A note on current: The tester's behavior (how much of it turns yellow) is also dependent on how much current the battery can provide, but how exactly that was calibrated is... fuzzy. I only discussed voltage here because the original Kodak patent describes it as a "Battery voltmeter" and my first test with the DC power supply was consistent with this video's script. However, when I was filming B-roll with a second unwrapped battery, it was passing much more current than before and I needed to limit current via the power supply for it to show a clean cutoff in color. At just 1 volt much more turned yellow than in my first test, and over a smooth, spread-out gradient. I sort of suspected this (that weak batteries would pass less current, compounding the effect of the heat gradient) but I couldn't back that up with anything concrete. My first test probably had a poor connection between the power supply leads and the label which was limiting current enough to make voltage the only significant variable, but until I filmed it with the second battery I didn't know it was pulling less current than it otherwise could.
It's probably a printed carbon film resistor, often used on inexpensive devices as it's pretty much a thick ink that can be printed onto a surface. Edit: They may have been easy to print, but they were often HIGHLY inconsistent in thickness especially with low cost printing methods. This would explain the inconsistencies you (and we) experienced.
depends on what you use the batteries for my mouse use batteries and it becomes laggy and not great to use but then same batteries in a TV remote work just fine so i do keep them for later use
One Christmas when I was in grade school my dad gave me two beautifully wrapped D cell batteries with a note 'Toy Not Included'. My mother was sure I'd be upset. I thought it was hilarious. Daddy and I really got each other.
When I was a youngster in the 60s through early 70s, my dad wrapped a screw driver seperate from any gift that showed "some assembly required." I didn't appreciate until much later in life how the Craftsman screwdriver was a better gift than the plastic junk.
Talking about children and parents sharing or not sharing the same kind of humour: I just read "complaints" from a mother on Twitter (x) that her daughter does not find the movie "Airplane!" funny at all. Replies varies from suggesting her to try for more kids, to adoption and a lot of comforting her for her terrible faith… 😂
I think this is absolutely classic Technology Connections content. A nearly irrelevant thing you vaguely remember from the past that you never thought about that turns out to have something interesting going on in it. Perfection!
As someone who grew up desperately poor at times, we definitely had a drawer for used batteries. When something like a radio or a toy used up a set of batteries to the point where they couldn't power that thing, we took them out and saved them. They were still good for super low-draw items such as the TV remote.
My dad had a complex drawer system of various used batteries, sorted by type & their expected state of charge. When I'd play with these self-testing batteries, he'd get annoyed cuz I was using up the charge.
Same here. Usually after a while the batteries charge is too low to drive anything with a motor or a display. They go into a drawer for remotes. Just to use up every little bit of power in those batteries before they are disposed (properly).
I made a comment stating the same. I bought a whole box of duracells that had the battery check on them just a few months ago. Still have a bunch of them left.
That was truely a throwback for me this evening. I had these when I was a kid in the 2000s and always wondered how they work. Now, 20+ years later, I'm sitting here with a PhD in physical chemistry, saw these and immediatly knew what was going on. The satisfaction when you explained it really made me smile. Thanks from Germany!
I figured it all out the moment I read the "test at 70", up until the heating element having to be a gradient (though I guessed it would be becoming thinner, but they used a more space-efficient design by making it just go narrower instead). It was satisfying to still hear about all the smaller features that optimize it, which I couldn't have thought of, but make perfect sense. They tested it in real-life, they found ways to do it best.
Back in my childhood, the PowerCheck used to be a toy in and of itself, like a fun little science experiment. Now the science part of it is clearer than ever, thank you!
As a kid I was always checking my battery levels with these inbuilt testers as well as the one mentioned that they used to include separately. I loved always checking my batteries. lol
You can still buy battery containers with integrated testers. I think the issue is that nobody bothers checking batteries because most high drain devices have either moved to rechargeable batteries or have informative meters built in to estimate the battery life remaining.
If they were as squidgy as an amoeba it would make fitting them into odd shaped equipment easier. Wait: I've just invented the "jelly bag" type of cell that gives phone manufacturers the excuse to make them non removable.
It invokes the "Yeah, that's not-- you know what, nevermind" response. Thing is, though, the term "battery" implies more than one cell, so most commercially available "batteries" are not (9-volt batteries are the only commonly-used alkaline battery that is actually a battery of cells, and often they're actually batteries of six packaged AAAA cells, though sometimes they're stacks of raw cells).
Oh my. When I was a kid, my grandma used to show me these. I was fascinated. I've asked her about them a few years ago but she didn't know what I was talking about, perhaps I couldn't explain it properly. It felt like I've just had a dream about such batteries. Thanks for this video!
"Thank god we are past that" Meanwhile the cigarette-industry: "We make disposable e-cigarettes with Lithium-ion batteries in it, that you just gonna throw away after use"
I can happily say that the industry is moving towards rechargable vapes, and they're selling pods with liquid instead. Why didn't they do that in the first place is beyond me, then again, most people don't actually care about recycling 😢 EDIT: To add more context, the first Vape Pens were indeed rechargable back in the 2010s, then Vape Mods/Vape kits became popular for a while but they were too cumbersome and required maintenance. Disposables became very popular in the last 2-3 years for their ease of use, many of which did not allow for any recharging of the battery whatsoever, furthermore, some models prevented you from directly recharging the battery as most of the were soldered directly to their little boards to cut down costs, obviously.
As I am from a Non-English speaking country, I didn't know what the functionality was - it was written in English as far as I remember. So as a kid, my sister, cousins and myself were convinced that by pressing those dots the battery would recharge. So much pain in the fingers to try go get the yellow come up again hahaha
I love this! I vaguely remembered these as a kid so I went to YT to remember how they worked and now here I am watching the most in-depth video. You just won over a new subscriber.
I was General Manager at a Chicagoland company that printed large sheets of battery testers for Energizer for the Asia market. We also printed large sheets of universal testers for AAA, AA, C & D cells that were later decorated with custom advertising and handed out as marketing premiums (sometimes referred to as Tchotchke's) by businesses. The thermochromic ink layers were printed on the large sheets and die cut by another Chicagoland based company named LCR Hallcrest who were our customer. The thermochromic material technology was LCR Hallcrest's and they also managed the sales and distribution of the Energizer and Tchotchke testers. In the heyday of individual battery testers there was competition between two conductive ink manufactures - Acheson Colloids (now part of Henkel) and DuPont's Microcircuit Materials business unit now part of Celanese. I believe the companies producing the testers were located in Columbus, OH and North Carolina. Printed battery testers are still being produced by CCL Label somewhere in the Eastern USA.
That just opened a whole can of emotional worms for me... My ex - if we can even call it that; we dated for 2 months in 1999-2000 - called me his furby. Ironically, as I am not very hirsute by nature... I should really give him a call, shouldn't I?
@@CopenhagenDreamingThat's an odd thing to say under someone's comment... But it never hurts to say hi every once and then, right? Just don't expect anything much from him now, for your sake
I really appreciate that you take the time to write subtitles for your videos. Auto-generated subtitles are bad, and community subtitles aren't a thing anymore, so thank you.
@@oliviersavard8676 I really despise RUclips for removing the community subtitles feature. As a french dude who knows English pretty well, I happily transcribed many english videos + translated them to french. Now it doesn't exists anymore, and french subtitles are just horrible.
I'm a technician at Duracell in Belgium. Big fan of your channel btw. I want to add a fun fact about the discontinued power check. On the EMEA market Duracell still produced batteries with a power check under the "Ultra" brand and for north America under the "Quantum" brand, production discontinued about 3 years ago when "Optimum" became our new premium. I work in the finishing process and production of these cells with power check were really a pain because the cells didn't had a round shape anymore and got stuck in the chutes causing blockage. I'm happy we've passed that 😅
Do you have any guesses as for why Duracell's in north america are so prone to leaking these days? I never had many issues when I was in the EU, but here I've had many cells that are anywhere from a few months to a couple years old that have leaked in their packaging without any draw. Even when in use without any passive draws I'll come back a year later and have to neutralize the entire battery compartment. Even cheapo dollar store batteries have rarely leaked on me in recent years, Duraleak has been the nickname here for nearly a decade now.
I LOVED these as a kid. Sure, the dots were a pain to press with small fingers, but being able to see how much charge was left displayed on the side of the battery itself was so darn cool.
I am a retired electrical engineer and I really like your channel. You help make many things clear for the average person. One of my multimeters has a battery tester range on its selector for AA, C, D and 9V. Like the Duracell tester, it places a small load on the cell/battery.
That actually makes a lot of sense, and now I want to see what current my older meter is pulling in 'batt' mode... I always wondered why there was a separate setting for it when it's just a voltage range, but of course a load test would need its own setting.
@KPR: The problem is that the load that these testers place on the battery is too low to be useful. In my experience, to get a good accurate reading, you have to load down the battery pretty hard. Then (and only then) can you get a good estimate of the battery's actual state of charge. I'm such a nerd, I actually have a few 1-ohm, 10-watt power resistors that I use for that purpose. 😁
They worked really well and were surprisingly accurate. I felt bad discarding them because it felt like I was throwing away a decent instrument (a very specific, but yet useful one).
@@suprlite Not sure but I remember the test strips that were effectively what's on these batteries but on plastic instead so you could test any battery of appropriate types. It was a while ago so I can't guarantee that they came with battery packs but considering how cheap they surely were to make I wouldn't be surprised. You can likely still find some with enough google digging.
I really appreciated these built-in testers. I had lots of scenarios where it was unclear whether the battery was dead and even multi-battery systems where only one battery was below functional threshold. I knew nothing of volt meters and welcomed the ease of use and convenience.
They sold purpose built testers, sold right along with the batteries. We never had extra batteries, you knew they were dead when the item stopped working.
The BEST and EASIEST way to see if a battery is full or empty is dropping them on a flat surface (vertical). If they jump up, they are empty, if they just tip over, they are full :)
@@dovacon7409 This also breaks the core and will degrade the battery.
2 месяца назад+721
Duracell still produces and sells alkaline batteries with Powercheck™ in Europe. I have a pack of fresh batteries right here. Says made in Belgium and use-by date 03/2034. I don't remember any batteries with this feature earlier than mid to late 2000s. Then again, I'm from Northeastern Europe, so that might've been a marketing strategy due to lower buying power here.
I was gonna say I remember these batteries from my childhood and I was only born in 2003. But I'm also from europe, so it might just be that the european market is more interested in these, although I cannot confirm if they are still available where I'm from (Austria) as I rarely need batteries and if so I don't buy those expensive Duracell ones lmao
I remember being mocked as a kid when I put batteries on my Christmas list, but in the following weeks my siblings and parents were always taking from my collection.
