Real discharge test of Xingwei PALO 星威 1.5V 3400mWh AA / 900mWh AAA Li-ion battery
Traditional Nickel battery
One of the main weaknesses of traditional Nickel rechargeable batteries is their voltage. General dry cell batteries provide a nominal voltage of 1.5V, which has become the standard for electronic products. However, the nominal voltage of Nickel-based rechargeable battery cells is 1.2V.
A difference of 0.3V may looks small, but when multiple cells are used in series, the voltage difference between the two types of batteries becomes significant.
| Number of cell | Drycell | Nickel | Difference |
| 1 | 1.5V | 1.2V | 0.3V |
| 2 | 3.0V | 2.4V | 0.6V |
| 3 | 4.5V | 3.6V | 0.9V |
| 4 | 6.0V | 4.8V | 1.2V |
Generally, electronic devices require more than 1.5V, so they use multiple batteries together to increase the voltage.The electronic components of these devices are designed to operate at that voltage. Therefore, some voltage-sensitive devices do not work properly with Nickel rechargeable batteries.
Li-ion 1.5V battery
A Li-ion Buck converted rechargeable battery solved this problem. The nominal voltage of Li-ion battery is 3.6V. It’s too high to replace dry cell battery. But, some genius have integrated a tiny voltage drop circuit – called a Buck convertor – and a Li-ion cell within a traditional battery casing. Buck converted Li-ion batteries can provides a constant 1.5V. There're no voltage drops during use.
So, I decided to replace dry cell batteries for my kids. I purchased 4 PALO AAA 1.5V 900mWh Li-ion rechargable betteries and 4 PALO AA 3400mWh batteries from PALO ( Xingwei ) official market on Ali-express. And said to my wife that you don't need to replace batteries too often from now.
The problem was that the replacement period for the batteries became much shorter than when using dry cells. So, I tested real capacity of these 900mWh AAA and 3400mWh AA Li-ion batteries.
Test Result
| 100mA CC | 50mA CC | 20mA CC | Total Average | |
| 900mWh Cell 1 | 271mAh | 263mAh | 257mAh | 260 mAh 377 mWh |
| 900mWh Cell 2 | 261mAh | 270mAh | To | |
| 900mWh Cell 3 | 265mAh | 261mAh | Trash |
| 100mA CC | Discharge Duration | Capacity | Total Average |
| 3400mWh Cell 1 | 12:29:45 | 1249mAh | 1231mAh 1786 mWh |
| 3400mWh Cell 2 | 12:12:46 | 1221mAh | |
| 3400mWh Cell 3 | 12:16:42 | 1227mAh | |
| 3400mWh Cell 4 | 12:18:38 | 1230mAh |
Conclusion
Xingwei (星威) PALO Li-ion 1.5V AA / AAA rechargeable battery is not recommended to purchase because,
- Capacity notation will insult and blame you.
- Output current is not enough to drive high-current devices (devices means toy level)
- Expensive for its performance
Appendex - Discharge Graph
AA 100mA
AAA 100mA CC
AAA 50mA CC
AAA 20mA
