Yeap as a reseller happens quite a bit and I found battery that expirebbsck in the 90s in a portable speaker
Yes.
Basically if you leave Alkaline batteries in the device for a long time (years) without using them they will loose all charge and there is a chance of them leaking.
Leakage is significantly more common with the Zinc-Carbon batteries (the tech in use for most batteries in that format before Alkaline) though those leak something that forms blueish crystals.
I once saw old D cells inside the toy train my father had as a kid. They basically looked like they liquefied and then re-solidified in the basic shape of a D cell.
Yes? It was extremely common as a child because all our toys were battery powered (but not included)
No. I had an OG gameboy and my parents wouldn’t buy more batteries so every remote in the house had its batteries liberated for the glory of super Mario land 2 6 golden coins. They didn’t get the safety and security of rotting in a tv remote. They were fed to the Tetris vampire.
Wow, until you mentioned it, I had somehow completely forgotten about this gem of a game and mostly thought of mario land 1 or wario world when thinking of the gameboy era, even though wario was introduced in Mario Land 2 iirc. Thanks for that hit of nostalgia.
Running a gameboy on non-rechargeable batteries is a bold choice.
Bold how?
Not really an option everyone had or even knew about back then.
Oh my sweet summer child… Just don’t taste it.
See now I have to know why.
how old are you?
21
Jesus Christ, even 21 y/o feel young now to me. Have a good time, man. Some of the most fun years of your life
You know, at first glance these looked like 2 dollar bills rolled up to do coke with and these were after a couple of hours of use and the coke was getting gummed up around the snorting side. My first thought was “Yeah, I’m familiar with that.”
Coke 🥤
“who is hungry, thinks of bread”
Ah, the forbidden salt. Yes, I remember it fondly from when I was but a young boy, playing the GameBoy Color.
Every '90s kid remembers this!
Yes that’s what they’re called alkaleaks.
Yeah, get accu cells. More environmentally friendly and they break without running out.
I should go pull the batteries out of my game boy color because I’d rather not experience this again.
and set a reminder to rechage batteries every 3 months.
If the words on the batteries read the same way, it will cause acidic fuzz like this.
* They may have been correctly inserted, and then left a long time, which can also cause fuzz.
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Get the batteries out and wipe the electronics with a soft towel soaked with a little vinegar to neutralize the corrosion. Then a damp towel with just water to get the vinegar up. Let it fully dry before putting in new batteries. This happens to batteries that have sat unused for a long time installed. It can also happen if at the end of charge, you pull the batteries out, and put them back in to squeeze a little more use out of the batteries. Do it too many times and there is a leak risk. Cheaper batteries do it more often but the top brands will occasionally leak as well.
Why not just switch to NiMH rechargables? Upfront cost is a bit higher, but considering the 10 or so year lifespan in a TV remote, they make sense. And they don’t leak.
Vinegar here really does the trick in neutralizing the acid. do not skip it!
Vinegar (Acetic Acid) does not neutralise any acids at all.
It does however, neutralise the caustic, alkaline contents of a non-rechargeable alkaline cell (potassium hydroxide).
That just sounded factual.
Acid is just upside-down base
Neutralise the corrosion with a conjugate pair acids/base buffer.
Neutralise was a confusing term to pick, but they’re not wrong.
How the shit? Just use baking soda in water instead.
I believe the comment you are replying to meant to say corrosion not acid.
This is some sort of electrochemistry, more complex than just acid/base
I’m just going to say alkaline batteries have a strong hydroxide so use any acid.
I’m pretty sure its an acid/base conjugate pair buffer, but I could be wrong
Alkaline batteries use a base, hence the name. Baking soda would work as you can neutralize a strong base with a weak one. Same with acid…
I found an old plush that had a voicebox in it… I’ve not touched it in 25+ years but wanted to show it to my daughter, so I pulled out the battery box, expecting the worse, and there was no corrosion at all. I pulled out the generic brand batteries and put in new batteries and it started speaking.
I was amazed.
In the future, someone will have this same story but the ending will be the toy telling you to connect to WiFi and update your subscription information…
:(
I remember hearing that alkaline batteries that contain mercury don’t leak, they’re just much worse for the environment. So maybe that’s what happened?
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This is the way. Sometime I even file down the spring/contacts with a nail file to expose fresh metal rather than corrosion. Just a few light scratches helps greatly.
If you have access to one, use an ultrasonic cleaner with vinegar and water in it to clean the parts you can take out (NOT the batteries themselves! Those are done)
How does vinegar compare to a can of CRC?
It doesn’t.
CRC is a hydrocarbon based cleaning solution similar to isopropyl alcohol. Vinegar works to clean the alkaline corrosion specifically because it is acidic, so it will both neutralize the alkalinity and also act as a mild etchant.
It is important that you thoroughly clean all of the vinegar, since leaving it on for too long will etch away the copper (though when I say “for too long”, I mean a very long time).
Doesn’t smell as good but tastes a bit better.