I remember being super amazed by this as a kid, I really wanted them to see it work. I took them apart too and I saw the insides but didn't really know how it works. After all those years I finally do.
I remember the on-package battery testers, and I'm glad you mentioned those. I never really had a problem using those, but when they switched to the on-battery design... I can still feel the pain in my thumb trying to get the negative contact to work.
It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't put one of them right on the edge of the bottom so it dug into our fingers when we went to use the darn things.
I honestly think that's one of the reason why they don't make them anymore. Too damn uncomfortable, jamming your thumb against the edge in order to try to make a good electrical contact. 😠 (And then when the yellow strip doesn't respond, you can't be sure if it's the battery or the connection, so you jam your thumb against it even harder! 😫)
Thanks for mentioning that! I remember the battery tester built into the plastic clamshell of the package. That was the sensible way to go. No need for every battery to have one. I remember the plastic shell being a little tricky to bend around the battery while keeping the battery aligned.
I would bet another reason they did away with the tester on the package was because you could use it for any battery. That's exactly what I did. Bought a pack of more expensive Duracells just to get the tester, then continued buying cheaper ones after. There is some truth to the notion that the best alkaline battery is the cheapest. Duracells seem to maybe be slightly longer lasting but that also may be placebo effect as we have been conditioned with commercials for decades proclaiming that Duracells are the longest lasting.
@@Z_E_B_O This. I never had top buy batteries as a kid through the 90's because I had a universal battery charger and a wide selection of rechargeables for just about everything.
I used to keep half-used batteries around, since once the Wiimote stopped working, I found the AAs removed from them still provided 1.3V and could last for months in a remote control or an infrequently-used flashlight.
My Battery powered wall clock lasts for about 3 years on a depleted AA. I have about 20 other depleted batteries ready for it once this one truly runs out!
I see others have already mentioned the use in wall clocks, but I'd like to note that the little clock mechanisms, despite working pretty much constantly, present an extremely low load on their batteries. So, you can use those batteries in a high current device and when it is about done for, you can swap them into a low current device, like those wall clocks.
I have a thing called the MightyCharger that I bought in Walmart's as seen on tv section like 15 years ago. It allows you to recharge AA Alkaline batteries about 10 or so times. Each time you charge them the hold less and less of a charge until you need to throw them away. Not so good for high power draw devices but for remotes and such I've had some devices still using the same batteries for several years.
I remember as a kid wondering whether the gauge was heat-activated, and confirming this was indeed the case by activating the tester while holding the battery against my upper lip and feeling it become pleasantly warm.
Wow, me too! I mean, I used my lower lip, but it was fascinating. I'm glad I'm not the only one :) The colour change occurred in such a "blotchy" way that it looked so similar to how thermochromism in Hypercolor t-shirts and liquid crystal thermometer stickers for aquariums worked - this is what made me also come to the assumption it was a little resistor acting as a heater underneath the label, so I also tested it against my lip. Crazy.
actually the battery could have been also recharged. As a kid I used too batteries, but only in flashlights. Still I was annoyed when they got drained. I had no idea about rechargeable batteries. I knew about lead ones for cars, but not about small ones. My jaw dropped when I saw the first NiCd s at 17. Anyway, recently I heard other guys that they recharged the batteries. I did not believed it, and so I tested it. It really works. But it has its perks. Do not really works if the drain is big. So for cameras, not so good. But for a clock for example, worked perfectly. New batteries lasted 4 months. Recharged just a little, I mean like an hour, worked 3 more months. Recharged few hours fried one, but the other one resisted. And that particular clock does not work on 1,2 v. So, recharging disposable batteries may be of use in some cases. Not big saving, but is still good to know. Especially for kids.
same i thought either he found a battery with this tech that was made fairly recently, he was using a separate power supply, or the tester is just garbage
@ehombane no unfortunately all those batteries are dead and gone. The batteries only have a shelf life of 5 years or so, used or not and trying to charge one in that state after so long isn't going to work.
@@Xehemoth I was not talking about that old batteries. I was talking about regular batteries that we throw away regularly. And obviously for a normal person with a job and a fair income this is just waste of time. But for a kid saving few cents, and learning something may be useful. I wish I knew that half a century ago.
In Canada, we had these into the 2010s. I remember being fascinated by them. The ones I grew up with (2000s - 2010s) had blue indicator bars, and some of the most recent ones actually had muti-colour indicator bars.
Yep, I was surprised to hear "late 90s". I don't remember these being common in the Netherlands until the mid 2000s. Most of them had a yellow indicator, but I vaguely remember encountering a few blue ones towards the end of their tenure.
Yep! Here in Mexico we had these until the early 2010s and they were blue as well, thought I was misremembering when I saw the ones in the video were green.
I was just thinking the other day about how I don't see these anymore! I remember playing with them as a kid so much that I'd run the battery down just by checking the charge so much lol
I genuinely wonder what the rate of self-selection is between past kids who loved testing these batteries and adults who are fans of the channel. I assume quite high. I'm surprised there aren't any rechargeables using these currently. I suppose chargers have testers built-in, but it would be neat to have it on there. [Partially, if not mainly, for nostalgia purposes.]
It's likely because the voltage drop off from a rechargeable cell is more sudden than a standard alkaline one. It'd still work, just nowhere near as reliably
@@lohphatin the late 80's the electronics shop my dad got TV transistors and whatnot from still had a tube tester. I was probably 7... I had a tube B&W TV which I thought was cool.
11:44 i think a sensible use case is for someone to discern whether the batteries are the reason their device doesn't work, or if they are just bad at making 2008 era Bluetooth devices work.
Fascinating yet simple - thank you! I really liked the idea of the charge tester, and was puzzled and disappointed when it went away. I ride some nighttime hours on my bike, so it was important to know if I had 2-4 hours charge left on batteries, or needed to put in new ones.
Your diction is so precise, so perfect. I'm grateful for the outtakes; if not for them, I'd be convinced that your oration skills are superhuman. As a person with (self-inflicted) hearing loss, your channel is so pleasant to listen to.
Came to ask this same thing. Seems easier to peel a new battery than use a hair dryer and dc power supply to show it work for the video. I just put a licked finger on the negative and my tongue on the positive to test.
Seeing a battery with a best if by date of March 2003 and remembering when that felt like forever in the future is the best part of this channel. These little doses of nostalgia keep me sane.
Yes, and when he said they used to include cheap battery testers, I immediately remembered a memory locked away far back in the dusty corners of my brain: those testers were made of small paper strips with some kind of copper that you laid on top of a 9V battery's contacts and you had to press down pretty hard to make the paper work, but after that it was all wrinkly and you didn't know if you had broken it. Ah, the terrors of being a curious younger brother playing with your older brother's gimmicks without knowing if he would notice.
Duracell also made blister packs of cells with the tester in, as discussed. The resistive element is actually screen printed conductive ink, which is based on silver powder, in a carrier based on printing ink, screen printed onto the plastic sheet, and then this thin sheet was dried, and the back had the thermochromic ink screen printed onto it, followed by the top layer being thermally bonded, to make a 2 layer sheet with the tester in it. Then the paper insulator was applied, pre punched out for the gap where the thermal heater needed insulation, and the one hole for the switch, the cutting die finishing separating the paper from it's supply roll. This was then punched out, and applied to the large sheet of battery label on the adhesive side, so you had a large self adhesive label, that had a release side applied, and this again got partly cut out, to leave the battery sleeve on the backing layer, excess being weeded off automatically. Then slit into working rolls, and applied on the line. Very complex, and needing lots of precision sharp cutting dies, so no wonder they decided the much higher cost and complexity per cell was not worth it. Thus the shift instead to use almost the same test unit, just with 2 strips of adhesive on the top, to the blisters, saving a lot of money, as you only had one per 4,6,8 or 10 cells. Then cost was cut again, and with all the assorted contract manufacturers not wanting to pay the cost, they went back to just labeling generic cells off a random production line, as Duracell is now nothing but a brand name applied to whatever generic cell was the cheapest quote to make a few hundred million cells, no quality required as they are running off name recognition. After all, no longer will they replace or repair equipment damaged by leaking batteries, they will only pay you a voucher for the cost of a new set, if you pay to ship the leaking batteries to them, at your own cost.
I used to work at a membrane switch printing facility with a guy who previously worked on these, apparently stirring the thermochromic ink and keeping it suspended was a real bitch
I purchased NiMH batteries years ago and quit using Duracell specifically. I use energizer for all my rechargeables, but I'm looking to replace them with the rechargeable lithium ones, when all those start bitting the dust.
‘89 millennial here, just seeing those batteries was an instant shot of nostalgia! Loved the breakdown on the tech involved, it really is a fascinatingly elegant solution despite the problem being mostly insignificant
man I loved checking this. It did hurt my tiny kid to teenage fingers, and I would regret doing it, but every time I'd forget the pain and remember how cool it was
I love the fact that you maintain a very professional Channel with very professional videos, and still are humble enough to include the bloopers, and have no problem showing that you're just as human and able to make a mistake as much as often the rest of us . I enjoy your videos greatly and will continue to watch. Thank you and keep it up!
@@camerontrembath4581 he always puts his blooper reels at the end, those mistakes, LOL if you can admit you make mistakes, definitely makes it easier for you to learn
All in all it was a very elegant and thought through solution for a problem that in practice didn't need solving. Though it certainly did make people remember them.
I'm still using an old battery tester from the 1970s that my grandfather gave me when I was a kid. It features an adjustable slide that can fit AA, AAA, C, and D cells and also has contacts for a 9V block. It also features three red diodes labeled "full", "good" and "low".
They still make those. Wall mounted designs were pretty popular. I suspect that is part of the reason built in testers never caught on-we already had one.
Thank you for the demonstration, I have never seen in my lifetime the gauge changing colour no matter how hard I pressed it, that's one curiosity fulfilled.
It definitely was a little tricky. If you didn't press it just right it wouldn't work. And i think some i never could get to work. Might have been defective
i love this channel so freaking much, you convinced me to get a dish washer, and keep teaching me stuff i'd otherwise died wondering how they work, you definitely deserve to have 51k likes in just 8 hours after uploading this, you're one of the most interesting creators on this entire platform, thanks for existing dude
Who needs a multimeter? I always just used the "wet fingertip on the negative and tongue on the positive" method... the more it tingles, the higher the voltage.
Anyone remember the commercial with a whiny child? "His toy has stopped... and he has started. You know you've got a spare battery in the drawer somewhere, but is it any good?" (Then the Duracell power check feature was revealed to the public) Ah, memories! 🔋
This was a real nostalgia episode for me, not just because of the batteries themselves, but because of my dad's collection of battery testers. Yes, a collection of TESTERS. They were a weirdly big part of my childhood.
