[rookiedaddy]

This thread is about the finding of which alkaline cells perform best and how each perform under a continuous discharge load.

Update 2010-01-18: Table updated with TESCO branded batteries

All cells are purchased off the retail malls/shops. Using Sanyo Eneloop as the base reference. Discharge equipment used is MAHA MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer, manufacturing date code 0I0BA, room temperature 25-28 degree celcius.

First, some legend:
M - Manufacturing Date
E - Expiry Date
CHN - China
IND - Indonesia
JPN - Japan
SGP - Singapore
USA - USA
THL - Thailand
!! - MAHA MH-C9000 display DONE immediately upon inserting battery or last discharge current is less than 20mAh

List of batteries tested:

Duracell Alkaline


Sanyo Alkaline


Panasonic Alkaline


Panasonic Evolta


Energizer e2 Advanced


Energizer MAX


Ikea AA- thanks polkiuj

TESCO Batteries - thanks pseudoblue
TESCO Value Zinc chloride (ok, this is not alkaline...)
TESCO Everyday
TESCO Power Hi Tech

The discharge function in MAHA MH-C9000 allows to select the discharge rate desired, in this test, we will focus on a discharge current of 500mA and 1000mA on the 1st discharge, while subsequent discharge current at 200mA. MH-C9000 will discharge each cell down to 0.90V and terminate, the word DONE will be display at the LCD.
A rest of at least 1 to 2 hours between discharge cycle to allow the cell Voltage to rebound and stabilize.

Here is the results:


The numbers are what displayed at MH-C9000 LCD after it's done discharging for the cycle.
The above result serves only as an alternative to what you may find on the Internet and cpf, it is not to be taken as authoritative reference, I'm NOT in any way a battery expert, but a curious consumer that happens to have an interesting equipment that allows me to do some testing and experimenting. I'm surprised to have found how some cells performs in the least expected manner.

As some cells performance are quite unexpected, I'll be doing more testing and update this thread as soon as the testing and data gathering is done.

This is the first time I'm doing this, so I greatly appreciate your pointing out any short-comings and mistakes I've made and I will try my best to correct it in future version and testing. TIA.

Observations (WIP):
- I've recorded the voltage after 30 minutes of discharge, at 0.5A, Eneloop is reading ~1.21V while all alkaline cells tested reads between 1.03-1.18V; at 1.0A discharge, Eneloop is reading ~1.14V while all alkaline cells drop below 1.05V.

Note:
- As pointed out by Tom (SilverFox): "there are often variations in cell performance with different batches of cells and from cells purchased at different locations", so YMMV.

for those who lives in SEA, I have another version with pricing information link here, the default currency is in Ringgit Malaysia