But I sure as hell have more common sense than one.
I was at Home Depot the other day and I was going to get a key duplicated, (this was a mistake since they clearly don’t know how the hell to make a copy of a key) and I walked by a guy (we will call him Eric) who was asking the Employee questions about flashlights.
Now the Home Depot employee didn’t seem to know the answers to the Eric’s questions, since Eric was asking as to which flashlight would be able to retain power the best over 6 months. I myself as a “flashlight enthusiast” was more than happy to try to help this guy out, I mean I’ve been enthralled by flashlights since I was 10. I jumped in to give the guy some advice, I recommended the Maglight AA LED. I’ve used Maglights for years, and know just how reliable they are, so I felt safe in recommending it. Eric stated that he was a snowbird and needed an emergency flashlight in case of a power outage during a hurricane. He didn’t want to worry about power problems over 6 months of no usage. Now I’ve left batteries in Maglights for years and they still have power as needed, especially with the LED’s. I of course restated this giving more information.
Now this is where I was baffled. Eric then proclaimed that he was an “Electrical Engineer” and knew more about flashlights than anyone (then why the hell did you ask an employee of a store any questions?) and that I could provide no useful input to the conversation. To me the most amusing thing of the whole situation is that I walked off to get my key copied and I saw Eric pick out a plug in flashlight. One of the ones that is designed to stay plugged in until there is a power outage then when you unplug it, it will turn on.
To me, his choice of said flashlight is amusing, as an Electrical Engineer, he should have some understanding of the way a battery works (no I am not an expert, but I do know some basics of rechargeable batteries.) When you leave a rechargeable battery plugged in 24/7/365 you do severe damage to the battery. There have been advancements in battery technology to prevent memory problems which means you don’t really have to worry about the battery “forgetting” what full charge is, BUT you do have to worry about overcharging.
Newer battery technology typically has trickle charges. From empty the batteries will charge to around 80% in a “fast charge” then from 80-100% they trickle charge to increase battery life. But once they are at 100% they can’t stay at that because the battery will over time lose capacity. Instead they will (at least in laptops) drain down the percentage slightly and then trickle charge it back up to maintain proper health.
In computers I deal with customers who have laptops that have dreadful battery life, typically 30 minutes to 1 hour out of a computer that should give them at least 3 hours. They never can figure it out, but when asked if they ever use their laptop on their lap…they ask “Why would I do that?” Batteries are never meant to be kept at 100% all of the time, because batteries just like people, need exercise or they waste away much faster. Leave a battery at 100% most of the time and within 6 months you can see up to a 25% drop in charge cycles, when I worked at Apple I saw a 6 month old battery that was never unplugged and had 3 charge cycles (from the software’s attempt to maintain proper health) that had a 50% drop in capacity.
So basically an electrical engineer shouldn’t be that much of a moron to not know the basics of a damn rechargeable battery. Rather keep the batteries out of the flashlight for 6 months then pop them back in when you come to town.