They still make em, or at least they still did in the past 5 yrs here in the UK 🇬🇧 - I’ve got some Duracell AA’s and AAA’s which I bought brand new within the past 5 yrs that have the PowerCheck bar on them
I just checked eBay UK - and found some AA powercheck’s with an expiry date of March 2029 (so probably made in 2019 since I think they usually have a 10 yr lifespan when unused) - though there’s only 3 listings for them, modern AA’s with powercheck usable til 2029, and some vintage AA’s with powercheck as a collector item
None of the Duracells currently for sale in Tesco have them, but yes it was around until pretty recently, I think. I've only ever bought rechargeables, so I'm not sure.
As specific as the case usage for the battery voltmeter is, you can't help but admire the perfect simplicity of the design. It's literally just three or four layers of paper thin material with clever shapes and cutouts that take full advantage of basic physics. Whoever designed it really deserves more credit because that's legitimately brilliant.
I wa a photojournalist at the time, and this was incredibly useful to me. Cameras, at least 2, took 4 AAs each. Flash, at least one, took 4 AAs, light meter took two, probably a color meter and a flashlight taking two each. If you lose power and miss the shot you can lose your job and miss your mortgage payment. BUT you can afford neither the weight nor the space in the bag to carry ever-more batteries. These were great in helping you to know how to carry just enough spares and no more.
Were NiMH cells available at that time yet or no? I have all my photo gear running on NiMH (eneloop brand) AA and AAA cells other than the camera which has proprietary batteries. They seem to recharge my speedlights roughly 2-3x faster than fresh alkaline cells, about as fast as energizer lithiums would if my speedlights would operate correctly on them (some kind of glitch caused by the higher voltage of the AA lithium primary chemistry). They're heavier per cell but seem to last significantly longer in the speedlights, and cost a fraction of what disposables would cost me.
@@asificam1 I recall that they were. I used them, but by the time you do all the work of getting to the exact place and time to make an image, the cost of a battery (or another roll of film) is not that high, and the hassle of charging is one more thing to worry about. Not mentioned here, the next step was that this battery tester was printed on to the plastic "bubble" that batteries came in, so you could cut it out with scissors and have a half dozen little testers with you. Like today, amateurs want to talk about cameras, professionals want to know how you manage batteries, cables, cards, and filters.
@@qtrfoil If only everything would take the same replaceable battery standard... or at least a limited number of them. Like 18650 or 21700 cells for lithium ion powered gadgets and AA's for anything that does not need absolutely maximum energy density (NiMH, while great, has lower energy density than Lithium ion, but it's cheap to implement a standard AA holder and very safe). Same for cards, most cards are not all that fast at writing, if they would allow for the use of NVMe SSDs, that would be neat, though would be harder to make them removable like cards are so I'll give cards a pass for now. I have a few chargers, some that charge both Lithium ion and NiMH, and some for only NiMH. All of which are easy enough to use, some of which are incredibly (scary) fast. It's usually less effort to recharge all my cells at the end of a shoot next to may camera battery than it is to have to go and buy more... especially since the NiMH will last almost 2X as long in my flashes... and they don't work well on Energizer Lithium type LiFeS AA cells so that's not really viable. From what I gather, good chargers were hard to come by until recently (they existed, but not many retailers carried them), and Low Self Discharge cells were also somewhat hard to find a supplier for. Hence most people who tell me who rechargeable cells are terrible have had a bad taste left from poorly made chargers, cheaply made cells, and often were NiCd which suffers from memory effects and very low energy density.
AAA is way more expensive than double now, it's like certain small watch batteries that are 10-20 $ a piece, it's a niche item that you have to have so they raise the price
Here in Europe those seem to be still a thing. I grabbed some out of my drawer (best before 2025), and they have even diffent colored sections now! red/yellow/green. A quick measurement shows, the indicator draws quite a lot of current: at 250mA barely visiblle, and 500mA shows full bar.
Back of the napkin math, alkaline AA capacity is 2500mAh, which means a 500mA draw would last roughly 5 hours (ignoring the voltage/current drop). It's probably reasonable to hold the indicator for 5 seconds, so each check is 1/3600th or 0.02% of the battery.
Where I found it useful wasn’t in batteries that were removed from a device, but in checking the batteries in a device to see if a malfunction was dead batteries, or something else. Still a niche use case, but in devices without a power indicator, such as a remote, it was convenient to know if the reason it wasn’t working was the batteries, or something else.
My family actually used those testers a lot. This was due to two reasons: 1) Gadgets that weren't used often meant partially charged batteries were put back (which you mentioned in your video) 2) Batteries lose charge over time, so batteries that got knocked to the back may have less charge. And as for plugging them in to test, that was an option, but not always a good one. If a game took 4 batteries, 3 may have been enough to power it... briefly... and some batteries are a much bigger pain to replace than others. I definitely am glad devices now use far less disposable batteries. Finally got rid of my old Duracell battery tester (the plastic, unattached one) a few months back since they just aren't needed anymore. Great video as always, definitely brought back some memories!
1:15 When the game boy came out the batteries only lasted for about 8 hours before you had to replace them , the funny thing is there was still power in them but not enough to power the game boy
It's incredible that I see a 16 minute video from you and think of it as bite sized! I'm used to watching your videos in marathon sessions, or 10 minutes at a time over lunch and breaks at work. I know your work will always be informative and amusing, no matter how long the length :) Thanks for the video.
Maybe it is just because I was a kid with adhd... But I definitely tested those batteries ALL the time whenever I found em. I wish they never went away. Tech like that was fascinating to kids and was considered "cool". This was basically a science experiment we could perform in our fingers! The dents it left on your thumbs and fingers was worth it... unless the battery was dead and it never lit up no matter how hard you tried.
As others have noticed, they're still available in some countries. It's been a long time since I bought Duracells -- in my experience, they're far more likely to leak than, say, GP brand -- so I don't know when the feature left the UK, but it must've been since 2019. I'm not sure if the patent issues had anything to do with it, but I reckon it's more that they were an obvious value-add to try to distinguish them as premium choices over their competitors. With the reduction of demand and places like Amazon selling massive packs of generic AAs very cheap, they became a truly-fungible commodity and reducing cost became the priority. They were probably removed gradually from low-end to high while they desperately clung to the few clueless customers that'd buy top-end retail for their remotes, before gradually surrendering and being progressively removed from DURACELL PLUS, then DURACELL ULTRA, then DURACELL OPTIMUM, and finally DURACELL HYPERBOLE and DURACELL REALITYWARP or whatever they're called now.
Here in the UK, their top-end is "DURACELL OPTIMUM", and apparently has a denser cathode with a secret ingredient. Still, even their batteries that claimed "anti-leak" leaked. Same with CostCo batteries and Amazon Basics, both of which I believe are made by Duracell. Meanwhile, I've never had a GP brand battery leak.
Worked on me. I remember preferring Duracells for this reason alone. Also I think Energizer or someone else had a cheaper pass/fail version that was pretty disappointing.
Actually, I think the answer is the converse. In the 90s, batteries frequently leaked, so people removed them from devices and stored them in battery drawers. That is when testers were useful. Once leak prevention improved, batteries became “install and forget.” Modern batteries rarely leak. Duracell then removed the tester to drive consumption; without them, the used battery drawer became less useful. Instead, now people buy in bulk and leave batteries in the devices. The batteries are slowly used up even when they are doing nothing because of current leak, and there are few batteries in the house that can be swapped. That's how we get today when we get a 40 pack of batteries from Costco or Sams Club and leave it in a device till the device is thrown away or the battery is dead.
I used to enjoy testing them just for fun - the novelty of it amused me! I thought it might be some sort of liquid chemical in there, so I was afraid to take one apart to see how it worked. The reality of it being just a resistive strip and some thermochromic tape is so simple, yet ingenious! Thank you for another fascinating video!
Watching you push in those "buttons" brought back all of the memories of how painful doing that was. I always found the gauge not fully reliable - I recall plenty of times where I could make the gauge register but the battery still wouldn't power a device.
We had/have a small analog tester, my father always says: You need to look at the speed of the pointer, just reaching the good mark isn't enough, even better when you overshoot and it drops back (new battery)
I remember that they also produce a version that adds the tester to the packaging instead so as to reduce the material waste. We used to cut that plastic part out, and you now have a handy tester for all your batteries.
Thanks for this video, instant childhood throwback!! About a year ago, I opened up an old toy truck with lights that had been sitting for almost 20 years in my parent's basement, and lo and behold - inside were 2 completely leaked Duracell AA batteries with Powercheck! While you are right and normal people just didn't use this feature all that often, for us kids it was a convenient little trick to keep track of all the batteries inside our favourite toys. Because instead of putting hundreds of batteries simultaneously into every single toy I owned, I used to interchange them between my Game Boy, Walkman etc. I think this is what Powercheck was made for initially, and why it was such a central part of our childhood!
I miss when they used to build the battery check thingy into the actual packaging the batteries came in. This was more like early 90's era. The ones wrapped around the battery like what you showed never worked very long for me. I think Energizer made a version of that too.
I loved these when I was a kid! I had to press really hard, but I remember testing them so much sequentially that each time it would read less and less, and I felt like the act of testing it itself was actually draining the battery. Who needs toys to put them in when this made the battery itself into a toy!
This is my favorite channel to stumble upon, this guy is s legit encyclopedia of how we improved the mundane objects over time, and how they work, like it's literally any item people may overlook, that works in any novel way. If you need to be a jack of all trades fast, this is your best learning opportunity.
So.... Either mad scientists are going to make amoebas into batteries that are self recharging if they eat, or people will start calling batteries "electric amoebas".
I remember dissecting these as a kid trying to figure out how they worked. Thanks for this, core memory of being technically curious! I do recall specifically that the strip would be warm to the touch after messing with it.
I would love to see these make a comeback for rechargeable batteries. I think it would make more sense because the re-use of rechargeables makes it more likely to have half used or empty batteries around since you might just toss then in the drawer until you get the chance to recharge them.
Sadly it doesn't work for any of the common use types of rechargeable batteries. They read 1.2 volts from about 95% charged all the way down to about 5% charged. with the most common today NiMH LSD type, you are best off charging them before tossing them in the drawer. They get reduced capacity and life when stored discharged. When you pull them out dead, toss them in the charger, then (with any LSD type made in the last 10+years) they will have at least 80% charge for more than a year.
@@johngaltline9933 Hmm that's a shame, my eneloops do read 1.5 when full but I remember seeing a graph showing that the voltage drop is less pronounced so that makes sense.
