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Looking for AAA batterys and charger 'digital radio'
BILLYBOO
17-10-2010
got a personal digtal radio and it uses 2 AAA batterys but really eats up charge quick,can anyone recommend good rechargable batterys with longer life and a charger 'made and type' not fussy about charge time but overnight would be good
or the ones not to buy!
planetnokia
17-10-2010
Originally Posted by BILLYBOO:
“got a personal digtal radio and it uses 2 AAA batterys but really eats up charge quick,can anyone recommend good rechargable batterys with longer life and a charger 'made and type' not fussy about charge time but overnight would be good
or the ones not to buy!”

Recommend 1000 mAh Rechargeable AAA Batteries:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Energizer-1-...7334245&sr=8-1
alanwarwic
17-10-2010
Batteries from Aldi. Good capacity and £2.80 per 4.
Chargers from there or Lidl are good (especially the £10+ ones)

But I doubt you can beat this £6 charger so you might as well buy their 1100mah batteries too.
http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/prod...ucts_id=102043
Its a Delta V multi unit and certainly worth at least double.
ironjade
17-10-2010
I gave away my digital radio because recharging the batteries was taking over my life. I now have a solar powered one which needs recharging much less frequently.
alanwarwic
17-10-2010
Originally Posted by ironjade:
“I gave away my digital radio because recharging the batteries was taking over my life. I now have a solar powered one which needs recharging much less frequently.”

They have vastly improved but are still useless for batteries compared to a standard MW/FM radio.
ironjade
17-10-2010
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“They have vastly improved but are still useless for batteries compared to a standard MW/FM radio.”

Mine got through ordinary batteries and rechargeables like they were going out of fashion. Rechargeables are a rip off.
Running from the mains it was a great radio but it was no use in the bathroom unless I was planning on topping myself.
The solar-powered Roberts digital has proved to be the ideal solution but I have a feeling it's not being made any more, which is a bit odd, given everyone's obsession with renewables, etc.
CCleaned
18-10-2010
Try Kodak's "Supralife" batteries in pounland, they seem to be good!
Caxton
18-10-2010
AAA batteries are a rip-off, they are far more expensive than AAs I try and avoid anything that runs off triple As, I would sooner, in most cases, the product was slightly larger to get the extra battery capacity.
PrinceGaz
18-10-2010
AAA cells are usually about the same price as AA in my experience. Okay so AA have roughly triple the capacity of AAA, but if replacing them frequently is an issue, the obvious solution is to use two sets of rechargeables so you always have a fully charged set ready for use. For me the smaller size that AAA cells allows means I'd always prefer them in portable equipment (except extreme cases where AAAs might not even last a single day).

When buying alkalines (and make sure they are alkalines and not "Extra Heavy Duty" or other Carbon-type batteries), either buy them particularly cheap (such as the aforementioned 6 Supralife AA or AAA for £1 in Poundland), or look out for boxes of 20-40 in the sales at places like Argos or Maplins which can work out even cheaper (at present you'd pay the full £8.49 for 40 at Maplins which is more expensive than Poundland, but I've seen them around half price in the past). Buying alkalines cheaply is no substitute for using rechargeables in high-drain devices though.
Jamie Dame
18-10-2010
not sure if this is relevant but do Digital Radios cost more to run than other applicances, radios, from mains?
I have run a digital radio from batteries and had a very short life from them.
spiney2
18-10-2010
Yes!

Dab radios do lots of signal processing, very power hungry.

Especially since the cofdm modulation used requires an extra signal processing stage.

You can get high capacity aaa batteries, plus "safe"chargers thatwill do them in about 40 minutes.
PrinceGaz
19-10-2010
Originally Posted by Jamie Dame:
“not sure if this is relevant but do Digital Radios cost more to run than other applicances, radios, from mains?
I have run a digital radio from batteries and had a very short life from them.”

When being run from the mains, the power drawn by the radio itself may well be insignificant compared with the efficiency of the power adapter (whether external or internal) such that it hardly matters how much power the radio itself uses.

For instance a radio which takes 1 watt when running on batteries is going to drain them pretty quickly (2x AAA would be dead after about 3 hours or so), but when running on mains power, 1 watt is negligible and you might find it actually draws 2 or 3 watts from the wall.

