Following a mishap I have to buy new AA batteries for my Retra flashes

I take this opportunity to take a look at what are the best products for underwater use.

I have always used Eneloop pro until now. Like many.

But now are there other alternatives?

I saw the ELV Powerex-Pile mignon AA NiMH 2700 mAh in a comparaison chart.. they was better as the Eneloop for a use in a (land) strobe.

They are probably other brandt what are your opinions over the curent AA products ?

Thanks

PS
I forgot that they are different version of the Eneloop Pro... some are named xx now.. any reliable information ?

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by CaolIla

I found this
Eneloop PRO: info, tips, tests, pros and cons | Everything you need to know!

Well, for Retra I recommend rigging a car battery 😂

But jokes aside, Sanyo (Eneloop) also carries a 2700mAh battery, HR-3U, but I believe these have even shorter lifespan than Pro.

Not sure there is anything better in the AA NiMH world, at least not coupled with a reasonable lifespan/reliability. You would need to consider Lithium, but those, while better in some applications, might not be best suited to be used in flash units, due to quite the heat they produce under certain loads.

Below is a very detailed review of a XTAR 4150mWh 2500mAh 1.5V Rechargeable Li-Ion AA:

Gough's Tech Zone

Mega Review: XTAR 4150mWh 2500mAh 1.5V Rechargeable Li-Io...

Around two months ago, XTAR approached me with the opportunity to review their latest, highest-capacity 1.5V Li-Ion Rechargeable AA battery rated at 4150mWh or 2500mAh with a matching L4 USB-C 4-ba…

Towards the bottom he has also tried those in a flash:

"I did test the batteries in my Yongnuo YN560-II photographic flash unit as it is quite a power hungry device that chews through batteries and found that recycle times were not appreciably better than with Ni-MH and occasionally the unit would just get stuck and need a long time to recharge. Upon opening the battery bay, it smelled hot and a check with the Kaiweets KTI-W01 thermal camera confirmed the converters of the cells being extremely hot."

No idea how such would perform in Retra, depends how the battery compartment is designed and if it could perhaps act as a watercooled heatsink maybe.

XTAR now offers a 3000mAh variant as well:

https://www.xtar.cc/product/xtar-aa-lithium-lr-3000mah-usb-c-battery

And let's not forget the good, old HKJ battery website:

https://lygte-info.dk/

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by makar0n

I started using Eneloop Pro and haven’t look back.

I had also 4 of the Powerex that in my case didn’t last much.

The mA-hr rating is only part of the picture, the main reason they are recommended as I recall is the low internal resistance, which means two things, first they push out the charge very quickly and secondly it minimises heat build up. I suspect the battery mentioned above that got hot would not perform as well as this indicates internal resistance is higher.

I use both the regular white eneloops and the eneloop pro. Particularly for local diving I find the regular eneloops are perfectly fine as I'll often just do a single dive taking 100 or so shots. I generally use the eneloop pros when on a trip though, doing 3-4 dives daily with 100+ shots per dive. The white eneloops I use in my land flashes a lot where changing them out is not a big deal.