my bad luck with Duracell Batteries

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bdmicarta

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Feb 16, 2012
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I used to buy a lot of mini maglites. I've had quite a few of them ruined by leaking batteries. I had a new mini maglite pro nearly ruined a few weeks ago. Every time it has been due to leaking Duracell batteries.

I think the concept is that any alkaline battery can and maybe eventually will leak, so you should replace them regularly. But in my experience the Duracell batteries are much more likely to leak before other brands will. Having a lot of flashlights around means that I don't use up the batteries in any one of them very fast, and they get old. I don't pay enough attention to how old the batteries are in various of my devices and so I need to use batteries that will last the longest. I try not to use Duracell batteries unless I have to, in the case of my recently damaged mini maglite pro I just screwed up and put Duracell batteries in it.

I have noticed in some recent Duracell advertisements that they are claiming longer life without leaking. I wonder if their poor reliability has caught up with them and they are trying to make amends, or are they just trying to fix it through advertising.
 
I just avoid alkaline batteries entirely. If you must use them in flashlights or other doohickies that are used rarely, store them outside the device.
 
I've used the Duracell Procell exclusively when using Alkaline batteries. Never had any issues. The regular Alkaline batteries aren't that great though. The Procell are what I used for the equipment I maintained when I worked at a hospital. Everything from pagers to pen lights to electric staplers.

For my flashlights I use Eneloop batteries. They are expensive, but they are excellent and rechargeable so they end up paying for themselves within a couple charge cycles.
 
I have had several maglites over the years ruined by leaking alkalines but the last two I had ruined I actually called the battery manufacturer customer service and they told me to send them the flashlights with the leaky batteries. I took them up on their offer and they actually mailed me a check for the cost of the two maglites.
I always noticed that the worst leakage was caused by keeping the batteries in my truck and the heat would cause them to leak after a few months.

Now I never keep alkalines inside any flashlights more than a month or so and after that just store them outside. For my emergency truck mini maglite with Led conversion I just keep a set of lithium AA's in it and they seem to last almost forever with occasional short usage and have never leaked. I also pretty much switched all my lights to AA nimh eneloops or their equivalent "stay charged" rechageables batteries and that has saved me a ton of money. For my few remaining C and D cell maglites that I have converted to LED also, I just use AA rechargeable batteries in them with C or D adapters. They work great.
 
I have not used alkaline batteries since the invention of the rechargeable batteries. Alkalines can leak and single use batteries are inconvenient. I can top up a rechargeable in a pinch and keep going.
 
Just pulled a leaking Duracell from my tv remote not too long ago and found another one that was leaking in my drawer when I was looking for a replacement.
 
Get on the big site and buy you some ""eneloop"" Batteries and a Charger and you will never look back.!!
 
I have had the same issues with Duracell ruined a few flashlights. But the one that did me in was thermometer battery's were only in it maybe 6 months one day it just stopped working so I thought battery's just went bad. Come to find out batterys leaked and ruined it threw it away and went threw house and got rid of all the Duracell.

Switched to energizer but after readying everyone post Im going to look into getting some of the eneloop rechargeable. I wish I would have know at the time they would have replaced ruined items. Thanks to you all at least I know now so if it ever were to happen again I can get items replaced.
 
The Sanyo Eneloop are great and I've also had good luck with the Sony rechargeable nimh batteries.
 
+1 a long time user of Duracell and they've gone bad. Just about every one leaked in the last year.

Bought a ton of Eneloops online and am replacing all alkalines with NiMH in all the remote controls, clocks, and radios.
 
When it comes to Alkaline batteries I've honestly had better luck with that Rayovac brand that is usually a couple dollars cheaper than duracell.
 
jkulysses said:
When it comes to Alkaline batteries I've honestly had better luck with that Rayovac brand that is usually a couple dollars cheaper than duracell.
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I have also found Rayovac less likely to leak and Duracell running second. Energizer is the one that leaked the most for me. I still run Alkaline for convenience and may go rechargeable because of the shear volume of batteries used a year. I have gone away from keeping every device sitting idle loaded with batteries and the ones that are loaded and ready to go, putting the date on a piece masking tape with a sharpie, makes for one less think I have to carry around in my head to remember.
 
I've been using the lithium batteries lately, but haven't had too many problems with leaky duracells in the past except for leavin them in for very long time. Many,many years ago I tried rechargeable batteries but the performance was poor, maybe they've changed now?
 
When I buy Alkalines I look for coupons for Walgreens and buy their house brand on sale. (Maybe made by Energizer?)
I have plenty of NiMH AA's so maybe I will try them in the little flashlights.
 
TOMBSTONE said:
I've been using the lithium batteries lately, but haven't had too many problems with leaky duracells in the past except for leavin them in for very long time. Many,many years ago I tried rechargeable batteries but the performance was poor, maybe they've changed now?
Click to expand...

try the new rechargeable batteries, once you do you will not go back.
 
Is there one battery charger better than the others?

I've never had much luck with those cheapo chargers that were included in the pack of rechargeable batteries, found in box stores.
 
The important thing is to get a smart charger that charges each battery individually. That's what's wrong with the cheap chargers - they can only charge them in series so some cells get overcharged.
 
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