@@StephenSmith304 Are they one of the fancy lithium types made for devices that need 1.5V cells? I know Eneloop does make that variety... but if you don't actually need the 1.5V cells, the 1.2V standard NiMH cost a lot less. For what it's worth, on the NiMH type, the best I've used are the Duracell, Amazon basics is almost as good, and everything else is trash(energizer) or costs more for nothing better. (run about 60 sets in photography business and have tried everything out there over the last 15 years)
@@CircuitrinosOfficial Like I explained above, there is no practical discharge curve. they provide full voltage and current throughout the discharge all the way until they are almost depleted. there's no difference to measure between a 95% charged battery and a 10% charged battery. Modern devices with chargeable batteries don't actually know how much of a charge the battery has, instead they guess based on how much they have been used since the last time they were charged and how long it to to deplete them the last time in combination with how much current they draw when charged.
Another great video about something that I didn't realise was fascinating until I saw the thumbnail and thought "oh - I didn't notitce that they'd stopped making these batteries". At age 40, these realisations are becoming more and more frequent.
Having done thousands of videos about battery operated toys I quickly learned to steer clear of Duracell batteries because of the way they leak. Lost count of how many times I saw these batteries destroy whatever they were left in. Had me wondering why didn't Duracell develop a leak proof battery.
Buffett bought them and then their quality went into the trash can. I mailed Duracell over 1000 cells and 20+ destroyed devices. Energizers and even some Chinese no-brand batteries rarely leak compared to current day Duracell.
They changed! I have found devices many years old with intact cells but now they go bad before I even get them out of a package if it sits around some. Energizer seems to work WAY better and Amazon has them in bulk.
Yes. I own TycoCollectors (website) and the number of old Tyco, Taiyo, Nikko, RadioShack and other 80s/90s RC cars which have been destroyed by leaking Duracells and similar chemistry... very frustrating. It does'nt just ruin the battery compartment, the acid seems to creep deep inside the toy, and then begin eating away the circuitboard.
@@BLKMGK4 If the batteries are actually "Energizer." Amazon has turned into a scammy cesspool lately, like selling "new" hard drives, but they are actually refurbished and still contain user data on them. Great stuff.
Give Low Self-discharge NiMH cells a try. They do have a slightly lower starting voltage, but their discharge curve is rather flat so they produce a very consistent voltage across their discharge, they handle high currents incredibly well due to their inherently more powerful "jelly roll" construction (similar to the physical construction of cylindrical lithium ion batteries), I have never had them leak on me (they rarely ever leak, plus safety vents help with that anyhow), and they're rechargeable so they're cheap to use. They power my flashes for my camera, they recharge the flash's internal capacitors about 3X faster than any fresh alkaline cell will, and last almost 2X as long under those heavy loads. So far the one downside is their maximum capacity is not quite as good as a disposable (close though), so for low current loads like a TV remote they might not last quite as long... but they're rechargeable so it doesn't matter much anyway. Plus, the usable capacity at high current is almost as much as their rated maximum, so they actually get their full capacity even at absolutely stupidly heavy loads. Panasonic rates their Eneloop brand cells to operate at rated output in -20C so if you do any toys in the cold... might be worth looking into. Just make sure to buy the regular variant with more cycles and lower capacity as their outer case is a tad smaller than the Pro variant so will physically fit into almost anything, even when some disposables wont, while also being more abuse tolerant. But really any NiMH cell made in Japan comes from the same plant regardless of brand.
The algorithm delivered me your channel on a science youtube binge and I've been really impressed by your ability to break down engineering and design of products. Thanks for making great content!
I remember this battery it used to be more expensive. And used to have a hard time checking the level as you have to press the 2 dots precisely. Thanks for bringing back these memories.
A note on current:
The tester's behavior (how much of it turns yellow) is also dependent on how much current the battery can provide, but how exactly that was calibrated is... fuzzy. I only discussed voltage here because the original Kodak patent describes it as a "Battery voltmeter" and my first test with the DC power supply was consistent with this video's script. However, when I was filming B-roll with a second unwrapped battery, it was passing much more current than before and I needed to limit current via the power supply for it to show a clean cutoff in color. At just 1 volt much more turned yellow than in my first test, and over a smooth, spread-out gradient.
I sort of suspected this (that weak batteries would pass less current, compounding the effect of the heat gradient) but I couldn't back that up with anything concrete. My first test probably had a poor connection between the power supply leads and the label which was limiting current enough to make voltage the only significant variable, but until I filmed it with the second battery I didn't know it was pulling less current than it otherwise could.
For future refrence, got a little confused at 7:50 becuase what is stated in the audio does not match what is shown in the video.
as kid I had old batteries as they could play a song or to after a time off in the draw
It's probably a printed carbon film resistor, often used on inexpensive devices as it's pretty much a thick ink that can be printed onto a surface. Edit: They may have been easy to print, but they were often HIGHLY inconsistent in thickness especially with low cost printing methods. This would explain the inconsistencies you (and we) experienced.
A battery is commonly modelled as a constant voltage source with a resistor in line. Resistance is rising with emptying it.
depends on what you use the batteries for my mouse use batteries and it becomes laggy and not great to use but then same batteries in a TV remote work just fine so i do keep them for later use
Nothing like making your fingers white with pressure trying to get a reading from these guys.
that's what nails are for, thanks to evolution
…and realizing the tester is a resistive load, eating the battery…
@@piuthemagicman That includes nails
And feeling the battery get uncomfortably hot in the process
My fingers are already white tho...
One Christmas when I was in grade school my dad gave me two beautifully wrapped D cell batteries with a note 'Toy Not Included'. My mother was sure I'd be upset. I thought it was hilarious. Daddy and I really got each other.
It's nice when you share a sense of humour with your old man. My mum spares at me and my dad, we're at it all the time
💀💀💀
When I was a youngster in the 60s through early 70s, my dad wrapped a screw driver seperate from any gift that showed "some assembly required." I didn't appreciate until much later in life how the Craftsman screwdriver was a better gift than the plastic junk.
Talking about children and parents sharing or not sharing the same kind of humour:
I just read "complaints" from a mother on Twitter (x) that her daughter does not find the movie "Airplane!" funny at all. Replies varies from suggesting her to try for more kids, to adoption and a lot of comforting her for her terrible faith… 😂
@@kimnach Oh my, that's just perfect! I'd have loved that and you're right-you can't beat Craftsman tools from that era.
I think this is absolutely classic Technology Connections content. A nearly irrelevant thing you vaguely remember from the past that you never thought about that turns out to have something interesting going on in it. Perfection!
They still put these testers on the more expensive line of batteries lmao
Yes, this is the type of content I remember from 2019. Not hour long videos. Just short, sweet, curious and interesting videos.
Yep. This was some of the great stuff
@@AndrewsVideoTips143 at first I had to check the date and see if it was no-effort november 😆
@@PabloEdvardo It sounds like the effort was in finding some old batteries around that had the strips. :)
This was a throwback. My fingers hurt just looking at that thumbnail
As someone who grew up desperately poor at times, we definitely had a drawer for used batteries. When something like a radio or a toy used up a set of batteries to the point where they couldn't power that thing, we took them out and saved them. They were still good for super low-draw items such as the TV remote.
By a certain point, the number pergurtory batteries I saved up for our TV/VCR/DVD remote batteries exceeded the expected lifetime of those devices.
My dad had a complex drawer system of various used batteries, sorted by type & their expected state of charge.
When I'd play with these self-testing batteries, he'd get annoyed cuz I was using up the charge.
'desperately poor' is when you have to smash these batteries with a hammer (aka, brick/rock) to make them give out some more power (smh it works)
Yup yup. After my Game Boy or Walkman ate up some batteries, they could still go for months in a remote control. Was this not the norm for everyone?
Same here. Usually after a while the batteries charge is too low to drive anything with a motor or a display. They go into a drawer for remotes. Just to use up every little bit of power in those batteries before they are disposed (properly).
1.4 million views in a day on a video about old batteries that are no longer on sale. Mind blowing. Keep it up
Us viewers are a quirky bunch
they are still on sale in europe, i bought AAA ones not that long ago in the netherlands.
@@iHazMuffinzthey’re available in the USA as well
tha's properly funny m8
Not on sale??? Uhhh yes they are 🥴
They still make PowerCheck batteries under the Duracell Quantum line. I'm holding a pair right now that haven't expired.
Thats what I thought, I totally have new ones in my house.
its a pretty pointless feature but so cheap to produce they might as well keep them around!
duracell turbo here in EU... i have a box of these.
I made a comment stating the same. I bought a whole box of duracells that had the battery check on them just a few months ago. Still have a bunch of them left.
Same, but under the Duracell Ultra product line here in ZA. Still has PowerCheck™ on the label.
Sometimes the RUclips algorithm just throws you exactly what you want to see even if you didn’t know it. Great video
Its why I'm here
That was truely a throwback for me this evening. I had these when I was a kid in the 2000s and always wondered how they work. Now, 20+ years later, I'm sitting here with a PhD in physical chemistry, saw these and immediatly knew what was going on. The satisfaction when you explained it really made me smile. Thanks from Germany!
You can still buy those batteries in Germany
I figured it all out the moment I read the "test at 70", up until the heating element having to be a gradient (though I guessed it would be becoming thinner, but they used a more space-efficient design by making it just go narrower instead). It was satisfying to still hear about all the smaller features that optimize it, which I couldn't have thought of, but make perfect sense. They tested it in real-life, they found ways to do it best.
Oh man what a satisfying feeling and fun throwback that must've been!
Yes I had the same thoughts. As a kid they felt like magic, but seeing this now, I immediately knew how they most likely work
Same here, totally remember them from my childhood in Germany, they were very common here.
Back in my childhood, the PowerCheck used to be a toy in and of itself, like a fun little science experiment. Now the science part of it is clearer than ever, thank you!
Yes! I loved mashing those little buttons and watching to see how much the bar filled up and wondering how it worked!
Same, it felt like the kind of AA batteries they must use in Star Trek 😆
As a kid I was always checking my battery levels with these inbuilt testers as well as the one mentioned that they used to include separately. I loved always checking my batteries. lol
You can still buy battery containers with integrated testers. I think the issue is that nobody bothers checking batteries because most high drain devices have either moved to rechargeable batteries or have informative meters built in to estimate the battery life remaining.
You ever tried to hold them in your hands to get them to warm up? Did it ever work?
"Composed of a single cell. Like an amoeba!" I adore your delivery of lines like this.
It took me completly off guard. I laughed way to hard.
If they were as squidgy as an amoeba it would make fitting them into odd shaped equipment easier.
Wait: I've just invented the "jelly bag" type of cell that gives phone manufacturers the excuse to make them non removable.
Why not "composed of a single cell. Like an ostrich egg". :-)
howsabout a police van? a single cell vehicle
It invokes the "Yeah, that's not-- you know what, nevermind" response. Thing is, though, the term "battery" implies more than one cell, so most commercially available "batteries" are not (9-volt batteries are the only commonly-used alkaline battery that is actually a battery of cells, and often they're actually batteries of six packaged AAAA cells, though sometimes they're stacks of raw cells).
