Wiimote batterys.

BoomAM · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:05

Hi.
Does anyone know what ampage the batterys supplied with the Wiimotes are? They dont say on them unfortunatelly.

Im trying to work out what they are because i plan on buying some rechargables and a charger, and wanted the rechargables to be at least equal to the 'stock' ones.

Thanks in advance all.

Raymond Lin · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:08

BoomAM said:
Hi.
Does anyone know what ampage the batterys supplied with the Wiimotes are? They dont say on them unfortunatelly.

Im trying to work out what they are because i plan on buying some rechargables and a charger, and wanted the rechargables to be at least equal to the 'stock' ones.

Thanks in advance all.

1.5V AA isn't it? If you get some 2700mha recharables, I bet your house the stock ones won't beat that.

monkeyspank · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:14

The supplied batteries are pretty crappy. Any decent new rechargables should be better. I'm still on 4 bars of power with some 2500mAh ones I put in and I've been using them about half as long as the supplied ones lasted.

Werewolf · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:20

I think the stock ones are just standard alkali, probably 1500ma or less at a guess.

I strongly suspect any 2000ma+ batteries would do pretty well in the wiimote, I've got some 1800ma ones in it at the moment.
I bought a new faster "smart" charger when I bought my wii becauase i've got loads of nimh aa's and use them in various things and my old dumb* charger was taking 16 hours per set (timer controlled, so overcharging some batteries, undercharging others).

*Nimh battery chargers come in two main types, dumb which just run off a timer (and usually not ideal if you have different battery capacities), or "smart" which actually check the battery status before starting/stopping the charge (my new charger cost about £15 and can warn of dodgy cells, as well as charge them in an "intelligent" manner - which means it works nicely with all my batteris from 1700ma to 2500ma - and is much faster).

Ben · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:25

I've ordered some Uniross 2700mAh ones. I'm hoping in the main wiimote they'll last more than a month.... and probably about 3-6 months in the secondary wiimotes.

Already got a Uniross charger, so makes sense for me to get rechargable ones for it

BoomAM · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:52

What chargers would people recommend? Any particular ones?

Im planning on getting a set of 4 re-chargables.
With 2 of them in the Wiimote at any time, it means that the other two have, in theory, ages to charge, so charging time isnt that importent.

fini · 19 Dec 2006 at 18:57

If you wait until february joytech are bringing out a charge station that comes with two rechargeable battery packs for £20.

fini

Raymond Lin · 19 Dec 2006 at 19:04

fini said:
If you wait until february joytech are bringing out a charge station that comes with two rechargeable battery packs for £20.

fini

I said this in another thread about this docking station.

"powered by USB ? which is like what? 5amps ? How long would that take!

It looks like 2 rubbery wrapped batteries with some conductors at the right places with a hole at the back."

I think getting some proper 2700mha and a charger would be better, it might not look as cool and you'll need to get the batteries out but it'll last longer than that...I think.

Werewolf · 19 Dec 2006 at 20:12

Ben said:
I've ordered some Uniross 2700mAh ones. I'm hoping in the main wiimote they'll last more than a month.... and probably about 3-6 months in the secondary wiimotes.

Already got a Uniross charger, so makes sense for me to get rechargable ones for it

One thing to be aware of with battery chargers is that just because they are made by the same company as the battery doesn't mean they will work with all the batteries

Some battery chargers will only partially charge higher capacity batteries (as the charger works on a timer and wasn't designed with them in mind).

monkeyspank · 19 Dec 2006 at 20:15

BoomAM said:
What chargers would people recommend? Any particular ones?

Im planning on getting a set of 4 re-chargables.
With 2 of them in the Wiimote at any time, it means that the other two have, in theory, ages to charge, so charging time isnt that importent.

I've got a uniross ultra fast charger. It's about the size of a pack of cards and does a great job with different batteries.

punky_munky · 19 Dec 2006 at 20:17

Raymond Lin said:
I said this in another thread about this docking station.

"powered by USB ? which is like what? 5amps ? How long would that take!

It looks like 2 rubbery wrapped batteries with some conductors at the right places with a hole at the back."

I think getting some proper 2700mha and a charger would be better, it might not look as cool and you'll need to get the batteries out but it'll last longer than that...I think.

