Battery leakage, should one worry?

[Guest Anonymous]

Hey got a question on the Ni/Mh internal batterys. I got a new portable MD player and a recorder the other day and I thought rather than use the batteries they came with, to use an extra pair I had bought with a Sony CD player I bought 2 1/2 years ago.

When I opened the cases of the old but brand new pair however it was apparent that they had leaked, but the ones still being used in the CD player of the same age haven't. Why could this be. I cleaned them up and have used them anyway, being careful to check on them ocasionally.

Now the question is why did they leak, is it because they were fully discharged for a very long time. I noticed that the Sony gumsticks with the new players had a fairly good charge straight from the box.... is this to prevent leakage?

To explain this line of thought, is that when I read up on the Enegizer website on NI/Hi they stated that these batteries have an internal valve to relieve pressure in cases of rapid charging. So this would indicate that there is a legitimate way for leakage to occur, besides a failure in the integraty of the battery itself.

So could this leakage occur as a result of not enough pressure within the battery, so that the valve over time fails to maintain a seal. Charging is a way to maintain a pressure within the battery to keep the valve sealing. I may be way off the mark here, but if this was the case, then maybe I should be fine to continue to use these old / brand new batteries.

regards,

Scott