Trail Camera Batteries: Internal AA-Cell Options
Batteries go with trail cameras like snow with a Montana winter. In this post, I look at options for internal trail camera batteries. In the first of two sections, I consider “per charge” capacity of 4 types of AA batteries, two primary and two rechargeable. I include a relatively new rechargeable option based on Lithium-ion technology. A handy graph shows how “long” a set of 8 of each of the battery types will last in a typical trail camera on a single charge in the field. On a related topic, I also consider SD card usage and sizing based on battery capacity. In the second section, I explore the tradeoff between primary and rechargeable batteries, including factors peculiar to camera trapping. I provide a simple selection guide for primary vs. rechargeable batteries.
For the hopelessly tech, I have also written a “Deep Tech” companion to this post: Deep Tech: Trail Camera Batteries. This post describes methods I used in producing graphs in this post, and the quantitative cost model for primary vs. rechargeable cells.
AA Battery Options
The 4 type of batteries covered in this post are summarized in the table below.
| Generic Name | Example | Primary/Rechargeable | Voltage per Cell (min/typical/max) |
| LiFeS2 | Energizer Ultimate Lithium | Primary | 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8 |
| Alkaline | Various | Primary | 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.6 |
| NiMH | Panasonic Eneloop | Rechargable | 0.9 / 1.2 / 1.4 |
| Li-ion AA | Tenavolt | Rechargeable | 1.5 / 1.5 / 1.5 |
Note that NiMH batteries have a much lower typical and min voltage vs. other AA-sized batteries. Not all trail cameras will work when populated with NiMH cells. Some cameras may turn off without using all the available battery energy. Others may not work at all. For these cameras, the only rechargeable AA option are the newer Li-ion AA batteries.
How Long do Trail Camera Batteries Last on a Single Charge?
The capacity of batteries in a trail camera depends on two things: how much “work” the camera does; and the energy capacity of the batteries. Cameras do more work and consume more energy in proportion to the number or videos or photos they take. They also consume a small amount of energy “just sitting there” to power the PIR sensor, but this is negligible in modern cameras. Battery energy capacity depends on the battery type, temperature, and the rate at which the battery is providing energy to the camera. In general, lower temperatures, and higher power loads will lead to lower battery capacity.
The graph below shows the capacity of a set of 8 batteries in a typical trail camera (the Browning Recon Force Advantage — BTC-7A) vs. temperature. I present the “capacity” in terms of the amount of video the camera can take on a single charge of batteries. I assume that the videos are a mix of daytime (80%) and night time (20%). More night time triggers will lead to lower video capacity, as it takes more energy to power the LED flashes. Note that this graph is approximate. Exact values will vary, especially depending on the number of nighttime shots,
SD Card Usage
As a bonus, the graph above also contains an axis, on the right, for the amount of SD card consumed (in GBytes) when taking the a full charge’s worth of ULTRA (1080p @ 60Hz) definition video. This axis is useful in determining what size SD card to use with a given battery type. SD cards should be large enough to cover a full battery charge, but need not be larger.
Primary vs. Rechargeable Battery Selection Guide
As we have seen, primary batteries (especially LiFeS2) have a much larger capacity than rechargeable batteries. Unfortunately, they cannot be recharged. On the other hand, rechargeable batteries have a lower per-charge capacity, and are more expensive, but can be reused many times. Which is more cost effective in trail camera sets over the long term? I present some “rules of thumb” based on temperature, how busy the set is, and how often it is service, in the table below. The table is based on a quantitative lifetime cost model that I cover in Deep Tech: Trail Camera Batteries.
How Busy is the Set, and How Often is it Checked?
Primary cells are best for sets which are not very busy, and which are not checked very often. On the other hand, rechargeable batteries are more economical in busy sets that are visited frequently. Intuitively, if the camera is not very active, it doesn’t consume much power from the batteries, and the lower cost of the primary cells wins. Alternatively, very busy sets, which are visited often, will benefit from rechargeable cells.
