This evening the GF noticed that the remote control wasn't working &
was hot.
I pulled out the extremely hot AA batteries.
It looks like the spring contact in the remote control, on the
negative side had worn away the plastic covering on the side of the
battery & shorted the side metal battery casing to the negative
contact, thereby causing the overheating.
In my many years of battery dissection, I've never seen the side
casing of a battery being positive before!
These were "Golden Power" alkaline batteries, made in China.
They were the original batteries that came with the remote ( for a
Shaw digital cable box).
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?

On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 04:08:18 GMT, bart wrote:

snip
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
oops..my mistake ..it looks like Maxell amd Ikea (made in Germany)
alkaline batteries are all the same..a positive side casing.
When the hell did they stop making the old negative zinc sides?
Only with Alkalines? What a PITA!
My apologies.

BTW: Ikea batteries come from Varta. Better price than original Varta
labeled and the technical performance is good. Duracell is better - even
useable as AccuCell.

"bart" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 04:08:18 GMT, bart wrote:

snip
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
oops..my mistake ..it looks like Maxell amd Ikea (made in Germany)
alkaline batteries are all the same..a positive side casing.
When the hell did they stop making the old negative zinc sides?
Only with Alkalines? What a PITA!
My apologies.

bart wrote:
This evening the GF noticed that the remote control wasn't working &
was hot.
I pulled out the extremely hot AA batteries.
It looks like the spring contact in the remote control, on the
negative side had worn away the plastic covering on the side of the
battery & shorted the side metal battery casing to the negative
contact, thereby causing the overheating.
In my many years of battery dissection, I've never seen the side
casing of a battery being positive before!
These were "Golden Power" alkaline batteries, made in China.
They were the original batteries that came with the remote ( for a
Shaw digital cable box).
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
I've seen many Alkaline batteries with the outside casing connected to
the 'tit' on top as the positive and the bottom flat connector was
insulated from the body of the battery. alkaline batteries have
different chemistry from carbon zinc resulting in an inverted
construction. This may actually be the norm, but in the larger sizes
the plastic outer wrap hides the details. Just looked at a DuraCell
"D" and it is of the inverted construction, but the insulation of the
battery bottom (-) terminal from the case of the battery is hidden
under the plastic wrapping.

On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:11:20 -0400, ken scharf
wrote:

bart wrote:
This evening the GF noticed that the remote control wasn't working &
was hot.
I pulled out the extremely hot AA batteries.
It looks like the spring contact in the remote control, on the
negative side had worn away the plastic covering on the side of the
battery & shorted the side metal battery casing to the negative
contact, thereby causing the overheating.
In my many years of battery dissection, I've never seen the side
casing of a battery being positive before!
These were "Golden Power" alkaline batteries, made in China.
They were the original batteries that came with the remote ( for a
Shaw digital cable box).
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
I've seen many Alkaline batteries with the outside casing connected to
the 'tit' on top as the positive and the bottom flat connector was
insulated from the body of the battery. alkaline batteries have
different chemistry from carbon zinc resulting in an inverted
construction. This may actually be the norm, but in the larger sizes
the plastic outer wrap hides the details. Just looked at a DuraCell
"D" and it is of the inverted construction, but the insulation of the
battery bottom (-) terminal from the case of the battery is hidden
under the plastic wrapping.


Since it's the cathode that gets eaten in whichever reaction is used for the
battery type, it might make sense to have the anode as the case.

I could have done with this 25 years ago when I got sent abroad for work for
three of months and came back to find that the transistor radio batteries had
leaked all over one of my (expensive) loudspeakers :-(

Mark Rand
RTFM

Positive can/case is standard alkaline cell construction. The correct
question would be "has anyone ever seen a negative cased alkaline cell?"


"Mark Rand" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:11:20 -0400, ken scharf
wrote:

bart wrote:
This evening the GF noticed that the remote control wasn't working &
was hot.
I pulled out the extremely hot AA batteries.
It looks like the spring contact in the remote control, on the
negative side had worn away the plastic covering on the side of the
battery & shorted the side metal battery casing to the negative
contact, thereby causing the overheating.
In my many years of battery dissection, I've never seen the side
casing of a battery being positive before!
These were "Golden Power" alkaline batteries, made in China.
They were the original batteries that came with the remote ( for a
Shaw digital cable box).
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
I've seen many Alkaline batteries with the outside casing connected to
the 'tit' on top as the positive and the bottom flat connector was
insulated from the body of the battery. alkaline batteries have
different chemistry from carbon zinc resulting in an inverted
construction. This may actually be the norm, but in the larger sizes
the plastic outer wrap hides the details. Just looked at a DuraCell
"D" and it is of the inverted construction, but the insulation of the
battery bottom (-) terminal from the case of the battery is hidden
under the plastic wrapping.


