Storing NiMH Batteries.. (1 Viewer)

[Jay H]

I have a waterbottle mount NiMH based lighting system on my commuter bike (Dual beam 12W flood/20W spot Marwi Kamikazis) with a 6ampH waterbottle NiMH battery. Just curious since I store the bike in the basement, should I take in the battery because it can get cold in there overnight, to about 35°F or so when it's freezing outside. I think I should be taking it in and connecting it to the lights every morning but not entirely sure? Seems like I'm not getting as long a run time as claimed and I'm wondering if the battering is draining during storage.
Jay
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HUGBEES!
Certified HTF bike nut and mayor of
Obscuria.

 

[Jin E]

I've designed telecom enclosures that house large strings of batteries. I do know that the cold will not so much effect the long term life of the battery, but it will definitly effect it's performance. So... your battery @ 35F will discharge quicker then if the battery is at 60F. I've had to come up with pretty elaborate systems to keep the batteried in their ideal operating conditions (60-80F).
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-Jin
My Theater

 

[Janna S]

Hey, Jay!
We've been getting dumped on big time up here. It has snowed every day since last Tuesday, and we have 18 or so inches on the ground. We have broken a couple of single day records for October and may break the record for snow total for the month. There's more snow here than farther up north.
I don't have any expertise about batteries. I have always brought batteries and battery-operated items back and forth from my cabin during the winter because I knew the cold (serious cold, like to 55 below in a bad spell) would be bad for them. And I use a Replay radio so I can leave it up there and not worry about the batteries going down. One thing has me puzzled - the wall clocks, just cheesy little AA battery powered ones (one in the cabin that burned up, one in the new cabin) seem to run forever. I have yet to replace a battery on any of them. Seems odd, but I'm not complaining - it's handy to have the clock always work!

 

[Jay H]

Hi Janna, glad you're enjoying your snow!!! Time to break out the snowshoes right?
I just saw a program on Discovery channel last night about some Mega-Tsunami that hit Lituya Bay around 1958, said it was about 516 meters up in the air. It was very interesting. they had photos of where the top of the tsunami hit and all the trees and dirt that was wiped out. Now you can see a very obvious "trimline" where you can see old-growth trees right next to a nice young evergreen forrest.
Anyway, about batteries, I think clocks have an inate ability to live forever! I too have witness the clocks that wouldn't die, even in the cold where tradition alkaline batteries get eaten up. I've gone hiking in the winter in the catskills and around my place in about 20°F weather, not including wind chill with my digital camera inside all my layers next to my body. The most pictures I'd be able to take before the batteries die is about...2!!!! And Lithium AA batteries are expensive, so I'm going to try to rig some kind of case that lets me shoot and will keep some of the heat in.
I keep seeing programs on Alaska, I saw parts of another one called "Extreme Alaska" and they had shots of the State Fair in Palmer and the Giant Cabbage Weigh-off. I'm not sure what year that was from but I think the winner had a 89.4lb cabbage. Loved the fair BTW, they're a great place to mingle with the locals and to actually get a little slice of the local artists. And then there was that Eddie Money concert!!! (Deme was actually a big fan...

I went easy on her and didn't make fun of her because of that What a guy!)
What kind of snow was it? Do you have it all categorized like the Native Alaskans?
Jay