Selection Guide
Due to their superior capacity and excellent performance over wide temperature range LiFeS2 cells should also be used when one doesn’t know how busy the set will be, or exactly when one will be back. This is because these primary cells provide the most energy — in some cases by a factor of two, and therefore can capture the most content. This was certainly case for our cameras “stranded” in Montana for over a year due to Covid19 pandemic.
Summary
All of the battery types covered in this post will power a typical, modern trail camera, for many hours of continuous, HD video. A set of new LiFeS2 primary cells will last significantly longer than new alkaline cells at most temperatures, and about twice as long as single charge of Li-ion or NiMH cells at all temperatures. LiFeS2, Li-ion, and NiMH cells all have good low temperature behavior. Alkaline cells do not.
With their larger capacity, LiFeS2 batteries merit the largest SD card — a 256 GByte card to cover up to 140 GBytes of mixed day/night time video. Rechargeable Li-ion and NiMH options considered here, by contrast, “fit” within a 128 and 64 GByte SD cards, respectively. The “right” size SD card for a camera with alkaline cells varies greatly with temperature.
The choice of primary vs. rechargeable batteries for trail cameras depends on the temperature, how busy the set is, and how often it is checked. Despite a large difference in upfront costs, even the relatively expensive Li-ion AA rechargeable batteries can make economic sense for very active and frequently visited sets. Conversely, primary batteries, like the popular LiFeS2 cells are economical in sets with low activity, checked infrequently, or in exploratory sets.
What batteries have you used in your trail cameras? If rechargeable, how long do they seem to last in the field? If the new Li-ion AA cells, have they been reliable so far?
We are using several external batteries. 12 V, rechargeable. We take them home after 2 months and recharge while the second set gets installed. This is on private land so it lends itself to better privacy. And it is not in bear country. We have not tried this in bear country nor do we want to.
External batteries are another choice for these cameras. I focused on the internal batteries, partly to simplify the post, and partly because I don’t have much experience with external batteries! As you note, without bears and humans to molest the set, external batteries make a lot more sense.
We have recently used a set with some external cables in bear country (different project). It did not go well. I am now much more focused on “cable management”
Thanks for commenting!
That’s a very interesting idea. Several of my cams are on private land. Hmm, where do you get a 12V external battery?
[I’m not exactly sure how the comments on WordPress work — i.e. does UL see your reply in her mailbox, or only if she looks at the blog? — you may try following on on FB thread]
I haven’t used an external battery pack, but I notice there are several available online, fully configured for trail camera operation. E.g.
https://www.spypoint.com/en/products/12v-battery-charger-housing-kit/product-kit-12v.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAhMOMBhDhARIsAPVml-F8-O867uB37FqfngaDmISmc3SPKlcvT8O5LvkHEVouPlYUqmkYV38aAucCEALw_wcB#more
https://www.startechtel.com/products/stealthcam-12v-battery-box?variant=39381798224054&gclid=Cj0KCQiAhMOMBhDhARIsAPVml-GEaByUObWvBc5QYnATWF1IcIA7vRuEarDyogazSlbQmtnTdPq5Bc8aAqAIEALw_wcB
Both of these use sealed lead acid batteries. By my calculations, these larger, rechargeable, external batteries have about twice the capacity of an internal set of 8 LiFeS2 batteries per charge.
I’m not sure how standardized the 12V barrel connector (use to connect to the trail camera) is between trail camera vendors. You probably want to carefully measure the one on your camera and make sure they match any one you buy.
Useful data. Given how their performance improves at higher temperatures I am tempted to try alkalines instead of expensive lithium primary cells. I vaguely recall there being an issue with alkalines being unable to put out enough current to power no glow LEDs though – have you heard of that ?
The short answer is I think you’re right to be concerned about alkaline batteries under high loads, even at high temperatures.