Oh my. When I was a kid, my grandma used to show me these. I was fascinated. I've asked her about them a few years ago but she didn't know what I was talking about, perhaps I couldn't explain it properly. It felt like I've just had a dream about such batteries. Thanks for this video!
"Thank god we are past that"
Meanwhile the cigarette-industry: "We make disposable e-cigarettes with Lithium-ion batteries in it, that you just gonna throw away after use"
It's upsetting, but simultaneously I reap the benefits of finding a bunch of free LiPo batteries and charge circuits laying around on the street XD
Yay, smarter people collect these to make DIY powerpacks.
Yeah, there's some good videos out there on recycling those batteries and setting them up with a controller to make a battery bank on the cheap.
Not a smoker, but I did know some. I didn't know those were disposable now. Aways saw them charging theirs in a laptop or car USB charger.
I can happily say that the industry is moving towards rechargable vapes, and they're selling pods with liquid instead.
Why didn't they do that in the first place is beyond me, then again, most people don't actually care about recycling 😢
EDIT: To add more context, the first Vape Pens were indeed rechargable back in the 2010s, then Vape Mods/Vape kits became popular for a while but they were too cumbersome and required maintenance.
Disposables became very popular in the last 2-3 years for their ease of use, many of which did not allow for any recharging of the battery whatsoever, furthermore, some models prevented you from directly recharging the battery as most of the were soldered directly to their little boards to cut down costs, obviously.
As I am from a Non-English speaking country, I didn't know what the functionality was - it was written in English as far as I remember.
So as a kid, my sister, cousins and myself were convinced that by pressing those dots the battery would recharge. So much pain in the fingers to try go get the yellow come up again hahaha
OMG that's adorable :D
I clearly remember having ads on TV that showed us what it was and how it worked 😂
Perhaps they did not have a tv or electricity 😀
@@mnp3713 They had batteries! I'm pretty sure there were portable TVs that used disposables
Great story :)
I had no business spending 15 mins watching how the power check worked but of course I had to. Great work
My brain is full of random knowledge that honestly I think im starting to piece together lol
you're bored with nothing important to do
@@uuuultra Only you choose whats important, your life
@@conpa18danyDo yk of any other channels as such with randoms facts to piece together?
@@conpa18dany right man like growing up but like actually, stuff is starting to click more and more, just not magnets haha
I love this! I vaguely remembered these as a kid so I went to YT to remember how they worked and now here I am watching the most in-depth video. You just won over a new subscriber.
I was General Manager at a Chicagoland company that printed large sheets of battery testers for Energizer for the Asia market. We also printed large sheets of universal testers for AAA, AA, C & D cells that were later decorated with custom advertising and handed out as marketing premiums (sometimes referred to as Tchotchke's) by businesses. The thermochromic ink layers were printed on the large sheets and die cut by another Chicagoland based company named LCR Hallcrest who were our customer. The thermochromic material technology was LCR Hallcrest's and they also managed the sales and distribution of the Energizer and Tchotchke testers.
In the heyday of individual battery testers there was competition between two conductive ink manufactures - Acheson Colloids (now part of Henkel) and DuPont's Microcircuit Materials business unit now part of Celanese. I believe the companies producing the testers were located in Columbus, OH and North Carolina. Printed battery testers are still being produced by CCL Label somewhere in the Eastern USA.
You're such a nerd... in a good way. This is awesome background. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the history lesson and background! That's pretty interesting.
I understood most of those words, but individually.
There was a short lived AAAA. It came preinstalled in a very thin flashlight available in K-Mart and RadioShack. It did not catch on with the masses.
@@indridcold8433AFAIK the Microsoft Surface Pens still use the AAAA. They certainly did up till 2020ish. I have one on my desk now. 😅
Just opened my Furby and was met with a Duracell Powercheck. Thanks for answering my thoughts!
lmao
were the batteries still charged?
That just opened a whole can of emotional worms for me... My ex - if we can even call it that; we dated for 2 months in 1999-2000 - called me his furby. Ironically, as I am not very hirsute by nature... I should really give him a call, shouldn't I?
Did they leak all over and turn into a crusty white blob?
@@CopenhagenDreamingThat's an odd thing to say under someone's comment... But it never hurts to say hi every once and then, right? Just don't expect anything much from him now, for your sake
I really appreciate that you take the time to write subtitles for your videos. Auto-generated subtitles are bad, and community subtitles aren't a thing anymore, so thank you.
It's also fun to see how he deviates from his script.
auto generated subtitles are fairly accurate most of the time though, but that's limited to english; in french they're still an absolute disaster.
@@oliviersavard8676 I really despise RUclips for removing the community subtitles feature.
As a french dude who knows English pretty well, I happily transcribed many english videos + translated them to french.
Now it doesn't exists anymore, and french subtitles are just horrible.
I hate his captions. The autogenerated ones give enough text to be readable- he just chucks the whole paragraph up at once.
They're probably using AI software for the subtitles like Whisper AI
As a child when these came out, if there was a PowerCheck, I was checking it.
I'm a technician at Duracell in Belgium. Big fan of your channel btw. I want to add a fun fact about the discontinued power check. On the EMEA market Duracell still produced batteries with a power check under the "Ultra" brand and for north America under the "Quantum" brand, production discontinued about 3 years ago when "Optimum" became our new premium. I work in the finishing process and production of these cells with power check were really a pain because the cells didn't had a round shape anymore and got stuck in the chutes causing blockage. I'm happy we've passed that 😅
Do you have chemical engineers at duracell?
Hey man, I m from US and we had the same issue here in US plant. Cheers and happy we got rid of it... hehehe
@@lucas839 Ofc we do.
Do you have any guesses as for why Duracell's in north america are so prone to leaking these days? I never had many issues when I was in the EU, but here I've had many cells that are anywhere from a few months to a couple years old that have leaked in their packaging without any draw. Even when in use without any passive draws I'll come back a year later and have to neutralize the entire battery compartment.
Even cheapo dollar store batteries have rarely leaked on me in recent years, Duraleak has been the nickname here for nearly a decade now.
For this who don't know, I presume EMEA market stands for Europe, Middle East and Asia market.
I LOVED these as a kid. Sure, the dots were a pain to press with small fingers, but being able to see how much charge was left displayed on the side of the battery itself was so darn cool.
I am a retired electrical engineer and I really like your channel. You help make many things clear for the average person. One of my multimeters has a battery tester range on its selector for AA, C, D and 9V. Like the Duracell tester, it places a small load on the cell/battery.
That actually makes a lot of sense, and now I want to see what current my older meter is pulling in 'batt' mode... I always wondered why there was a separate setting for it when it's just a voltage range, but of course a load test would need its own setting.
@KPR: The problem is that the load that these testers place on the battery is too low to be useful. In my experience, to get a good accurate reading, you have to load down the battery pretty hard. Then (and only then) can you get a good estimate of the battery's actual state of charge.
I'm such a nerd, I actually have a few 1-ohm, 10-watt power resistors that I use for that purpose. 😁
My B&K Precision Model 113 has "Batt" ranges too, likewise it places a load on the cell under test ...
They worked really well and were surprisingly accurate. I felt bad discarding them because it felt like I was throwing away a decent instrument (a very specific, but yet useful one).
I know. The tester should rather be a separate device inside each pack of batteries, so that it could be re-used..
@@suprliteThat was a thing.
@@wolffang489 ah, ok. Is it still?
@@suprlite Not sure but I remember the test strips that were effectively what's on these batteries but on plastic instead so you could test any battery of appropriate types. It was a while ago so I can't guarantee that they came with battery packs but considering how cheap they surely were to make I wouldn't be surprised. You can likely still find some with enough google digging.
12:53
I really appreciated these built-in testers. I had lots of scenarios where it was unclear whether the battery was dead and even multi-battery systems where only one battery was below functional threshold. I knew nothing of volt meters and welcomed the ease of use and convenience.
They sold purpose built testers, sold right along with the batteries.
We never had extra batteries, you knew they were dead when the item stopped working.
The BEST and EASIEST way to see if a battery is full or empty is dropping them on a flat surface (vertical). If they jump up, they are empty, if they just tip over, they are full :)
@@dovacon7409 That has the issue of not telling you anything besides "Charge" or "no charge" which is not an issue for the built in tester.
@@SINDRIKARL1 yeah, i just like to spread this trick bc it helps a lot for everyday life c:
@@dovacon7409 This also breaks the core and will degrade the battery.
Duracell still produces and sells alkaline batteries with Powercheck™ in Europe. I have a pack of fresh batteries right here. Says made in Belgium and use-by date 03/2034.
I don't remember any batteries with this feature earlier than mid to late 2000s. Then again, I'm from Northeastern Europe, so that might've been a marketing strategy due to lower buying power here.
I was gonna say I remember these batteries from my childhood and I was only born in 2003. But I'm also from europe, so it might just be that the european market is more interested in these, although I cannot confirm if they are still available where I'm from (Austria) as I rarely need batteries and if so I don't buy those expensive Duracell ones lmao
Still sold in the UK
I remember these from the ’90s in Europe (Finland).
Is it blue one?
I remember them from the '90's too, in Greece; discontinued here too...
I remember being mocked as a kid when I put batteries on my Christmas list, but in the following weeks my siblings and parents were always taking from my collection.
"best installed by 2003" oh boy, this battery is older than some of viewers here
But 2003 was only a few year...
Oh.
Oh no!
Who could be of adult age.
It’s the install by age so yeah it’s old
i was 6 at that year
That comment makes me feel old...
I remember being super amazed by this as a kid, I really wanted them to see it work. I took them apart too and I saw the insides but didn't really know how it works. After all those years I finally do.
That is _not_ a good idea, do not open your batteries
Exactly! What a great video!
@@lukebradley5134 don't act like we haven't all done it at some point lol66
@@lukebradley5134 I agree with that, I didn't break open the actual battery cell because I knew as kid it contains nasty chemicals.
@@Notpoop906 do you have heavy metals in your bones
I remember the on-package battery testers, and I'm glad you mentioned those. I never really had a problem using those, but when they switched to the on-battery design... I can still feel the pain in my thumb trying to get the negative contact to work.
As soon as I saw the thumbnail my thumbs started to throb lol
It wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't put one of them right on the edge of the bottom so it dug into our fingers when we went to use the darn things.
I honestly think that's one of the reason why they don't make them anymore. Too damn uncomfortable, jamming your thumb against the edge in order to try to make a good electrical contact. 😠
(And then when the yellow strip doesn't respond, you can't be sure if it's the battery or the connection, so you jam your thumb against it even harder! 😫)
Thanks for mentioning that! I remember the battery tester built into the plastic clamshell of the package. That was the sensible way to go. No need for every battery to have one. I remember the plastic shell being a little tricky to bend around the battery while keeping the battery aligned.
