We often hear that you should not recharge normal disposable batteries. However, as far as I can tell so far, it can be done! Before you even attempt to do this, do an internet search on the dangers of recharging disposable batteries.

Recharging Disposable Batteries to Save Money

As I was searching YouTube the other day, I came across a video of somebody showing how to charge disposable batteries. With the high cost of buying batteries, I figured that this may be a neat money saving trick.

Here is a copy of the video that I was watching:

How to charge ordinary Non-Chargeable batteries

So having watched the video and also reading up on other sites I decided to do my own experiment. So off I trotted to good old trusty eBay and purchased a LLoytron Universal Battery Charger that did the following batteries; AA AAA C D PP3 9V. I specifically chose this one as it also did the 9V batteries.

At this stage I decided not to purchase a mechanical timer, as I felt that it would be a waste of time if the charger did not charge normal batteries.

Disposable Battery Charging Experiment

A couple of days after my battery charger purchase, it arrived in the post. I then set about to experiment with charging my batteries. It was very easy to find some old discharged disposable batteries, as these days you are given a bag to recycle old batteries. In our bag I found that we had 29 batteries awaiting disposal.

The first thing I did was to test all of the batteries with a multi tester that showed me how much power was left in each battery. As I tested them, I found that they all had less than 1.5 volts or 9 volts.

I then followed the instructions that came with my battery charger and loaded it up with my old run-down batteries. I turned the charger on, and felt good to see the two red led lights showing that it was charging.

Because of all the information that I had seen about the dangers of charging disposable batteries, I chose to have the charge at my desk so that I could check on it regularly.

During the course of the day I kept thinking that the batteries would heat up and explode, or at least leak and leave me with a snotty mess and wreck my battery charger. Well, there was nothing of the sort; the batteries did feel mildly warm as touched them on a regular basis. There was certainly no heat, leaks or explosions! (I am not saying that there never will be, but after charging all 29 nothing happened).

Every few hours I would stop the charging and test the batteries to see if they were accepting a charge, and they were. I would stop charging as each battery reached the 1.5 volt or 9 Volt level.

Out of all 29 batteries that I charged, three did not accept a charge, two 1.5 volt batteries and one 9 volt battery. Why I do not know, but they were put back in the recycling bag.

Most of these batteries are now waiting to be used, but some are in use and doing well!

I am not sure how often they can be charged, but I am sure that I will come back here and let you know. So for me the charging of disposable batteries has been a success and is now starting to save me money!