The longer answer:
Take a look at figure 10 in the (newly) referenced Energizer Alkaline Handbook (https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/alkaline_appman.pdf). This workload is a pretty good approximation of night time trail camera operations with a 500 mA load in pulses. Note that a little past the middle of the discharge, the voltage during load pulses drops below 1.0 volts. The Browning cameras I’ve looked at (BTC-7A/8A) “cutout” at this voltage, and will not come back on without a change to the on-off switch. This will leave a significant chunk of capacity (unused) “in the tank.”
But it’s worse than that. While it’s true that alkaline cells perform better at higher temperatures in some applications, this doesn’t apply for trail camera loads, especially at night. See figure 6. At low loads (25 mA) alkaline batteries do approach capacity of LiFeS2 batteries of circa 3500 mAh. Unfortunately, this “low current regime” applies only to the “standby” mode in trail cameras. For daylight operation, trail camera load is ~180 mA, which is much closer to the “GPS” (250 mA) curve. Here capacity is much lower — only 2500 mAh. Night time operation is a ~500 mA load, which is closer to the “Digital Camera” curve. Worse, I’m imagining night time temperatures are significantly cooler, and at these loads, capacity is very temperature dependent. I.e. maybe only 1200 mAh.
Scrub the alkalies then ! Many thanks.
Hi Janet,
I have an ongoing problem with my Browning Recon Force Advantage and lithium batteries. The batteries lose power in what seems to me to be a very short time: 3 weeks and 200-300 20 second videos. When I test the 8 batteries, 7 have full power and 1 is spent. So only 1 battery is running down and shutting down the camera. And it’s not always a battery in the same slot in the battery tray. Is this a lithium battery problem? or specific to my camera?
Thanks,
Mike
If you see this behavior with 8 new (out of the package) batteries, it seems likely that your camera is “broken” in such a way that’s causing it to consume more power than it should in “standby” mode. See “How (some) Trail Cameras Fail” ( https://winterberrywildlife.ouroneacrefarm.com/2021/06/30/how-some-trail-cameras-fail/), “Early Battery Draining”. (does the date/time work properly, or does it keep getting reset?). If still under warranty, I would seek a replacement.
In the series battery configuration in these trail cameras, physics and electrochemistry dictate that all batteries are discharged at the same rate. If you start with new or well-matched batteries, and the camera dies, you should replace all of the batteries. *No matter what the battery meter says*. Due to chemistry of LiFeS2 batteries, it can be very difficult to measure state of charge accurately. I’ve found that the manufacturing variability in these batteries is very low. (If you start out with batteries with the same state of charge) if one cell in a string of 8 is dead, they all are pretty close.
Now, if you don’t start with well-matched (e.g. new) batteries, things are different. If you are mixing and matching older (more used) and newer (less used) batteries, the oldest battery will run out first, which will “bring down” the camera. Unfortunately if, at this point, you replace only the battery that measures “dead”, the next oldest battery is waiting in the wings to bring the camera down again (and again, and again). Again, don’t trust the battery meter — those other batteries do not have “full power” — they just have more power than the one that failed. I don’t recommend this practice!
Instead, we have taken to keeping our LiFeS2 in “sets of 8” from the time we take them out the package, to their end of life, and tracking their use in the meantime. E.g. we leave them in the camera until they die, and then we replace them all. If we remove them from a camera early (say, because they have accrued 4 hours worth of video in a set we’re not visiting very often), we keep them in a set of 8 that we can use in another camera that we check more often. When they die, we take them to the recycling center.
Hope this helps. Thanks for commenting!
Thanks Bob, that helps. Sounds like “operator error” to me.
Maybe not — could still be problem with an (electrically leaky) camera. I’d continue to keep an eye on it. Good luck!
Bob,
I have a few cams that are out long term, 6 months to a year. I’m considering trying a Braille Green Lite Lithium G5S rechargeable battery to use as axillary power for a Browning Spec Ops Elite.
The battery would be in a marine type battery case and I’d use a cord to power through the axillary power port.
These batteries are pretty spendy initially but I would really like to get away from the Energizer lithiums.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.
