Rechargeable Sony help

I am looking for the following batteries. I used it with my SB102 a long time ago. I was very impressed with the recycling time etc. 1400mAh Sony ni-cad 1.2 V .

What does the 1400mAh actually stand for?

 

Could any body suggest an alternative?

What does the 1400mAh actually stand for?

mAh stands for milli amp hour, the technical term for how much power a particular battery will hold. Batteries with higher mAh values theoretically last longer.

 

Steve

mAh is milliamps per hour ( 1000 milliampres = 1 Amp ) - its related to the batteries capacity or the amount of power that it can hold.

 

As an example your car battery is probably rated at say 80Ah suggesting it will supply 80 ampres for one hour before the cell voltage drops below say 10v (need to see the spec sheet on that one ).

 

Having said that when you crank the car on a starter motor you are probably drawing 300 Ampres - which is probably why you end up with a flat battery after 15 minutes or so.

 

For an AA cell 1400mAh was once 'cutting edge' in terms of capacity. Not any more - 2800mAh is not uncommon, ( maybe even higher for all I know ).

 

Very roughly speaking the 2800mAh will last twice as long before needing a recharge.

 

Sadly this is not an exact science however as the exact capacity is also a function of the current taken from the cell and the ambient and internal cell temperatures.

 

For instance if you put a rechargeable cell in say a clock which consumes very little current you will never get the full capacity out of the cell - the cell will self discharge and die way before then.

 

While if you put the same cell in a strobe or battery car which demands more current you will get near the capacity.

 

As for the recharge time in say a strobe - that is dominated by the ESR (equivalent Series Resistance) of the cell, basically there is a limit to the amount of power vs time the cell can supply before it starts heating up and other strange things start happening.

 

Generally most modern rechargeable have a low ESR though it does vary between manufacturers.

 

If it were me I would look around my mates and try the cells that they had to hand but buy the ones with the largest capacity (mAh) that I could find.

 

Sorry about the boring reply but it is a bit slow here today at work

 

Paul C