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Battery Riddiculousness.

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Jimma

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I wil start by apologising for wiriting this post when I'm slightly pissed (drunk) but I've spent the last two hours listening/dancing to some quality tunes on an Aiwa AM-F65 that I bought from a car boot sale for £2.00.  The thing that is winding me up is that the notoriously hard to find and old battery, LIP-902 has lasted me well over 2 hours at a considerable volume.

What I want to know is, why do I only get about five minutes, if that, from an old or brand new NH-14WM in an MZR-55, MZ-RH10, MZ-E501 or pretty much any other MD player that takes that type of battery.  It doesn't matter if it's charged in the unit or in a BC-NHP2 charger, the results are still the same.

I might as well forget about gumstick batteries.

As I write this the LIP-902 is still going strong!

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I don't like the gumstick batteries very much either. Any of my units that take a gumstick battery I made sure that I got a AA sidecar for them because I can always get AA's. I haven't tested how long a AA will last in those machines but I'm hoping that it will last at least as long in my AA machines, which is a long time.

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The battery-reviving BC700 and others of its ilk will fix most gumsticks in my experience at least since I bought one.

Have you tried that battery in your MZ-R91? I brought several back from the dead before getting my BC700 by simply charging in that unit.

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  • 1 month later...

Only thing I can offer here is that the Li-Ion batteries of "yesterday" were built a little more stringently, to higher quality standards, and used high quality materials and manufacturing.  You have to remember that this was back when most portable MD recorders were still running off 3.6V drive (Li-Ion voltage) and NiMH units were not yet commonplace.  In fact the MZ-R55 which would come out that same year was the first one to use NiMH gumstick IIRC.  But it had horrible battery life as I doubt it was engineered as a 1.2/1.5V drive unit but instead was adapted from a 3.6V design.  Battery life on the R55 was essentially cut in half from the R50 and it wouldn't be until the next generation (the R90/91) where battery life became good.  (This was also the start of the power cycling instead of keeping the disc spinning indefinitely, IIRC.) 

 

Prismatics (gumsticks, rectangular batteries) have never been a match for their cylindrical counterparts either.  Not in capacity and not in longevity (cycle life) and durability (environmental/physical).  However they met the size criteria cylindrical cells could not.  The unfortunate part about NiMH prismatics is they were even poorer than LiIon prismatics. Even the well manufactured ones weren't anything spectacular and the many poorly made ones (China-made, knock offs, counterfeits) made the situation even worse.  However at least they are still made and available, albeit from 3rd party (and mainly China made) companies.

 

It's a good thing the LIB-902s have good life though, because it's impossible to find those anymore as they simply aren't made.  Unlike cylindrical Li-Ion batts they aren't universal or standardised either so there's no real way to replace it at all!  I actually have one sitting in front of me right now.  I think when I stored it, it could do at most about 70% it's original rated capacity, which it probably still has since it was stored at low temp.  Still, if used again, this battery will probably eventually die and then what?  Well it's pretty tough finding Li-Ion prismatics.  You're definitely never finding this exact battery again though there are similar cells made.  Can't paste links to this forum for some reason but if you search google for "BK062265 Li Ion" you'll find something like that might work as a replacement for the LIB-902.

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