Michael
Interesting. Hadn’t seen this battery before ( https://braillebattery.com/products/g5s-1 ) . The short answer is that you can roughly double the numbers in this post listed for 8 x LiFeS2 (EULs) to get the approximate values for a fully charged Braille Green Lite Lithium, G5S. I would expect to get 21-25 hours worth of video (at 0 and 72F, respectively), and to just fill a 256 GB SD card at “Ultra” (HD video). If you take 4K videos, I’d suggest using 512 GB SD cards with this battery.
The long answer is that I’m not sure about the power consumption for the Spec Op Elite. I can see why it might be slightly less, about the same, or slightly more power hungry than the Recon Force Advantages I measured. Let’s assume it’s about the same.
The manufacturer for the G5S lists several different specs for capacity, mostly in the context of starting motorcycles. They confirmed that the correct specification for use of this battery as a power supply is 6 Ah. I’ll assume 13 volt average Voltage over a full discharge.
This works out to a capacity of 6 * 13 = 78 Watt-hours at room temperature. Per the post, I expect only a small drop in this capacity to temperatures of 0 F. 8 AA EULs has a capcity of ~40 Wh. Hence the factor of two.
Interested to hear how this works out for you.
In any case, be careful working with metal tools around this battery. With a peak output of 346 Amps (!!), shorting the terminals will make a great accidental arc-welder!
Bob,
Thanks much for the tech info help. I like the potential of 21-25 hours of video with one of these batteries, if all works as suggested.
I’ve ordered a couple and will keep you posted on the setup as I learn more.
Michael
I’ve been working with trail cams for nearly 10 years. Some use has been part of research projects and some has been personal use and interest. I just completed a test using rechargeable batteries on a personal camera and would like to share what I learned.
Usually I have around 20 personal cams out. Some I am able to check fairly regularly. Others are sometime out for six months to a year before I can get back to them. Running this many cameras and using the Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries gets expensive as I’m sure everyone here knows. I also don’t like using batteries just one time and then having to dispose of them. I do dispose of them properly.
I’ve considered try rechargeable batteries for a while so I recently reached out to Robert seeking his experience and suggestions. Robert’s experience was encouraging so I purchased some Tenavolts AA rechargeable lithium batteries.
After getting them, I fully charged a set for a Browning Spec Ops Elite HP4. Then set it up facing the street outside my house to see how long the camera would function before the batteries discharged to a point the cam wouldn’t operate any longer. Nearly all my cams are Browning models, and all new purchases are the Spec Ops Elite HP4.
The camera ran for 11 days and took 931 videos. Approximately 1/3 of the videos were at night, on infrared. The temperature range was between 10 and 40 degree Fahrenheit.
Camera settings of interest are as follows.
Cam set to video
Length of video, 30 seconds
Video quality, Ultra
5 second delay between videos
Motion Detect, Long Range
Trigger Speed, Normal
IR Flash Power, Economy
Smart Video, Off
The number of videos taken was more than I’d anticipated and is very encouraging. Here are a few other observations of note.
After putting in fully charged batteries, I expected the battery life indicator to show 100%. When the camera was turned on it showed 100% for a moment, then showed 75%. I turned it on and off several times and it continued to do the same thing. So I put it out and turned on.
I changed cards each day and documented info. I noted each day when I turned the camera back on it would briefly show 100% and then go to 75%.
The last 3 days when I checked the videos, I noted the night videos often started out darker than usual but the infrared light slowly strengthened. An indication the batteries were getting weaker.
On a few occasions the camera took 30 second videos at night even though Brownings automatically default to 20 second videos when on Infrared. This seemed to be the result of vehicle lights hitting the camera before it detected their motion. This shouldn’t occur in the field but it’s something I didn’t expect to see.
Yesterday when I changed cards and turned camera back on it showed 50% life, so I expected the cam to stop working shortly.
This morning when I changed cards and turned the camera back on it showed 25% battery life.
When I checked the card it had 70 videos and had stopped working yesterday afternoon. So I went back out and retrieved the camera. It had taken 3 videos but was showing 25% battery life and above the battery icon it said, ‘batteries weak or batteries low’. I forgot now but it indicated batteries were down.
