Just about everyone has batteries that have used their charge and our first impulse is always to throw them out.

Some, in fact the majority, can be recharged and in a few instances, more than once, quickly and easily, saving money without sacrificing reliability. Here is how:

The first thing I needed to do was to gather up the gear:

– Old “dead” alkaline batteries
– Battery tester simple enough to use without a PhD in electronics
– Battery charger designed specifically for alkaline batteries
– Test gear such as flashlights, remote controls, wireless headphones and more

Simple enough although I did have to purchase the tester and the charge.

For years I have been saving my old batteries in a box in the garage, thinking that one of these days I would find someplace to recycle them. Where I live that is easier said than done so the box was pretty full which was great because that meant I had a lot of raw material to work with.

While waiting for my battery tester and alkaline charger to arrive, I sorted through the box, weeding out any leakers as well as odd ball batteries such as cell phone and hearing aid batteries. According to Wikipedia, the reason a battery leaks is this:

As batteries discharge — either through usage or gradual self-discharge — the chemistry of the cells changes and some hydrogen gas is generated. This out-gassing increases pressure in the battery. Eventually, the excess pressure either ruptures the insulating seals at the end of the battery, or the outer metal canister, or both. In addition, as the battery ages, its steel outer canister may gradually corrode or rust, which can further contribute to containment failure.

Surprisingly, most of the batteries in my box were clean. Something to keep in mind as you go through the sorting process is that if there is even a single leaker in the box, the residue can spread on to other batteries so it helps to have a rag handy to wipe each battery off to see if it is okay. If you even suspect that a battery has leaked, or if shows any rust or corrosion, don’t take a chance.

After reading reviews on various rechargers, I settled on the Maximal Power FC999 Universal Battery Charger. It wasn’t the most expensive available but according to a couple of the reviewers, this unit was exactly the same as a higher priced model.

It has four separate charging chambers that operate independently of each other. This means that you can mix and match battery sizes (AA, AAA, C, D) without a problem. It also has a center 9V battery chamber.

Note: this charger can also be used to charge Ni-cd and Ni-MH batteries but I only tested it on Alkaline batteries.

There is a slider switch that allows you to select the type of batteries you are charging – they cannot be mixed (although, as I mentioned, various sizes of the same type work just fine.)

There is no question that I experienced a bit of trepidation when I inserted the batteries into the charger for the first time. But there was no smoke and no explosion so I continued on.

A few seconds after you insert the batteries, the tester will recognize the status and the LED window will either say “CHA” (for charging) or “BAD” (for sorry, this is a bad battery and it cannot be charged). In addition, the following lights will glow:

• Red – Charging
• Green – Fully Charged
• Red Flashing – BAD

As I mentioned above, each of the four chamber operates independently so you could have a combination of these three options all going at once.

There is a chart in the manual that indicates that a AAA battery will take 2.5 hours to charge, a AA 5 hours, a C size 6 hours, and a D sized 10 hours. In my experience, however, they charge to the fully-charged, green light stage a lot sooner then that. Now here is the thing. Once fully charged, the charger switches to a trickle charge to keep the battery “at its optimum capacity” whatever that means.

My experience is that if you leave the recharged batteries in the charger overnight – or say for about 10 or 12 hours – you will get a much stronger charge. I say this because I first tested some batteries right after the green light came on. On my tester, they would register at about the half way mark in the fully-charged area. If I put them back in the charger, the green fully-charged light would come on right away but when I took them out the next morning, the tester showed them about 90% charged.

After doing this a few times, I realized that next on my bucket list was a tester that would give me the actual voltage of the re-charged battery.

In this day and age, most of us have more than just a few battery operated gadgets or electronics.

If you have use a lot of batteries, throwing them away can get expensive. With a battery recharger, however, you can use batteries at least one more cycle and sometimes even a few cycles.

For more information on recharger and tester options, please visit Backdoor Survival.