
--Interesting. I thought Lithium Ion/Poly were the best in the cold. Period. What is super cold? -10F? -50?

see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38716956@N00/38079250/

and:
http://www.milwaukeetool.com/us/en/news.nsf/vwFeaturedProducts/0D816C53651B6C6386256FB40066441B?OpenDocument

"Cold weather performance: Cold weather performance: Cordless tool users in cold climates know that NiCd and NiMH battery packs hate a chill and lose most of their charge in sub-freezing temperatures.

The V28’s Performance Optimizing Circuit monitors battery temperature, output and tool demand and makes adjustments so users can get full battery capacity even in very cold temperatures down to -4˚ F. "
--V28 is a lithium ion rechargable.

For real cold weather performance (below -20C for example) you'd need to be using lithium primary cell batteries. The 1.5v non-rechargeable ones. In the US the most common is the Energizer E2 Lithium. Lithium primaries are supposed to be effective down to around -40 degrees, easily beating all others. The downside is of course cost, since they aren't cheap to begin with, and aren't rechargeable.

Have you read about, or used the Eneloops yet? They are fanatastic. You can leave them for 2 years and they still have a pretty good charge. I have a few. I think Dura Cell has a similar product now.

I have some similar low-self-discharge AAs and AAAs for blinkies. When it comes to, say, my Fenix L2D flashlight, I prefer the higher capacity of the "regular" NiMH cells such as my Sanyo 2700mAH. I can keep them topped off in my LaCrosse BC-900 until just before I go riding, so I get about 25% more runtime than I'd get from the Eneloop version.

If I had to store them in a fully-charged state for more than a day or two, then I'd be better off with the Eneloops, though.

#1 thing I'd do: stop using alkalines. Try some NiMH rechargeables. They've got better characteristics for high-current use anyway, regardless of temperature, and obviously will save you money over the long run.

+1

I've used NiMH batteries in temps down to -32C; their runtime is shortened by such cold temps, but they work just fine.

I have some similar low-self-discharge AAs and AAAs for blinkies. When it comes to, say, my Fenix L2D flashlight, I prefer the higher capacity of the "regular" NiMH cells such as my Sanyo 2700mAH. I can keep them topped off in my LaCrosse BC-900 until just before I go riding, so I get about 25% more runtime than I'd get from the Eneloop version.

If I had to store them in a fully-charged state for more than a day or two, then I'd be better off with the Eneloops, though.

I got sick of charging up every time I wanted to use my camera and blinkies. I have the LaCrosse BC-700. It's nice too.

"yesa but NiMH beats lithium in super cold. lithium should be great in super cold but NiMH wins hands down "
--Interesting. I thought Lithium Ion/Poly were the best in the cold. Period. What is super cold? -10F? -50?

see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38716956@N00/38079250/

and:
http://www.milwaukeetool.com/us/en/news.nsf/vwFeaturedProducts/0D816C53651B6C6386256FB40066441B?OpenDocument

"Cold weather performance: Cold weather performance: Cordless tool users in cold climates know that NiCd and NiMH battery packs hate a chill and lose most of their charge in sub-freezing temperatures.

The V28’s Performance Optimizing Circuit monitors battery temperature, output and tool demand and makes adjustments so users can get full battery capacity even in very cold temperatures down to -4˚ F. "
--V28 is a lithium ion rechargable.


I am comparing niterider HID lamp runtimes on NiMH summer and winter (5 to zero F)

vs

Niterider Trinewt LED headlamp runtimes on LiIon summer and winter.

the trinewt seems to lose 30 minutes where the NiMH almost seemed to run longer in cold.

so i am basing this on the type of batteries Niterider actually installing in their lights, not
some other battery data. this is what you can buy at a bike shop for bikes.

---------------------------------------------------------------
ya know, if I was using a Milwaukee tool on my handlebars then I guess this would matter:

the V28’s Performance Optimizing Circuit monitors battery temperature, output and tool demand and makes adjustments so users can get full battery capacity even in very cold temperatures down to -4˚ F. "
--V28 is a lithium ion rechargable.

----------------------------------------------------------------
But guess what ? I ain't, so it doesn't. it's bike lights off the shelf

"I am comparing niterider HID lamp runtimes on NiMH summer and winter (5 to zero F)

vs

Niterider Trinewt LED headlamp runtimes on LiIon summer and winter.

the trinewt seems to lose 30 minutes where the NiMH almost seemed to run longer in cold.

so i am basing this on the type of batteries Niterider actually installing in their lights, not
some other battery data. this is what you can buy at a bike shop for bikes."

Gotcha.

In the spirit of confining this to the origonal question:

I was wrong with regard to LiPO -- they are not good cold weather performers.

Photosmith is correct with regard to lithium primary batteries being the best cold weather performers -- but I think he's just pointing out a fact. You'd go broke buying new ones every time they ran out.

Alkalines are next to useless if they are in the freezing cold for any amount of time.

Lithium Ion rechargables are the best (rechargable) performers in the cold, but no batteries are really that good when it's cold out. ie: don't depend on a battery technology to save you. Best to keep them near your body and/or insulated as others here suggested. If you are using AA/AAA rechargables, maybe keep a spare set in your pocket and keep swapping them out as they freeze. Pain in the ass but it could do the trick, and you've got some backup with you to boot.

Some people think Makita is using some kind of exotic Lithium unknown to the cycling community, so here's a bit of info from a bike light manufacturer: http://www.lupine.de/2009/en/technology/li-ion/

Also -- don't recharge a cold/frozen battery. That's a good way to wreck them. Let them warm up first.