Based on this I hope to convert all my cameras to rechargeable lithiums over the course of this year.
I am also just beginning a different lithium battery test for cameras deployed remotely that I may not get to for many months. I purchased 2 Braile rechargeable lithium 12 volt motorcycle size batteries. I’ll be doing some testing on these as well and will report on how they work.
Hopefully this is helpful and of interest to others. Robert, thanks for the info you’ve provided.
Thanks for this detailed update! It looks like the newer Browning SpecOps Elite HP4 is about as energy efficient than the earlier Recon Force Advantage I used to generate the data in this post. Your data of close to 1000 30-second videos is much larger than the ~650 videos in the charts above. Most of this difference is due to differences in assumptions about flash usage. In the model, I assumed 20% of video was lit by the LED flash. As I read your report, although most of the video is indeed at night, only “a few” are lit by the LED (as the camera is detections the lighting based on oncoming automobile headlights). If I update my model to assume almost all daytime (no flash LED), it predicts ~950 30 second videos.
Having said this, I did go back and measure the current (and thereby power) consumed by the Elite and compared it to the BTC-7A. By these measurements, the Elite is about: 10% more energy efficient for daytime video; 10% more efficient at night with “economy” flash setting; and 50% more efficient at “long range” flash setting. The Elite introduces an even higher flash setting designated “low blur” which consumes about *twice* the power of the “long range” setting.
On a cautionary note, I did have one of my collection of 8 TenaVolts Li-Ion AA batteries fail on me after ~10 charge/discharge cycles. Symptom was that when I put it in the charger after heavy use, the blue “charge” ring LED did not come on, and the battery did not charge. I have taken it apart, and it appears that the internal battery is fine, but that there is something wrong with the super tiny, built-in charge controller. Hopefully this is not a common failure.
Using 12V rechargeable Li-Ion batteries sounds like it could be just the thing for long, remote deployments. Good luck, and keep us posted!
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Great information. Do you have thoughts on why the Tenavolts batteries are on rated down to 32 F if they function fine well below that?
Thanks!
Good catch! To be honest, I didn’t realize that I had violated the specified operation temperature range when I put them in our freezer to discharge. Here are a couple of thoughts: the capacity does drop at lower temperature — maybe they’re trying to avoid saying this? Less benignly, it’s possible that the number of charge/discharge cycles is reduced when operating for extended duration at temperatures below 32F (0F). These effects only come into play if the batteries are being discharged. In my experiments, I discharged the batteries continuously at 0F for ~10 charge/discharge cycles. In real trail camera applications, the camera is likely to discharge in much shorter intervals. Also, (conveniently, and in our experience) false triggers are less likely in very cold weather, and animals are less likely to be out and about to trigger the camera on the very coldest days. As for reducing the number of charge/discharge cycles — given the rates of most trail camera usage, you are unlikely to get to 1000’s of cycles for many years. In short, (especially given the current cost of EULs), if you can deal with the lower capacity vs. the EULs, then I would give these a try even in the MN winter.
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The Tenavolts batteries seem to be working fine in the below 0 F with a limited sample size and cold duration – also a lot less activity when its 15 below. I have a related question that you have the answer for. I have a few dozen Tenavolts batteries charged up and ready to go that I carry with me when I check cameras. Some have been sitting now for weeks since I haven’t have to replace batteries in many cameras yet. Do they lose their charge over time when not in use?
The short answer is: Yes, fully charged li-ion batteries lose charge over time when not in use, but only at the rate of 1-2% per month. I wouldn’t worry about a couple of weeks. Longer answer is they lose charge much more quickly at high temperatures, so storing fully charged batteries in a cool place helps. Really long answer at https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-802b-what-does-elevated-self-discharge-do Note that the this article also documents a 4% drop in capacity in the first 24 hours. But for our purposes, will be the same, whether the batteries are in the camera for a day, or inside waiting on a shelf.
