Recommended charging time is 2hrs for NiMH.

Thanks. That's pretty long. This is one of the reasons I haven't used rechargeables: you'd have to remember to charge it several hours before your ride. :(

You charge the batteries when you get *off* the bike. Single use batteries are an environmental nightmare. They are also really expensive. I bought Eneloop Combo Pack at Costco for $25. These can be recharged thousands of times.

If you don't use the lights/batteries for a long time (e.g. if you don't often ride in the dark), do you still have to recharge the batteries from time to time to maintain it's capacity (like what one is supposed to do with laptop batteries)?

Read the rest of this thread ;)

That's the nice thing about the Eneloop (and equivalent) style of NiMH cells: they retain most of their charge for over a year. So even if you haven't used them for a year they would still power your light as is for quite some time (and would only take a pretty short charge cycle to have their full capacity).

OK thanks for the info. So it depends... Again this is another negative of using rechargeables: maintenance. And when you recharge you have to watch the time... For someone who does not often ride at night, it seems to me alkaline AAA batts at less than 50 cents/each, or a 20-pack for $10, is a great deal comparing with rechargeables with their cost (incl. the charger)+maintenance hassles?

No, you don't have to watch the time. Decent chargers these days are smart enough to recognize when the cells are fully charged and shut off. So you put the cells in and later you see that the green light came on and the cells are now fully charged.

Sure, if you only use a few alkaline cells each year then you might as well stick with those. But if you're going through more than one of those 20-packs each year for the various things in which you use AA/AAA cells, then you'd probably come out ahead switching to NiMHs.

Has anybody had any experience with these???

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-x-Case-12-...item2569ffd626

Thanks again. It seems what chargers one uses also matters. Good "smart" chargers are probably more expensive. If the charger is not good, I've heard you can overcharge a battery and shorten its life or lower its capacity.

Yes I haven't used up the 20-pack I bought last fall yet ($16). I can't wait to finish them, so I keep riding in the evenings these days :). I don't have other devices that use those AAAs, if I did, then I may follow you to try the rechargeables.

Get a good smart charger. Sony makes a good one for $15 or $25 and they both include a set of four LSD AA Nimh batteries. Personally I'd pick the $25 one since it will ship for free if you buy off Amazon. It takes about 2 hours to charge 1-2 AA or about 3-4 hours for 3 or 4 AA on the $25 model. The $15 model takes about 6 hours to charge 1 to 4 AA. A pack of 4 AAA will probably run $10 too...

The LSD batteries will retain something like 80% of their original charge even if you leave them alone for a year so self-discharge is really a non-issue. My rear blinky in strobe consumes about 35-50% of the capacity in about a week's worth of commuting which is around 5-8 hours depending if I go on a ride after work. So even after a year, there is plenty of run time.

Personally I charge my batteries once a week so there is no doubt whether or not I have good batteries but I use mine a lot. My 18650 light, though, only goes for about two hours so I always keep a spare in my bag since I always forget how long I've had the light running.