Saw some of the Japanese Eneloop batteries for sale in Costco. There are the older ones made in Japan that claim to still have 70% battery capacity after 5 years instead of the newer Chinese ones that are 65%.
Costco membership costs $60 per 12 months but can be returned at anytime during membership for a full refund.
OP is from Adelaide, so safe to assume its from there :)
do you work for the NSA !?
:D
Oops, Sorry. Yep, it's the Adelaide one :)
I've also seen this in Ringwood (Vic)
Also at Docklands (VIC)
Just re the non discount on food near expiry. Just picked up pork ribs $5 off per pack due to expiry on Tuesday. Bought the small packs and it almost worked out to half price.
Duuuude, lol. Costco generally stock premium brands, not no name brands. Yes they do have some things similar to aldi, but I happily pay the premium for better quality.
Paying $60 per Year to shop at an apparently wasteful & not particularly cheap store is Crazy
You have already written a manifesto on why you don't shop at Costco.
Gated Shopping
Now you have joined as a member !
The batteries are good, but the charger is LIKELY the dumb charger and not worth a dollar IMO.
Excuse my ignorance here (fairly new to Eneloops), but what's wrong with the dumb charger besides having to wait 8 hours for a charge
It's only a timer based charger and doesn't cut out when you reach the proper peak voltage. There's always the potential to overcharge your batteries and reduce their life expectancy, or at worst kill them!
It also doesn't have individual charging of cells, only charges in banks of 2 or 4. Once again meaning that if 1 of your batteries still had more charge left than the other, it'd be charged at the same rate as the flatter battery and potentially over charging it!
And yes, Tuba is right, it is the dumb charger. You can tell because it has the letter 'a' over the first 2 charging cells and 'b' over the last 2 meaning that it charges in pairs!
You can't charge 1 battery at a time. You can't charge 3 batteries at a time (heaps of clocks in this house take just one AA battery, and I also have a few flashlights that take either 3xAA or 3xAAA so this would be a significant irritation all by itself).
Further, if you happen to be charging a pair of batteries that are depleted by different amounts one will end up being overcharged (or perhaps both if neither of them are depleted completely). The more this happens the worse it is for the health and logevity of the battery and with dumb chargers it will happen often, if not always.
With a smart charger on the other hand you can charge, say, 3 AAA batteries that are half depleted and 1 AA that is fully depleted (or any combination you can imagine) at the same time and each battery will be given exactly the charge it needs. And the really good smart chargers can do a hell of a lot more than that as well (charge rate selection, cycling, refreshing, stats etc).
Great, thanks cainn and Snoop for the explanations
@Chickenleg: Ive typed similar responses in enough Eneloop threads already, as have the guys above and a few others.
Can you recommend a good smart charger? I only have a dumb one at the mo and have probably already done untold damage to my eneloops…
I've got a couple of quick chargers so I haven't bothered to get anything better. But even if you have a bit of a search on OzB you'll see that people like the Maha or LaCrosse, and I think the best deals on them are just through Amazon!
Cheers guys. Just ordered the Panasonic charger. Came to $31 delivered from Amazon.
Also available at Auburn and Casula stores.
They have been for quite a while I believe.
and in Canberra
And in Perth - hahaha - just kidding !
Probably best to wait for the next DSE deal - 8 AA/AAA batteries for $14.95.
If your only concern is pricing, and not quality… then yes!
Are there reported issues with the Chinese ones?
Edit: Found this
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?392229-Ja…
DSE are the made in China Eveloops not the original Japanese made ones that OP says in the title
Which Costco did you see them at?