I would bet another reason they did away with the tester on the package was because you could use it for any battery. That's exactly what I did. Bought a pack of more expensive Duracells just to get the tester, then continued buying cheaper ones after. There is some truth to the notion that the best alkaline battery is the cheapest. Duracells seem to maybe be slightly longer lasting but that also may be placebo effect as we have been conditioned with commercials for decades proclaiming that Duracells are the longest lasting.
i was a kid when this was a thing. i tested them all the time. maybe at unnecessary times, but i still used it.
0:15 No, if they wanted to be annoying they needed those thick D batteries, which nothing else needed, except that one toy you just got.
The problem with these batteries is that rechargable batteries are just way superior, so a power check isn't really needed.
@@Z_E_B_O This. I never had top buy batteries as a kid through the 90's because I had a universal battery charger and a wide selection of rechargeables for just about everything.
I remember when we switched to rechargeables. We bought a charger that can hold 24 batteries, AA or AAA. It was so much better
D batteries are too common, maybe C-type still pretty heavy but harder to find, lol
@@cafenightster4548you beat me to that comment. Nice going.
I used to keep half-used batteries around, since once the Wiimote stopped working, I found the AAs removed from them still provided 1.3V and could last for months in a remote control or an infrequently-used flashlight.
or FM band radio
I use them up in wall clocks. Rarely need to use a new battery in a clock.
My Battery powered wall clock lasts for about 3 years on a depleted AA. I have about 20 other depleted batteries ready for it once this one truly runs out!
That's still very relevant now depending which devics you have about.
I see others have already mentioned the use in wall clocks, but I'd like to note that the little clock mechanisms, despite working pretty much constantly, present an extremely low load on their batteries. So, you can use those batteries in a high current device and when it is about done for, you can swap them into a low current device, like those wall clocks.
I have a thing called the MightyCharger that I bought in Walmart's as seen on tv section like 15 years ago. It allows you to recharge AA Alkaline batteries about 10 or so times. Each time you charge them the hold less and less of a charge until you need to throw them away. Not so good for high power draw devices but for remotes and such I've had some devices still using the same batteries for several years.
I remember as a kid wondering whether the gauge was heat-activated, and confirming this was indeed the case by activating the tester while holding the battery against my upper lip and feeling it become pleasantly warm.
Wow, me too! I mean, I used my lower lip, but it was fascinating. I'm glad I'm not the only one :)
The colour change occurred in such a "blotchy" way that it looked so similar to how thermochromism in Hypercolor t-shirts and liquid crystal thermometer stickers for aquariums worked - this is what made me also come to the assumption it was a little resistor acting as a heater underneath the label, so I also tested it against my lip. Crazy.
This unlocked a memory. I remember doing exactly the same.
I used the same principle but in the opposite way, use warmth to see if the bar turned yellow
Haha I did this too!
smart kids
I flipped when I saw that ancient battery display a full charge. I was about to have MANY questions, thanks for the explanation ahead of time.
actually the battery could have been also recharged.
As a kid I used too batteries, but only in flashlights.
Still I was annoyed when they got drained.
I had no idea about rechargeable batteries.
I knew about lead ones for cars, but not about small ones.
My jaw dropped when I saw the first NiCd s at 17.
Anyway, recently I heard other guys that they recharged the batteries.
I did not believed it, and so I tested it. It really works.
But it has its perks.
Do not really works if the drain is big. So for cameras, not so good.
But for a clock for example, worked perfectly.
New batteries lasted 4 months.
Recharged just a little, I mean like an hour, worked 3 more months.
Recharged few hours fried one, but the other one resisted.
And that particular clock does not work on 1,2 v.
So, recharging disposable batteries may be of use in some cases.
Not big saving, but is still good to know.
Especially for kids.
same i thought either he found a battery with this tech that was made fairly recently, he was using a separate power supply, or the tester is just garbage
@ehombane no unfortunately all those batteries are dead and gone. The batteries only have a shelf life of 5 years or so, used or not and trying to charge one in that state after so long isn't going to work.
@@Xehemoth I was not talking about that old batteries. I was talking about regular batteries that we throw away regularly.
And obviously for a normal person with a job and a fair income this is just waste of time. But for a kid saving few cents, and learning something may be useful. I wish I knew that half a century ago.
In Canada, we had these into the 2010s. I remember being fascinated by them. The ones I grew up with (2000s - 2010s) had blue indicator bars, and some of the most recent ones actually had muti-colour indicator bars.
Same in Italy, I remember seeing ads for them when I was in elementary school, so that would be around 2007-2013
I'm in the United States, I have used new in package from store batteries with the indicator. They weren't Duracell but still...
Same in Australia
Yep, I was surprised to hear "late 90s". I don't remember these being common in the Netherlands until the mid 2000s. Most of them had a yellow indicator, but I vaguely remember encountering a few blue ones towards the end of their tenure.
Yep! Here in Mexico we had these until the early 2010s and they were blue as well, thought I was misremembering when I saw the ones in the video were green.
I DO remember this! and yes, you had to put your all into squeezing the test points lol to get it to work
I was just thinking the other day about how I don't see these anymore! I remember playing with them as a kid so much that I'd run the battery down just by checking the charge so much lol
relatable
How did you comment this, 19 hours before the video was even posted?
Answer.@@OfficialDialTone
@@OfficialDialToneseconded
@@OfficialDialTone channel supporters/patreon members have early access to videos... I think
I genuinely wonder what the rate of self-selection is between past kids who loved testing these batteries and adults who are fans of the channel. I assume quite high.
I'm surprised there aren't any rechargeables using these currently. I suppose chargers have testers built-in, but it would be neat to have it on there. [Partially, if not mainly, for nostalgia purposes.]
My generational split was that in the '70s as a kid I saw tube testers disappear from Radio Shack.
It's likely because the voltage drop off from a rechargeable cell is more sudden than a standard alkaline one. It'd still work, just nowhere near as reliably
@@lohphatin the late 80's the electronics shop my dad got TV transistors and whatnot from still had a tube tester. I was probably 7...
I had a tube B&W TV which I thought was cool.
I feel seen. Stop seeing me.
Checking in on the testing of these to oblivion as a child!
11:44 i think a sensible use case is for someone to discern whether the batteries are the reason their device doesn't work, or if they are just bad at making 2008 era Bluetooth devices work.
Legit bought a new mouse because of this once...
Fascinating yet simple - thank you! I really liked the idea of the charge tester, and was puzzled and disappointed when it went away. I ride some nighttime hours on my bike, so it was important to know if I had 2-4 hours charge left on batteries, or needed to put in new ones.
Your diction is so precise, so perfect. I'm grateful for the outtakes; if not for them, I'd be convinced that your oration skills are superhuman. As a person with (self-inflicted) hearing loss, your channel is so pleasant to listen to.
When did i write this?
Did you? @@TheHortoman
@@TheHortomanyou didn't.
Lol I think they're jokingly saying OP wrote exactly what they had in mind. Not literally asking when they wrote that.
He sounds like a documentary narrator
Could you take the tester label and “re-label” a new battery to show the heater in action? :0
This needs more upvotes
He showed it in action using his bench power supply.
As long as the body is the positive to line up correctly, yes, probably.
I don't have one on hand to test tho.
Came to ask this same thing. Seems easier to peel a new battery than use a hair dryer and dc power supply to show it work for the video.
I just put a licked finger on the negative and my tongue on the positive to test.
I'm afraid the Kodak FBI will kick in his door the instant he wraps the new battery demanding royalties
I used to test gallon bags of batteries for my grandma and I loved when I'd cone across these! I'd double check them and they were pretty accurate!
I found these so fun and fascinating as a child, I loved using the PowerCheck.
As a kid, I was amazed by these built in test batteries, and it got me more into tech.
Seeing a battery with a best if by date of March 2003 and remembering when that felt like forever in the future is the best part of this channel. These little doses of nostalgia keep me sane.
Yes, and when he said they used to include cheap battery testers, I immediately remembered a memory locked away far back in the dusty corners of my brain: those testers were made of small paper strips with some kind of copper that you laid on top of a 9V battery's contacts and you had to press down pretty hard to make the paper work, but after that it was all wrinkly and you didn't know if you had broken it. Ah, the terrors of being a curious younger brother playing with your older brother's gimmicks without knowing if he would notice.
Yes, indeed... still getting very confused seeing 'Space:1999', or '2001: A Space Odyssey' mentioned.
Duracell also made blister packs of cells with the tester in, as discussed. The resistive element is actually screen printed conductive ink, which is based on silver powder, in a carrier based on printing ink, screen printed onto the plastic sheet, and then this thin sheet was dried, and the back had the thermochromic ink screen printed onto it, followed by the top layer being thermally bonded, to make a 2 layer sheet with the tester in it. Then the paper insulator was applied, pre punched out for the gap where the thermal heater needed insulation, and the one hole for the switch, the cutting die finishing separating the paper from it's supply roll. This was then punched out, and applied to the large sheet of battery label on the adhesive side, so you had a large self adhesive label, that had a release side applied, and this again got partly cut out, to leave the battery sleeve on the backing layer, excess being weeded off automatically. Then slit into working rolls, and applied on the line.
Very complex, and needing lots of precision sharp cutting dies, so no wonder they decided the much higher cost and complexity per cell was not worth it. Thus the shift instead to use almost the same test unit, just with 2 strips of adhesive on the top, to the blisters, saving a lot of money, as you only had one per 4,6,8 or 10 cells. Then cost was cut again, and with all the assorted contract manufacturers not wanting to pay the cost, they went back to just labeling generic cells off a random production line, as Duracell is now nothing but a brand name applied to whatever generic cell was the cheapest quote to make a few hundred million cells, no quality required as they are running off name recognition. After all, no longer will they replace or repair equipment damaged by leaking batteries, they will only pay you a voucher for the cost of a new set, if you pay to ship the leaking batteries to them, at your own cost.
I used to work at a membrane switch printing facility with a guy who previously worked on these, apparently stirring the thermochromic ink and keeping it suspended was a real bitch
I purchased NiMH batteries years ago and quit using Duracell specifically. I use energizer for all my rechargeables, but I'm looking to replace them with the rechargeable lithium ones, when all those start bitting the dust.
TL;DR
@@goosenotmaverick1156
*biting
‘89 millennial here, just seeing those batteries was an instant shot of nostalgia! Loved the breakdown on the tech involved, it really is a fascinatingly elegant solution despite the problem being mostly insignificant
9:18 My reaction to every single video on this channel.
man I loved checking this. It did hurt my tiny kid to teenage fingers, and I would regret doing it, but every time I'd forget the pain and remember how cool it was
Same. The battery was the toy!