I charge my PSP by USB and that's fine. It's not like the Wiimote batteries run out in a day is it? I'd imagine that thing is for docking them when you're not playing.

monkeyspank · 19 Dec 2006 at 20:20

People charge their 360 controllers by USB without any probs.

BenST · 19 Dec 2006 at 20:29

Yeah, USB is 500mA max so do the math. Assuming a maximum rate it would take 5 hours to charge most modern batteries.

I have a Uniross fast charger for my 360's 2500mAH batteries and it charges them in an hour. Very nice!

Ben · 19 Dec 2006 at 22:49

Werewolf said:
One thing to be aware of with battery chargers is that just because they are made by the same company as the battery doesn't mean they will work with all the batteries

Some battery chargers will only partially charge higher capacity batteries (as the charger works on a timer and wasn't designed with them in mind).

Good point, and led me on a bit of a research spree to find out if it was. although it does only say "Ultra fast charger for Ni-Cd/Ni-MH Batteries", can't really find much to say whether it is or not... though the charger does seem to come with varying degrees of mAh rated batteries. I did think I had 2800mAh Batteries, and was trying to get hold of some, but couldn't find any... reason being was the batteries I have are 2300mAh (go me for reading properly!), so I could have gone even safer and just purchased 2300 ones

Oh well.

player · 19 Dec 2006 at 22:58

splitz said:
Yeah, USB is 500mA max so do the math. Assuming a maximum rate it would take 5 hours to charge most modern batteries.

I have a Uniross fast charger for my 360's 2500mAH batteries and it charges them in an hour. Very nice!

5 hours isnt that long really, because the idea won't be to charge from flat. But to top up the batteries when your not using the remote.

Raymond Lin · 19 Dec 2006 at 22:59

anyone know what type of charger the Energizer charger is? The ones that you can get for £19.99 on the highstreet which comes with 4 x 2500 mha batteries.

Werewolf · 19 Dec 2006 at 23:54

I think uniross have a fairly good site with info on their chargers (it's a pretty annoying flash based site though), but most descriptions of battery chargers in online shops tend to be along the lines of
"Ultra, super fast charger for 2-4 AA or AAA batteries. Comes with 4 batteries"

About as much use for comparing features as reading the tea leaves in my cuppa (I use teabags

).
Most cheap chargers with batteries tend to be timer based (dumb), as opposed to "smart" ones which can tell the state of the battery.
I beleive Uniross do an ultra fast smart charger for about £30-40.

P.S.
If you mean the Energizer UC08-2K it looks to be a "dumb" timer based charger, and given it comes with 8x 1300ma batteries I wouldn't like to bet on it charging 1800ma+ ones fully.

Raymond Lin · 20 Dec 2006 at 00:03

Werewolf said:
P.S.
If you mean the Energizer UC08-2K it looks to be a "dumb" timer based charger, and given it comes with 8x 1300ma batteries I wouldn't like to bet on it charging 1800ma+ ones fully.

Dunno about the model number, there isn't one on mine, it came with 4 x 2500 mha batteries. It's silver with a sliding battery bay that can take AA and AAA with a detachable UK plug to turn it into a Euro socket.

BoomAM · 20 Dec 2006 at 00:04

Bizarely, my Wiimotes gauge went down to 3/4 last night, that was after 6-7 hours a day usage since Friday. Then this afternoon it went down to 2/4, then 1/4, then for the last 5 hours! Yes, 5 hours, its stayed on 1/4(red)!?
Very odd.
Either way, looks like im gonna have to start stocking up on AAs from work, that Joytech thing looks like a cracking idea. Im sure 4-8AAs will last me till it comes out.

BenST · 20 Dec 2006 at 00:09

Rechargables behave a lot differently to standard Alkalines. Rechargables lose roughly 3% of their charge a day, usually come in a higher capacity than Alkalines and have a floating voltage of 1.2v which stays steady until nearly all charge is gone.

This is in much contrast to Alkalines which will retain most of their charge when idle and have a floating voltage of 1.5v which follows an almost linear decline with its charge.

This makes rechargables great for high current applications such as your control pads but makes the charge indicators on such devices inaccurate as they are usually based on the Alkaline voltage decline rate. It's also fairly pointless to keep rechargables 'topped up' for later use as they will simply self-drain. It's best to charge them shortly before you intend on using them.