Since it's the cathode that gets eaten in whichever reaction is used for
the
battery type, it might make sense to have the anode as the case.

I could have done with this 25 years ago when I got sent abroad for work
for
three of months and came back to find that the transistor radio batteries
had
leaked all over one of my (expensive) loudspeakers :-(

Mark Rand
RTFM

I thought all of the carbon/zinc type batteries had negative cases. The
little button on the top is the positive contact for the battery and the
other end is essentially flat on most batteries today with some having a
stamped bottom and sides in contact.

--
Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits
everybody else. How dumb!

Sorry, but I JUST have to ask, Are you the Bob May who was on that
TV show ( in that "suit") in the late 1960's??

73



Bob May wrote:

I thought all of the carbon/zinc type batteries had negative cases. The
little button on the top is the positive contact for the battery and the
other end is essentially flat on most batteries today with some having a
stamped bottom and sides in contact.

--
Yeppie, Bush is such an idiot that He usually outwits
everybody else. How dumb!

According to Bob May :
I thought all of the carbon/zinc type batteries had negative cases.

Most did -- but the zinc/carbon individual cells are relatively
rare now. An example of the zinc-carbon ones without a negative case
are the ones which were used to make high voltage batteries (even the 9V
ones) were a wax ring (shaped sort of like a tire) with a zinc plate at
one end and carbon at the other, with the sal-ammoniac (IIRC) in
between. All of the wax rings were joined end to end by melting the
wax, and this connected all the cells in series.

The
little button on the top is the positive contact for the battery and the
other end is essentially flat on most batteries today with some having a
stamped bottom and sides in contact.

The "little button on the top" was a metal cap over the end of
the central carbon rod which was the actual positive terminal.

However, the Alkaline cells use a different chemistry (I'm not
sure of the details -- but it could be looked up), and the positive
terminal makes the case -- which requires a strange form factor to deal
with all the equipment designed to orient the button properly as a
positive terminal. A standard flashlight would not care, but most
electronic stuff powered by batteries does care, which is why they
continue to shape things so the button is positive, even if it is
connected to the case. The common coin cells are different, because
there were never any of those with the button as positive.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Chemistry lesson for the day:

Be careful what you call the cathode and what you call the anode.
Oxidation ALWAYS occurs at the Anode, and reduction always occurs at
the cathode. The oxidation process results in a chemical losing
electrons, and the reduction process results in a chemical gaining
electrons. (Mnemonics: "oxidation" and "anode" both start with
vowels; "reduction" and "cathode" both start with consonants. "LEO sez
GER": Loss of Electrons is Oxidation. Gain of Electrons is
Reduction.) In a cell delivering power, the ANODE is the NEGATIVE
terminal--the electrons given up in the oxidation chemical reaction
come out there. If you re-charge the cell, the roles of anode and
cathode are reversed. You feed electrons into the negative terminal,
and (with luck) cause a reduction reaction where the chemical at that
pole picks up the electrons and is converted back to what it was when
the battery was freshly charged.

Cheers,
Tom


Mark Rand wrote:
On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:11:20 -0400, ken scharf
wrote:

bart wrote:
This evening the GF noticed that the remote control wasn't working &
was hot.
I pulled out the extremely hot AA batteries.
It looks like the spring contact in the remote control, on the
negative side had worn away the plastic covering on the side of the
battery & shorted the side metal battery casing to the negative
contact, thereby causing the overheating.
In my many years of battery dissection, I've never seen the side
casing of a battery being positive before!
These were "Golden Power" alkaline batteries, made in China.
They were the original batteries that came with the remote ( for a
Shaw digital cable box).
Anyone ever seen a positive case AA battery before, or is this a new (
dumb) idea?
I've seen many Alkaline batteries with the outside casing connected to
the 'tit' on top as the positive and the bottom flat connector was
insulated from the body of the battery. alkaline batteries have
different chemistry from carbon zinc resulting in an inverted
construction. This may actually be the norm, but in the larger sizes
the plastic outer wrap hides the details. Just looked at a DuraCell
"D" and it is of the inverted construction, but the insulation of the
battery bottom (-) terminal from the case of the battery is hidden
under the plastic wrapping.


Since it's the cathode that gets eaten in whichever reaction is used for the
battery type, it might make sense to have the anode as the case.

I could have done with this 25 years ago when I got sent abroad for work for
three of months and came back to find that the transistor radio batteries had
leaked all over one of my (expensive) loudspeakers :-(

Mark Rand
RTFM