Really appreciate you pressing that hard just to illustrate the real struggle it was to use these, even tho you didn't have to! 💜
I love the fact that you maintain a very professional Channel with very professional videos, and still are humble enough to include the bloopers, and have no problem showing that you're just as human and able to make a mistake as much as often the rest of us . I enjoy your videos greatly and will continue to watch. Thank you and keep it up!
what was the mistake im at 9:45
@@camerontrembath4581 he always puts his blooper reels at the end, those mistakes, LOL if you can admit you make mistakes, definitely makes it easier for you to learn
All in all it was a very elegant and thought through solution for a problem that in practice didn't need solving. Though it certainly did make people remember them.
I'm still using an old battery tester from the 1970s that my grandfather gave me when I was a kid. It features an adjustable slide that can fit AA, AAA, C, and D cells and also has contacts for a 9V block. It also features three red diodes labeled "full", "good" and "low".
I have something similar, maybe even the same, that I keep in my battery box with the odd ones that are left over.
They still make those. Wall mounted designs were pretty popular. I suspect that is part of the reason built in testers never caught on-we already had one.
Thank you for the demonstration, I have never seen in my lifetime the gauge changing colour no matter how hard I pressed it, that's one curiosity fulfilled.
It definitely was a little tricky. If you didn't press it just right it wouldn't work. And i think some i never could get to work. Might have been defective
Same! It never worked for me, and I wasn'h sure I was doing it correctly.
i love this channel so freaking much, you convinced me to get a dish washer, and keep teaching me stuff i'd otherwise died wondering how they work, you definitely deserve to have 51k likes in just 8 hours after uploading this, you're one of the most interesting creators on this entire platform, thanks for existing dude
Who needs a multimeter? I always just used the "wet fingertip on the negative and tongue on the positive" method... the more it tingles, the higher the voltage.
same
also u can check the 9v batteries or button cell batteries with a tongue
Anyone remember the commercial with a whiny child?
"His toy has stopped... and he has started.
You know you've got a spare battery in the drawer somewhere, but is it any good?"
(Then the Duracell power check feature was revealed to the public)
Ah, memories! 🔋
Woah, subscription crossover from an unlikely combination. Love your videos man!
Actually the likelihood would be high so I'm not surprised, nerds nerd on the same nerdings.
No but I remember all the cheap-knockoff batteries "having one" which actually never worked. =D =D
And now I'm wondering if there is a way to exploit these batteries to gain access to something, lol
Love when one of my favorite RUclips channel hosts comments on another of my favorite channels!
This was a real nostalgia episode for me, not just because of the batteries themselves, but because of my dad's collection of battery testers. Yes, a collection of TESTERS. They were a weirdly big part of my childhood.
I love your delivery and inflection on everything. You could explain anything and people would be tuning in
First time watching a video from him and thought the same thing. Great delivery.
@@Anthonyistheone well worth a subscription
5 years watching him and I still play his videos in the background because I just love his voice. one of the best RUclipsrs for sure
13:57 "i had SO many toys growing up" 🤮🤮🤮
it was so cool but I would push so hard on the edge at the bottom it use to hurt my fingers as a kid lol
They still make em, or at least they still did in the past 5 yrs here in the UK 🇬🇧 - I’ve got some Duracell AA’s and AAA’s which I bought brand new within the past 5 yrs that have the PowerCheck bar on them
I just checked eBay UK - and found some AA powercheck’s with an expiry date of March 2029 (so probably made in 2019 since I think they usually have a 10 yr lifespan when unused) - though there’s only 3 listings for them, modern AA’s with powercheck usable til 2029, and some vintage AA’s with powercheck as a collector item
Came here to say that. Bought a fresh pack of those not 2 years ago in France.
Yes Duracell ultra still have them on as and aaa in the uk
None of the Duracells currently for sale in Tesco have them, but yes it was around until pretty recently, I think.
I've only ever bought rechargeables, so I'm not sure.
I was thinking the same thing but I haven’t bought power check in ages!
As specific as the case usage for the battery voltmeter is, you can't help but admire the perfect simplicity of the design. It's literally just three or four layers of paper thin material with clever shapes and cutouts that take full advantage of basic physics. Whoever designed it really deserves more credit because that's legitimately brilliant.
It worked like three times and then didn’t do squat.
I wa a photojournalist at the time, and this was incredibly useful to me. Cameras, at least 2, took 4 AAs each. Flash, at least one, took 4 AAs, light meter took two, probably a color meter and a flashlight taking two each. If you lose power and miss the shot you can lose your job and miss your mortgage payment. BUT you can afford neither the weight nor the space in the bag to carry ever-more batteries. These were great in helping you to know how to carry just enough spares and no more.
Were NiMH cells available at that time yet or no? I have all my photo gear running on NiMH (eneloop brand) AA and AAA cells other than the camera which has proprietary batteries. They seem to recharge my speedlights roughly 2-3x faster than fresh alkaline cells, about as fast as energizer lithiums would if my speedlights would operate correctly on them (some kind of glitch caused by the higher voltage of the AA lithium primary chemistry). They're heavier per cell but seem to last significantly longer in the speedlights, and cost a fraction of what disposables would cost me.
@@asificam1 I recall that they were. I used them, but by the time you do all the work of getting to the exact place and time to make an image, the cost of a battery (or another roll of film) is not that high, and the hassle of charging is one more thing to worry about. Not mentioned here, the next step was that this battery tester was printed on to the plastic "bubble" that batteries came in, so you could cut it out with scissors and have a half dozen little testers with you. Like today, amateurs want to talk about cameras, professionals want to know how you manage batteries, cables, cards, and filters.
@@qtrfoil If only everything would take the same replaceable battery standard... or at least a limited number of them. Like 18650 or 21700 cells for lithium ion powered gadgets and AA's for anything that does not need absolutely maximum energy density (NiMH, while great, has lower energy density than Lithium ion, but it's cheap to implement a standard AA holder and very safe).
Same for cards, most cards are not all that fast at writing, if they would allow for the use of NVMe SSDs, that would be neat, though would be harder to make them removable like cards are so I'll give cards a pass for now.
I have a few chargers, some that charge both Lithium ion and NiMH, and some for only NiMH. All of which are easy enough to use, some of which are incredibly (scary) fast. It's usually less effort to recharge all my cells at the end of a shoot next to may camera battery than it is to have to go and buy more... especially since the NiMH will last almost 2X as long in my flashes... and they don't work well on Energizer Lithium type LiFeS AA cells so that's not really viable.
From what I gather, good chargers were hard to come by until recently (they existed, but not many retailers carried them), and Low Self Discharge cells were also somewhat hard to find a supplier for. Hence most people who tell me who rechargeable cells are terrible have had a bad taste left from poorly made chargers, cheaply made cells, and often were NiCd which suffers from memory effects and very low energy density.
AAA is way more expensive than double now, it's like certain small watch batteries that are 10-20 $ a piece, it's a niche item that you have to have so they raise the price
Here in Europe those seem to be still a thing. I grabbed some out of my drawer (best before 2025), and they have even diffent colored sections now! red/yellow/green.
A quick measurement shows, the indicator draws quite a lot of current: at 250mA barely visiblle, and 500mA shows full bar.
What brand in Europe makes them?
Yeah duracell still sells them here
Exactly what I thought, I remember the red yellow green Duracells and I'm not that old yet.
Back of the napkin math, alkaline AA capacity is 2500mAh, which means a 500mA draw would last roughly 5 hours (ignoring the voltage/current drop). It's probably reasonable to hold the indicator for 5 seconds, so each check is 1/3600th or 0.02% of the battery.
@@Anthony_DeSouza
That's pretty good math.
I'm afraid to see the front if the napkin, it might blow my mind 😁👍
Where I found it useful wasn’t in batteries that were removed from a device, but in checking the batteries in a device to see if a malfunction was dead batteries, or something else. Still a niche use case, but in devices without a power indicator, such as a remote, it was convenient to know if the reason it wasn’t working was the batteries, or something else.
100%
My family actually used those testers a lot. This was due to two reasons:
1) Gadgets that weren't used often meant partially charged batteries were put back (which you mentioned in your video)
2) Batteries lose charge over time, so batteries that got knocked to the back may have less charge.
And as for plugging them in to test, that was an option, but not always a good one. If a game took 4 batteries, 3 may have been enough to power it... briefly... and some batteries are a much bigger pain to replace than others.
I definitely am glad devices now use far less disposable batteries. Finally got rid of my old Duracell battery tester (the plastic, unattached one) a few months back since they just aren't needed anymore.
Great video as always, definitely brought back some memories!
Comments seem to agree these are still perfectly available globally.
You are probably the first RUclipsr I've seen properly state that you can't test a battery's voltage properly without putting a load on it.
1:15 When the game boy came out the batteries only lasted for about 8 hours before you had to replace them , the funny thing is there was still power in them but not enough to power the game boy
Sometimes when you were lucky and had 4 used batteries with enough combo swaps you could get like another 2hr out of those bad boys.
Don't forget the Full Four Shuffle to get an extra 30 min at the end 😁
This thread is so freaking nostalgic
Then WAY worse if you use a game genie or light or any accessories.
My game gear killed six in an hour🥲
It's incredible that I see a 16 minute video from you and think of it as bite sized! I'm used to watching your videos in marathon sessions, or 10 minutes at a time over lunch and breaks at work. I know your work will always be informative and amusing, no matter how long the length :) Thanks for the video.
yeah i been watching him for years. i'm amazed he's now got 2.5M subscribers
I didn't even know so many people were interested in tech stuff
i hated the dots as a 10 year old my fingers always hurt so bad doing this to a already dead battery. love the show, like how detailed your videos are
Maybe it is just because I was a kid with adhd... But I definitely tested those batteries ALL the time whenever I found em. I wish they never went away. Tech like that was fascinating to kids and was considered "cool". This was basically a science experiment we could perform in our fingers! The dents it left on your thumbs and fingers was worth it... unless the battery was dead and it never lit up no matter how hard you tried.
As others have noticed, they're still available in some countries. It's been a long time since I bought Duracells -- in my experience, they're far more likely to leak than, say, GP brand -- so I don't know when the feature left the UK, but it must've been since 2019.
I'm not sure if the patent issues had anything to do with it, but I reckon it's more that they were an obvious value-add to try to distinguish them as premium choices over their competitors. With the reduction of demand and places like Amazon selling massive packs of generic AAs very cheap, they became a truly-fungible commodity and reducing cost became the priority.
