Lubricating Your Battery Terminals and the Electrical Contacts and Aluminium Torch Threads

It's a very light oil - used in sewing machines, electric hair clippers, that kind of stuff..... It's basically like baby oil without the fragrance and a few additives like corrosion and oxidation inhibitors and similar. It's not a miracle product - a match head of axle grease, or lithium grease or bentonite grease, or food grade grease or very thin new motor oil etc.., etc. - for all the battery contacts and torch thread would work just as well... Just put enough on to lubricate the clean contacts and not enough to seep and slowly travel into the electrical circuits etc.. Grease is probably better in the long run as it stays put...

You can try it out - get two reasonably decent LED torches, lube up one and it's Enerloop batteries, all charged etc.. and set it up, and then get the other torch and put in plain AA batteries and carry them around in the glove box of your off road vehicle or hiking etc.. where they get jiggled and shaken etc., and pull them apart every year and test them, test the battery voltages, look at the termials etc., and then reassemble them, and put them away for another year... and then do this for 5 years.... and see the rates of damage and deterioration... Take photos - new, 2025, 2026, 2027 etc.. Test them - and come to your own conclusions....

Awesome. Found a place that sells sewing machine oil so will get some. Thought my lubricant collection was complete but alas, more stuff to get.

I'll just do it to all of them as it makes sense and I've seen the white powdery stuff collecting on terminals in backup torches.

Good gawd. Just found some enerloop batteries locally. About 6x the price of Energizer Lithium batteries.

@clivemcd: A tub of decent thick axle grease will work just as well... The grease stays put. AND THICK grease works just fine. You only need a fine film about as thick as half a hair will do. AND the abrasive kitchen scouring pads or non abrasive pads... they are fine for cleaning dirty terminals... try to avoid scratching off the very thin electroplated tin on springs and contact faces etc. AND YES the Enerloop batteries cost an arm and a fucking leg..... AND depending on the model of battery the charge retention is remarkable - they are both good for regular use, and for standby shit that sits to one side for years.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eneloop and https://www.panasonic.com/glob....al/energy/products/e

5th generation A fifth generation was introduced in 2022 (manufactured from at least April 2021). The minimum (guaranteed) capacity was increased from 1900 to 2000 mAh for AA (BK-3MCDx) and from 750 to 800 mAh for AAA (BK-4MCDx) models.[12] These batteries are supposed to hold up to 70% of their charge after 10 years of storage at 20°C.

BK-3MCDx ----- 70% of their charge after 10 years ------- AA batteries - you will pay through the fucking nose for them....

@clivemcd: https://eneloop101.com/batteri....es/how-to-distinguis

@clivemcd: https://www.thegoodguys.com.au..../eneloop-aa-recharge ------ and ------ https://www.batteriesdirect.co....m.au/shop/product/28 ------ https://www.panasonic.com/au/c....onsumer/household/ba

@clivemcd: https://www.batteriesdirect.com.au/shop/search ------ Search results for BK-3MCCE ---------- Includes: https://www.batteriesdirect.co....m.au/shop/product/25

@clivemcd: There is of course the electrical contact grease... as well as high temperature bearing grease. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elec....trical+contact+greas -------- https://www.trailersrus.com.au..../assets/full/GR224TU

@clivemcd: AND cheap shitty batteries do have a tendency to leak..... Hence the white fluff and corroded terminals.... If your life relies upon it, choose and spend wisely.