Both Mrs Panda and myself have gammas and they are ace, however they dont seem to work with rechargeable batteries, specifically 1300mAH AAA. Is it just me? Or do rechargables not have enough omph?

Cheers

Panda

Alpkit do explain that on their website.

a lot of rechargable aren't the same voltage

e.g. duracell AA = 1.5V I think
the rechargable AA's i had for my old digital camera were 1.4 I think
could be why, I'm in the the same situation with my wireless mouse at home

I've been using mine with rechargeables – not sure what capacity.

It's been working fine for well over a year.

And if it breaks I'll be straight back to buy another one, as at £15 you really can't go wrong.

Gamma has not been designed to work with lithium batteries. Lithium batteries have a high output during discharge which means they can cause the torch to overheat and possibly damage electronics and LEDs. We recommend using a good quality alkaline battery such as Energizer or Duracell. Cheap batteries are more likely to leak and leave a gooey mess on the contacts.

From: http://www.alpkit.com/shop/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16345&category_id=253

However as it was only £15 and I cant be bothered with battery faff its had rechargables, asda value, duracell, whatever is in the back of the drawer – basically any battery I can find.

Never had any issues myself.

mine works fine on nimh rechargeables

1300 mAh AAA batteries, are you sure?

a lot of battery performance claims are 'optimistic' to say the least.

(as a rule of thumb, when it comes to rechargeable batteries, if it doesn't say sanyo on the side, regard any claims with suspicion)

my alpkit headtorch runs fine on AAA Nimh…

They are Uniross batteries if that makes a difference

panda

they're normally ok, have they been left uncharged/flat for a few months?

have they been sitting in a cheapo charger for a few days / weeks / months?

Gamma has not been designed to work with lithium batteries.

Lithiums are not rechargeables. They are posh high power disposables. It says nothing about rechargeables. I reckon your batteries a borked, personally. 🙂

The nominal cell voltage for NiMH is 1.2V – eg the lumi 13.2V pack is 11 cells.

1.2v shouldn't matter – under load, alkalines tend to drop to about that level.

I'd bank on one of the cells being borked – do you have any others you can compare with?

I will try some others I have, it could be all the ones I have tried are Borked!

Cheers

Panda

Panda

My Uniross enviro (hybrio?) batteries don't work in my gamma either and no they're not borked

mine dosn't work with either Eveready nimh or some from RS, fine with Duracells etc. Bit odd

After the Duracells it came with ran out mine's been on the same set of rechargeables from new, through numerous charge cycles. Can't remember capacity/type offhand.

I've had better results with Energiser batteries compared to a selection of NiMh ones. They seem to last much better in the cold and don't discharge themselves between uses.

I have been using either rechargeable Eneloops or Duracells with the same sort of results.

I've been using these http://www.gprecyko.com/en/battery_pack.html and they work fine