They were probably removed gradually from low-end to high while they desperately clung to the few clueless customers that'd buy top-end retail for their remotes, before gradually surrendering and being progressively removed from DURACELL PLUS, then DURACELL ULTRA, then DURACELL OPTIMUM, and finally DURACELL HYPERBOLE and DURACELL REALITYWARP or whatever they're called now.
ah yes, the Duraleaks, me too, any time I see some device loaded with Duracells i'm hit with dread
According to another commenter: Duracell Quantum
Wow.
Here in the UK, their top-end is "DURACELL OPTIMUM", and apparently has a denser cathode with a secret ingredient. Still, even their batteries that claimed "anti-leak" leaked. Same with CostCo batteries and Amazon Basics, both of which I believe are made by Duracell. Meanwhile, I've never had a GP brand battery leak.
Worked on me. I remember preferring Duracells for this reason alone. Also I think Energizer or someone else had a cheaper pass/fail version that was pretty disappointing.
Actually, I think the answer is the converse. In the 90s, batteries frequently leaked, so people removed them from devices and stored them in battery drawers. That is when testers were useful. Once leak prevention improved, batteries became “install and forget.” Modern batteries rarely leak. Duracell then removed the tester to drive consumption; without them, the used battery drawer became less useful. Instead, now people buy in bulk and leave batteries in the devices. The batteries are slowly used up even when they are doing nothing because of current leak, and there are few batteries in the house that can be swapped. That's how we get today when we get a 40 pack of batteries from Costco or Sams Club and leave it in a device till the device is thrown away or the battery is dead.
I used to enjoy testing them just for fun - the novelty of it amused me! I thought it might be some sort of liquid chemical in there, so I was afraid to take one apart to see how it worked. The reality of it being just a resistive strip and some thermochromic tape is so simple, yet ingenious! Thank you for another fascinating video!
Watching you push in those "buttons" brought back all of the memories of how painful doing that was.
I always found the gauge not fully reliable - I recall plenty of times where I could make the gauge register but the battery still wouldn't power a device.
Am I the only one that could never get it to work? I never saw the yellow no matter how hard I tried.
@@PremierSullivan you had to just about make your finger bleed to get them to work. Either that our all your batteries were flat 🤣
We had/have a small analog tester, my father always says: You need to look at the speed of the pointer, just reaching the good mark isn't enough, even better when you overshoot and it drops back (new battery)
Different devices require different minimum voltages. For example, batteries with too little charge for a gameboy might still work in a TV remote
@gregariosity agreed - but to my then preteen/teen brain the bar said full so my game boy should've worked!!
9:43 - oh my God, i'm old...
This video fills voids that are 20+ years old; this, among many other reasons, are why I love this channel so much. ❤❤❤
I remember that they also produce a version that adds the tester to the packaging instead so as to reduce the material waste.
We used to cut that plastic part out, and you now have a handy tester for all your batteries.
YES! I believe those came out first before they built them into the labels.
I can still hear the voice in the commercial announcing the "copper top tester!"
Oh yeah I remember those! I just commented asking if my memories were triking me on that. Thank you
I used to keep one of those around! Not sure if I have it anymore though.
I had one around for years but mainly as a curiosity. It was better than nothing.
Thanks for this video, instant childhood throwback!! About a year ago, I opened up an old toy truck with lights that had been sitting for almost 20 years in my parent's basement, and lo and behold - inside were 2 completely leaked Duracell AA batteries with Powercheck! While you are right and normal people just didn't use this feature all that often, for us kids it was a convenient little trick to keep track of all the batteries inside our favourite toys. Because instead of putting hundreds of batteries simultaneously into every single toy I owned, I used to interchange them between my Game Boy, Walkman etc. I think this is what Powercheck was made for initially, and why it was such a central part of our childhood!
Honestly its a skill to turn such a simple ass subjct into a 20 minute long video
I miss when they used to build the battery check thingy into the actual packaging the batteries came in. This was more like early 90's era. The ones wrapped around the battery like what you showed never worked very long for me. I think Energizer made a version of that too.
Oh yeah I totally forgot about those! I cut one out as a kid and it was my tester, collecting and filling boxes of batteries for my game boy.
We had a separate battery tester, which tested all typical batteries from AAA to 9V
Yup I remember these too and worked pretty well without destroying your fingers in the process
Yes, the testers in the packaging were the ones I remember Duracell had.
15:07 caption “🎵 exhaustedly smooth jazz 🎵” 😂
I didn't believe you thats so funny
@@PH96Official 🤣
Yep, still available new to buy here in EU. They're called Duracell Ultra and they include powercheck with the strip being segmented in four parts.
...STILL,WHAT IF TO SOLDER SOME WIRES TO THESE STRIPS
...LIKE TO GET VERY BUDGET POWER CHECK,HEHE
They're available in the US too, so I'm not sure what the guy in the video is talking about.
I loved these when I was a kid! I had to press really hard, but I remember testing them so much sequentially that each time it would read less and less, and I felt like the act of testing it itself was actually draining the battery. Who needs toys to put them in when this made the battery itself into a toy!
This is my favorite channel to stumble upon, this guy is s legit encyclopedia of how we improved the mundane objects over time, and how they work, like it's literally any item people may overlook, that works in any novel way. If you need to be a jack of all trades fast, this is your best learning opportunity.
"Like an amoeba!" and I nearly snarfed a mouthful of yogurt!
Scrolled too long to find this, but same 🤣
So.... Either mad scientists are going to make amoebas into batteries that are self recharging if they eat, or people will start calling batteries "electric amoebas".
Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats Hooooo! No Snarf, you can't do that!
13:57 My parents solved this problem by never buying me anything that needed batteries.
I found one of these at my parents' house the other day, and wondered if they ever worked, thank you for the timely answer
I remember dissecting these as a kid trying to figure out how they worked. Thanks for this, core memory of being technically curious! I do recall specifically that the strip would be warm to the touch after messing with it.
like real. I did that as well
I would love to see these make a comeback for rechargeable batteries. I think it would make more sense because the re-use of rechargeables makes it more likely to have half used or empty batteries around since you might just toss then in the drawer until you get the chance to recharge them.
Sadly it doesn't work for any of the common use types of rechargeable batteries. They read 1.2 volts from about 95% charged all the way down to about 5% charged. with the most common today NiMH LSD type, you are best off charging them before tossing them in the drawer. They get reduced capacity and life when stored discharged. When you pull them out dead, toss them in the charger, then (with any LSD type made in the last 10+years) they will have at least 80% charge for more than a year.
@@johngaltline9933 Hmm that's a shame, my eneloops do read 1.5 when full but I remember seeing a graph showing that the voltage drop is less pronounced so that makes sense.
@@StephenSmith304 Are they one of the fancy lithium types made for devices that need 1.5V cells? I know Eneloop does make that variety... but if you don't actually need the 1.5V cells, the 1.2V standard NiMH cost a lot less. For what it's worth, on the NiMH type, the best I've used are the Duracell, Amazon basics is almost as good, and everything else is trash(energizer) or costs more for nothing better. (run about 60 sets in photography business and have tried everything out there over the last 15 years)
@@johngaltline9933 couldn't the taper of the heating element he showed just be adjusted to match the discharge curve?
@@CircuitrinosOfficial Like I explained above, there is no practical discharge curve. they provide full voltage and current throughout the discharge all the way until they are almost depleted. there's no difference to measure between a 95% charged battery and a 10% charged battery. Modern devices with chargeable batteries don't actually know how much of a charge the battery has, instead they guess based on how much they have been used since the last time they were charged and how long it to to deplete them the last time in combination with how much current they draw when charged.
In my country (Switzerland) you can still buy duracell's with a new type of power check on them but it basically works the same
you cant buy laserpointers so it is a tradeoff
Well you can just not the fun ones😅
@@Swiftershock yea
Also on Turkey you can buy duracell triple A with powercheck
Another great video about something that I didn't realise was fascinating until I saw the thumbnail and thought "oh - I didn't notitce that they'd stopped making these batteries". At age 40, these realisations are becoming more and more frequent.
Having done thousands of videos about battery operated toys I quickly learned to steer clear of Duracell batteries because of the way they leak. Lost count of how many times I saw these batteries destroy whatever they were left in. Had me wondering why didn't Duracell develop a leak proof battery.
Buffett bought them and then their quality went into the trash can. I mailed Duracell over 1000 cells and 20+ destroyed devices. Energizers and even some Chinese no-brand batteries rarely leak compared to current day Duracell.
They changed! I have found devices many years old with intact cells but now they go bad before I even get them out of a package if it sits around some. Energizer seems to work WAY better and Amazon has them in bulk.
Yes. I own TycoCollectors (website) and the number of old Tyco, Taiyo, Nikko, RadioShack and other 80s/90s RC cars which have been destroyed by leaking Duracells and similar chemistry... very frustrating. It does'nt just ruin the battery compartment, the acid seems to creep deep inside the toy, and then begin eating away the circuitboard.
@@BLKMGK4 If the batteries are actually "Energizer." Amazon has turned into a scammy cesspool lately, like selling "new" hard drives, but they are actually refurbished and still contain user data on them. Great stuff.
Give Low Self-discharge NiMH cells a try. They do have a slightly lower starting voltage, but their discharge curve is rather flat so they produce a very consistent voltage across their discharge, they handle high currents incredibly well due to their inherently more powerful "jelly roll" construction (similar to the physical construction of cylindrical lithium ion batteries), I have never had them leak on me (they rarely ever leak, plus safety vents help with that anyhow), and they're rechargeable so they're cheap to use. They power my flashes for my camera, they recharge the flash's internal capacitors about 3X faster than any fresh alkaline cell will, and last almost 2X as long under those heavy loads.
So far the one downside is their maximum capacity is not quite as good as a disposable (close though), so for low current loads like a TV remote they might not last quite as long... but they're rechargeable so it doesn't matter much anyway. Plus, the usable capacity at high current is almost as much as their rated maximum, so they actually get their full capacity even at absolutely stupidly heavy loads.
Panasonic rates their Eneloop brand cells to operate at rated output in -20C so if you do any toys in the cold... might be worth looking into. Just make sure to buy the regular variant with more cycles and lower capacity as their outer case is a tad smaller than the Pro variant so will physically fit into almost anything, even when some disposables wont, while also being more abuse tolerant. But really any NiMH cell made in Japan comes from the same plant regardless of brand.
The algorithm delivered me your channel on a science youtube binge and I've been really impressed by your ability to break down engineering and design of products. Thanks for making great content!
13:03 wait a min did you just rap :/
He oughta drop about the hype of a 9-volt battery
He absolutely did man!
😂😂😂
I saw this the second before he said it lmaoo
Eeeew no. Its called a rhyme. Kids nowadays...
I remember this battery it used to be more expensive.
And used to have a hard time checking the level as you have to press the 2 dots precisely.
Thanks for bringing back these memories.