Hidding in plain sight

[vdubdipr]

NOPE I JUST HOLD THE ALIGATOR CLIPS ON THE RIGHT SIDES TILL THE BATTERY GETS WARM AND SHE DONE!!! any battery ive even done this to the small circle ones!!!!

[Rosphere]

this is absolutly hilarious  watch right to the end!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcC8BuFj21Q

I was LMAO at the heavy breathing, the saucepan lid, and the wooden spoon action.  Could you imagine this guy testing one of the GK model TPU's?  He would be in a basement, half a block away, with his wooden spoon. 

"That's amazing!  They've been lying to us!"  That's the good stuff.  Thank you.

[Koen1]

  Hahahaa funny video!

... but the dude does have a point, even though he makes a total fool of himself
with his heavy breathing, his overexcitement, and especially his soup spoon
the battery industry has been shouting not to even attempt to recharge batteries
because of explosion and toxicity hazard, and have been tricking us into
believing we need to buy new ones every time the old ones go flat...

Oh, and for those who have never taken an alkaline battery apart to look at its innards,
it may be nice to know there's not really that much really toxic stuff in there at all...
Most alkaline batteries are simple zinc cylinders filled with carbon, often wrapped
in a thin fibrous material that was soaked in water or very weak acid.
Only when all the vapour (water) has gone from the cell or the zinc is so far oxidised
that it no longer makes a conductive contact layer, does a battery lose all its galvanic
action and the ability to be recharged.
They can explode in some cases, but a simple strong cover over the battery charger
should be able to contain all of the possible blast when a battery overloads and ruptures,
so they could simply have marketed blast-proof battery chargers.
But they make much more money selling us whole batteries, so they never did and
probably never will make those.

[Sprocket]

Hi.  After lurking for almost a year, I have decided to get in on the act.

Just a comment that I tried the alkaline battery recharging experiment, with mixed results.  As recommended on the Youtube video (not the 'ultra-cautious' guy video:)), I 'played-safe' and with my charger plugged into one of those cheap timers, charged 4 Duracell AA batteries, 1 hour on-charge, 1 hour off-charge (to prevent them leaking) over a 24 hour period.  Everything seemed fine and I thought it had been a complete success, until I realised that all 4 batteries had leaked!  They all had aquired quite a bit of charge though, one running my mp3 player for several hours, though a fraction of what a new one would manage.  I tried charging a different 4 batteries, same 1hr on\1hr off, and this time 3 of the 4 leaked.  Interestingly, the one that didn't leak aquired much more charge - it is still running the mp3 player and showing 'all battery bars' after 8 hours!  Anyway, my conclusion: it definitely works as long as the batteries don't leak, so 12 hours (spaced) is probably too long a charge period.

[MeggerMan]

@Sprocket,
Maybe you could charge them at a lower voltage or current using two pieces of foil, piece of card, crock clips and a resistor or variable resistor of say 1K. Make a sandwich of foil - card - foil and place this between the +ve terminal and the charger connection.  Then use crock clips/paper clips to bridge a resistor across the foil pieces.
The batteries are not designed to vent gas so I guess its the gas from fast charging that is forcing a leak of potassium hydroxide gell to occur.
I was wondering if slower charging will create less leaked cells.
Regards
Rob