Every '90s kid remembers this!
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.”
“who is hungry, thinks of bread”
Yeah, get accu cells. More environmentally friendly and they break without running out.
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.
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Ah, the forbidden salt. Yes, I remember it fondly from when I was but a young boy, playing the GameBoy Color.
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.
how old are you?
21
Oh my sweet summer child… Just don’t taste it.
See now I have to know why.
Yes? It was extremely common as a child because all our toys were battery powered (but not included)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Yes that’s what they’re called alkaleaks.
As a millennial: all the time
What I did only experience once, was a leaking alkaline battery while in use
Mouse stopped working. Opened it up, only to be greeted with freshly squeezed battery juice dripping out of the battery
Mouse worked fine with new batteries, so no short in there.
Was even high end Duracell
high end Duracell
This has become an oxymoron in the last few decades.
Bought out by berkshire hathaway in 2016 and they’ve been absolute garbage since then. I haven’t bought them for years, they aren’t worth anything.
That explains a lot. The last package of Duracell batteries I bought all died before their expiration date. Store-brand is better than that.
Now that I think about it, that’s about when I switched to energizer. Were they owned by berk?
Energizer is not owned by berkshire.
Yeah I just threw out half of a 30 pack of procells because they look like this. Expiry date is next year.
Gen Z too.
I hate to be counted as a gen z because my mind is less there and more inbetween.
Anyway, I think people forgot how genz starts at 1997. People. Some were 10 years old in the 2000s and al we had were battery toys and outside to play with…
OP must be pretty young 😂, we old fucks have seen this happen 100 times
I’m only 21 lol
Oh you sweet summer child
I prob have batteries doing that exact thing that are older than op (tho this can happen in a few years easily, especially if in a circuit).