I’m a newbie to trail cameras, but I’m not a dummy. What burns me up is how most trail cameras are being advertised falsely and the instruction manuals are being deceptive as well. At first I was like – WOW!, some of them have Bluetooth and WiFi, IR vision, Motion Sensors, 20MP+ Photos, 1080P+ Video with adjustable intermittency, WOW!, and all it uses is 8 AA batteries?, and can place it way out in a remote area in the woods?, and it uses a memory card capable of holding thousands of images and hours of video?, WOW!, technology must have significantly improved over the last 2 decades, I’ll snag one and try it out. – Here’s the Reality … NOPE! Power wise, nothing has changed much. The AA battery compartment should NEVER be used as the Primary Power Source, UNLESS your camera trap session is an extremely short one (THAT is the fact the manufacturers are not telling the consumer). With many AA battery brands, some of these trail cameras will only supply maybe, if you’re lucky, about 40 minutes worth of video, and that includes turning all unnecessary features off, and turning all the quality settings down! It’s ridiculous how much of a power hog some of these units are. They might as well include an AC-DC Wall Adapter and/or jumper wire for an external battery pack, and completely remove the AA battery compartment altogether, because it’s garbage! And NiMH AA’s? Why did you have to mention those? Not a single trail camera is configured to include the usage of NiMH batteries, which has become the dominate power choice in our Conservative American Home. They work in everything … except a power hog trail camera. Well, you can sort of make them work and might get 20 minutes of video, but it has to be a continuous video immediately after setup, because the standby mode is going to check the battery level and SHUT IT DOWN! This is stupid! Why can’t they use their brain for a change and make it a 10-cell 5×2 parallel AA battery configuration with a micro power regulator? Let’s do the math boys and girls … 1.2 x 5 = 6v, then good ones start at around 2300 mAh, so 2300 x 2 = 4600 mah … See? They would work properly, if the dummies at the manufacturing plant would configure the battery compartment for 10 cells instead of 8, then NiMH’s could actually compete fairly with other cells. The camera trap session would still be just as short as all the others, but at least the whole unit would not completely shutdown after the first recording session post-setup! This FLAW in manufacturing is the ONLY reason an instruction manual MAY say NOT to use rechargeable batteries. Even though crafty hunters use rechargeable EXTERNAL batteries anyway and say F-U to the AA battery compartment, LOL. So yeah, I’m learning quite a lot, including how big of a sucker I was in making a selection. They won’t fool me again! That’s for dang sure!
Thanks for commenting on this post, and best of luck with your camera trapping. Still, there are a few points where our experiences seem to differ. For example:
– Regarding battery life of 8-internal AA batteries: The graph in this post where I present capacity (in hours of video) for different battery types, including alkaline, NIMH, rechargeable AA-lithium ion, and Lithium metal batteries are all based on measurements (not users manuals or marketing material from either camera or battery manufacturers). This data shows ~13 hours of total video for Li-Metal, and ~6-7 hours for other battery types. This for older Browning Advantage series cameras taking a mix of 80% daytime video and 20% night video (on highest settings). In a blog post specifically on Li-Ion cells ( https://winterberrywildlife.ouroneacrefarm.com/2022/04/21/deep-tech-rechargeable-li-ion-aa-batteries-for-trail-cameras/ ) and a Facebook post on low-cost alkaline cells ( https://www.facebook.com/WinterberryWildlife/posts/pfbid02Gi8y5tJtcDFtP9Gq91Fjw9CSeRWS8g7ErkzehMpuTJv4SeFzgsKNdgUMSu6otZEJl ) , I found there to be a number of battery manufacturers for which this is true. We routinely leave sets in the field for up to a year with Li-Metal batteries and find them still working on pickup, with several thousands of 20-second videos. Would be interested to know the details of your “40 minute” experience.
– Regarding NIMH batteries – I share your frustration with lack of lower voltage support in some trail cameras. As I note in this post, Li-ion AA batteries are a rechargeable option for these cameras. Thankfully at least some recent models, including the Elite HP4 and HP5 cameras from Browning do explicitly support NIMH cells.
