Bizare AA battery behaviour

[RogerS]

Bought a brand new set of Energizer NIMh AA batteries. Charged them up and popped them in the radio. Radio dead as a dodo. Put old batteries back in and radio still works fine.

So..out with the trusty Avo to test the new batteries. Each one is fully charged. Each one can happily discharge 5A into the Avo (so that rules out a high internal resistance). Stick them all together on the bench in a line and I get the correct voltage reading...so the contacts between the batteries is OK.

Put 'em back in the radio....nada...dead as a dodo.

So..lateral thought time...and put in the radio 3 of the originals and one of the new ones...dead. Repeat with the remaining three new batteries. Dead each time.

So what gives? I'm stumped.

 

[RobertMP]

The pips on the battery top are too small to connect or the flat base slightly recessed and not touching?

Try a small blob of solder on the end if you have a soldering iron.

 

[RogerS]

Robert ....you're a star! I can now see that there's a little plastic ridge at one end of the battery compartment which 'holds' the battery back from the contact and the pips on the batteries are too low a profile to compensate.

Where's that Dremel?