An analogue radio which takes 0.1 watt on battery power (a typical amount at modest volume levels) and which lasts 30 hours on the same 2x AAA might still take 2 or 3 watts on mains power because of the inefficiency of the mains supply when powering a very small load.

Besides, lets get things in perspective. If you pay 15p per kWh (a typical amount today), then each watt a device draws from the socket costs you only 0.015p per hour, or 0.36p if you leave it on for 24 hours. So a device which uses 3 watts costs about a penny per day if left on all day. It therefore hardly matters whether you run an analogue or digital radio on mains power, because the cost of the amount of power they use is negligible.

Bear in mind those same 3 watts would be the equivalent of draining AA alkalines at the rate of nearly one per hour, the cost of running battery powered equipment from the mains is generally not worth worrying about.,
spiney2
19-10-2010
yeah but yeah but yeah but ........

1. Digital radios use far more power.

2. On same batteries, digital radios run for a shorter time.
tony13579
20-10-2010
So why not produce a radio that charges it's own internal battery when it reaches >50% or once a day.
ironjade
20-10-2010
Originally Posted by tony13579:
“So why not produce a radio that charges it's own internal battery when it reaches >50% or once a day.”

That's why the solar powered Roberts job is so good: the sun keeps the internal battery topped up, with the occasional boost from the mains.
BILLYBOO
23-10-2010
Originally Posted by planetnokia:
“Recommend 1000 mAh Rechargeable AAA Batteries:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Energizer-1-...7334245&sr=8-1”

why only 1000mAh ? and not larger capacity?
planetnokia
23-10-2010
Originally Posted by BILLYBOO:
“why only 1000mAh ? and not larger capacity?”

If you can get 1200mAh or better (and the price is right) then definitely go for them.
Boselecta
23-10-2010
The way DAB eats power is a blooming outrage! Used to change C batteries in old MW bathroom radio about once a decade... poxy DAB feels like every 10 mins.
Even my Roberts Solar is a pain this time of year and I have to charge it at least twice a week.
I know Ipod touch or Iphone is expensive but if you get a radio streaming app you can listen to a myriad of stuff and also have the other functionality too.
planetnokia
23-10-2010
I've heard that UK DAB Radio is a dead duck and that the Germans have a better system that we will adopt instead.
PrinceGaz
25-10-2010
Originally Posted by planetnokia:
“If you can get 1200mAh or better (and the price is right) then definitely go for them.”

The highest capacity NiMH cells are not always the best option, even if the price is right. In fact they can sometimes be a quite poor option depending on how you intend to use them.

In order to get the highest available capacities, there is some tradeoff between the robustness of the cell and its capacity, that is the very highest capacity cells tend to be rated for fewer charge/discharge cycles even under optimum conditions, and they are also more easily damaged by less than perfect handling both during charging and discharging.

Generally speaking, the very highest capacity cells are best suited for use in devices where the runtime from a single fully charged set is the overriding concern, and other factors (cost, longevity) are less important.

For most purposes, somewhat cheaper, slightly lower capacity NiMH cells are a better option as whilst they won't last quite so long from a full charge, they will probably serve you longer overall (the number of charge cycles they can take), in addition to being cheaper to buy in the first place.

Both types have their place, but higher capacity is not always better.
PrinceGaz
25-10-2010
Originally Posted by planetnokia:
“I've heard that UK DAB Radio is a dead duck and that the Germans have a better system that we will adopt instead.”

That would be DAB+. Essentially it is the audio equivalent of the DVB-T2 system used to transmit the HD channels on Freeview (DTT), in that it uses a much more efficient modern codec than what is used by DAB.

DAB uses the old MP2 codec which requires at the very least 128kbps for acceptable stereo music quality, but really needs 160kbps or preferably 192kbps for good quality. DAB+ uses the state-of-the-art AAC+ codec which can provide quite good quality at as little as 64kbps. That means that DAB+ can easily fit twice as many channels in the same space as DAB can.

Given that DAB has not exactly been an overwhelming success in Britain and that lack of broadcasters wanting to use it is likely to be more of a problem than lack of bandwidth in future, we may as well leave DAB as is rather than introduce DAB+ in parallel, unlike how DVB-T2 has been introduced alongside DVB-T on DTT/Freeview because there is a very real need to make better use of the UHF TV spectrum.
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