Last September, a company called Lumafield scanned 1,000 cylindrical lithium-ion batteries to shed light on the hidden risks of being cheap. Around the same time, I found myself testing two amazing new types of AA batteries that recharge using a USB-C cable.
This gave me an idea. can we find very excellent USB-C AA batteries combining my own anecdotal testing with Lumafield’s scanning technology?
The answer appears to be yes! Knowing what I know now, JPath 3600mWh The only rechargeable is a lithium-ion AA that I would buy for myself – even if the USB-C is in the charger instead of each individual cell.
The Zepath is the only vehicle that passed both Lumafield’s testing and my testing with flying colors. It has a larger capacity than most competitors, it’s easier to use, and incredibly, it’s the cheapest of its kind.
These AAs cost just $2.50 per cell, which is less than Panasonic’s famous Enelope nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, all while lasting longer than the Enelope Pros in my Game Boy Advance and high-powered flashlights.
It’s $20 for an eight-pack, and includes a clamshell charger with a magnetic snap closure. (Think of an earbuds case, but much bigger.) You can put as many or as few batteries as you want in any of those eight slots — it’ll happily charge three full batteries as well as three worn ones, even if you arrange them in a zig-zag pattern. It draws about 10 watts of power to charge all eight batteries at once, and less than 3 watts for a pair. You can either use a dumb USB-A-to-USB-C cable or the same type of USB-C PD charger you use for your phone or laptop.
Plus, the charger has built-in safety precautions that prevent it from charging the wrong type of batteries. You’ll see eight hidden LEDs flashing from the top of the case that will indicate whether the battery is charging (flashing green), being charged (solid green), or rejected (flashing red) because you accidentally put alkaline or NiMH in instead.
Again, this means the only USB-C AA batteries I recommend Not there. There is a built-in USB-C port – but I have good reasons for that.
When Lumafield analyzed 12 different types of lithium-ion AA batteries The VergeIncluding designs with built-in USB-C ports and clamshell USB-C chargers, almost every battery except the Zepath was inferior.
Some people, like PaleBlue, have tried cramming a small pouch cell into the battery can to make room for a USB-C port. Others, such as Coast, use a “can-within-a-can” design, where a pre-existing smaller 14400 cell (14 mm x 40 mm) is located inside the larger battery.
Either way, Lumafield’s Alex Hao found that most had relatively poor alignment and one had negative anode overhang, the same worrisome flaw he discovered in an earlier study of 1,000 large cylindrical cells. Almost every “good” we scanned included a charging case PHILIPS And Mupoer. but were the best Japath and very similar runpower – And Japath costs less.
“The alignment of this battery is quite straight and even out the anode overhang (AOH). The assembly quality looks good. And the electrodes really maximize the available space in the can. Overall it’s a good battery,” is how Hao describes the JPath scan.
I had high hopes for the batteries coast And nightcoreWith their built-in USB-C port and their brand reputation for making high quality flashlights for very discerning customers. (Costco carries Coast batteries; it’s not a fly-by-night brand.) But Hao thought Coast’s batteries looked “a little messy” with an unusually low anode overhang. “There’s still overhang, so this battery doesn’t seem overly unsafe, but I wouldn’t choose it over others in this group,” she said.
And while he didn’t think so nightcore Alarmingly, the company may have had a quality-control issue: Hao and I both noticed that our batteries seemed a little loose together, the top terminals weren’t always straight, and some of the cells Lumafield scanned had smaller overhangs and poorer alignment than others, Hao said.
The batteries you want to avoid are spayongFrom what I see it has already been pulled from Amazon because Lumafield found that one cell was completely deformed inside and had negative anode overhang; NTONPOWERwhich according to Hao had very poor electrode alignment; czvvwhich had a “virtually non-existent” anode overhang at the bottom of the cell and has also disappeared from the Amazon, and surprisingly, light blueA known brand where the anodes in our internal sac cell appear to be bent inwards, which can cause a short-circuit if they ever manage to touch.
As long as I got Hao’s results back, I didn’t mind giving up the USB-C port. I had already discovered two practical disadvantages of built-in sockets.
First: short battery life. It lasted a full hour and a half longer than Zepath Coast on my screen-modded Game Boy Advance at maximum brightness; They lasted two hours longer than my budget 1,000-lumen flashlight. (See some results in my embedded video above.) And when I tried two different sets of Nightcores in that Nebo flashlight, strangely they didn’t work at all, either turning the high-power LED to flicker or refusing to stay on.
Reason two: This generation of integrated USB-C batteries are easier to plug and unplug. The sockets on most of them feel very tight, so much so that I feel like I’m risking damaging the battery by forcing it in and out.
And although it can be annoying to remember to pack the Zepath charging case, it’s also possible to forget the four-ended USB-C charging cable that comes with the integrated battery. However, it’s nice to have an integrated port when you’re only charging one or two batteries.
Lithium-ion AAs are the ultimate battery, port or not. The chemistry is still inherently flammable, even though these have a metal casing that protects them from repeated drops, and not all devices benefit from having batteries that reliably extinguish around 1.5 volts until they drain.
My flashlight lasts a very long time at low power with NiMH batteries, which drain very slowly, even though Li-ion batteries work better at higher. So even though I’ve added some Zepath batteries to my home, I won’t be getting rid of the Eneloops any time soon.
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