Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Panasonic speakerphone forbids alkaline batteries
Message-ID: <1990Jul6.034230.17946@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <840@sagpd1.UUCP> <9382@pogo.WV.TEK.COM> <Jul.5.17.12.11.1990.22728@paul.rutgers.edu>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 03:42:30 GMT

In article <Jul.5.17.12.11.1990.22728@paul.rutgers.edu> jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross) writes:
>I have had alkaline batteries leak and ruin equipment.  Carbon-zinc batteries
>are DRY cells; take one apart and you'll find a black, tarry, very solid
>mixture.  No how, no way is this going to leak...

Unfortunately, it can and does.  "Dry" cells are dry in comparison to
"wet" cells, which have sulfuric acid slopping around in them.  The
electrolyte in dry cells is still mobile enough to leak; they can and
do leak.  Alkalines can too, at the end of their lives (I too have
seen it happen), but it is less likely and the lives are longer in
the first place.
-- 
"Either NFS must be scrapped or NFS    | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
must be changed."  -John K. Ousterhout |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