Hi Bob,
I hope you are all well over the pond. Now i have been using energizer lithiums in my 30 odd Browning cameras for years. Then lately i have started to have some issues. I always load up spare battery trays to carry in my bag for a quick change in the field. no problem for years
recently before xmas if i rem rightly i could smell something, sniffed it out to a loaded battery tray simply sitting in a box on my kitchen table. one of the batteries was over heating, this tray wasnt inside a camera it was simply sitting on its end and slotted into a box with other trays, some empty some full
disposed of the whole tray of batteries as they were now drained, this was just one battery tray
now today i have come back from doing my cameras to find 4 x Hp5s dead, 1 Hp4 only doing black night videos due to low battery power and every camera had only done about 100 videos, I usually get around 1600 give or take
Now on returning home and sorting my bag i could smell something again, pulled the spare loaded trays from bag and again an over heating battery. removed all the batteries and they were down to 1.64 volts with the over heating one at 1.74volts, they are 1.79 to 1.8v when new. Check the 3 other loaded trays and one of the other trays was low at 1.47v each battery. The other two were as they should be 1.79v
Now trying to figure this out, im assuming the dead cameras etc had faulty batteries in the mix which caused them to drain quicker
All the batteries came from batterystation in the sealed packs of 10 so as far as im aware are legit batteries
all dated 12-2042 and all the same code stamped
What i dont understand is how can a battery over heat when not under load. They were all placed in the trays in the right direction there was no battery in backwards. Can these batteries actually over heat and cause a discharge if two trays are loaded and facing each other whilst simply sitting unused? If you can imagine what i mean, the batteries in one tray are facing and touching the batteries in another tray, would that cause a short at all? Would there need to be a faulty battery in the first place for it to overheat?
Im puzzled as i have carried loaded trays like this in my bag for yrs but its only since i got batteries from a different website that i have had these issues and im wondering if its something im doing wrong or the batteries themselves,
I honestly cant understand how they can just start to over heat for no reason lol
any advice and help on this would be truly appreciated
all the best
Sorry to hear about your “hot battery” issues. But you are right to want to get to the bottom of this potentially hazardous situation.
First, I don’t think the batteries themselves are at issue. Despite their high energy density, and use of a Litihium chemistry, Energizer LiFeS2 are among the most stable battery options available. 10’s of millions of these batteries are made every year, and they are used in all sorts of high profile applications.
This means that the source of the heat you’ve experience must be due to current flow, and that requires a circuit. Certainly there’s no way for a circuit to form when the batteries are in their package. Even loose in a box (without any other metal), these batteries can’t really be configured into circuit. However…
I think you are right to suspect the problem is related to your practice of putting these cells into the battery trays. These trays have two metal contacts, both on the same side, which press against spring contacts when installed inside the camera. If some piece of metal, or the contacts from another (full) battery tray, touches both of these contacts at the same time, you’ll get a short circuit. To your question — “Can these batteries actually over heat and cause a discharge if two trays are loaded and facing each other whilst simply sitting unused?”
Yes! I have verified that in the case of battery trays from older Browning Cameras (e.g. Advantage series), if full battery packs are stacked with “open” sides facing each other the, the two sets of contacts can definitely touch each other. And if this happens, a lot of current will flow, causing the batteries to get hot, and (quickly) lose charge. These batteries have a safety cutoff mechanisms which disconnects them if they get too hot, so you’re not likely to cause a fire. However, you should fix the problem.
I strongly suggest that if you are going to pre-populate the battery trays, that you take pains to cover the battery contacts. A really fat rubber band on the contact end, and covering the contacts would do the trick. Or you could put them in their own (insulating) pouches.
I notice on the newer Browning models, the contacts for the battery case are recessed, which should prevent self contact.
I can’t explain why this is just happening to you now. Perhaps you’ve changed something about how you pack these into your bag? As long as there is no circuit, these batteries will indeed last for years. But a short circuit will drain them quickly.