Hello all
I’ve been a Digitrax user for about four years now and one of the first realizations I came to was that I was going to need rechargeable NiMH 9V. batteries for my four throttles. So off I went to find the batteries and a charger. Around here Eveready Energizers were available and I thought… what the heck, Big name brand, must be the best. [D)]
Well, after many operating sessions I figured that I was averaging about three or four hours of throttle time and the useable range seems to be dropping off more quickly lately… as any battery will do. Time to get a few more batteries.
I did a little digging around Amazon and e-bay figuring to buy another couple of Eveready’s. I didn’t bother to research the milliamp-hour rating until reading some of the reviews posted on Amazon’s site.
Turns out that the Energizers are only 150 mAh batteries. I bought a few from Bulldog Battery and these were a Varta brand and rated a bit higher at 170 mAh. The most recent ones I bought are a Powerex brand name and they are rated at 230 mAh!
What a difference! As anybody knows with a Digitrax throttle- it is a minor hassle to get the battery out for recharging but with these 230’s I have been running almost six hours on one charge and the battery voltage when I unplug the throttle still shows 8.8 V.
Anyway, I just wanted to pass on to anyone looking to buy rechargeable 9V batteries that they should seek out a brand that has a higher mAh rating and spend a little less time changing out batteries. I thought one 9V NiMH was the same as any other… wrong!
On my Digitrax wish list would be a throttle holder that would have battery contacts like a cordless phone to recharge the battery without removal. I had a Radio Shack scanner like that, you could recharge “on the fly.”