battery technology Air Activation?

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Burning Petard
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battery technology Air Activation?

Post by Burning Petard »

I have recently adopted a new addition to my wardrobe--hearing aid behind each ear. Now I can hear the clicking of the turn signal in my car. And the radio is running at half the volume I used to use.

They are not 'rechargeable' Uses a tiny 312 battery which is about the size of a baby aspirin. All the brands I have looked at on Amazon come packaged on a little plastic/foil wheel, 6 or 8 on a wheel, in a blister pak. The battery sits in a little 'tray' within the electronic lump that sits behind the ear.
A single battery is reported to last perhaps a day, perhaps six days, depending on lots of different circumstances. When I walked around with them for the first time, my attention was mostly marveling at the change. I was given lots of data from the person making the final adjustments but I did not absorb very much of it.

She said something about 'air activation'. When changing batteries, the convenient way, for me is to open that tiny tray, shake or nudge the dead battery out and then reach for the new one. The individual battery has a sort of dumbbell shaped foil, sticking on one end to the battery. The other end makes a nice little handle to place the new battery in the tiny tray, then pull the foil off and close the tray. I think I have been doing it wrong. AIR ACTIVATION. Roaming around on the web looking for information on the best brand of battery, I find I should remove the foil from the battery and wait at least one minute, maybe a couple, before putting it in the hearing aid. This is described as air activation, something that gives the battery a much longer useful life. It will also require me to acquire a tweezer or small tongs to handle the battery with foil removed.

Anybody here explain just what is going one with this air activation?

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Joe Guy
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Re: battery technology Air Activation?

Post by Joe Guy »

I know nothing about it but it is explained here.

Burning Petard
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Re: battery technology Air Activation?

Post by Burning Petard »

Thank you Mr. Guy. Looking around on that site, I learned that they recommended wait 5 minutes with new batteries, and take them out of the device before going to sleep. Use a small magnet to handle the batteries. All these things are not in the literature that came with the aids.

And it is very tricky with mask, glasses, hearing aid all stacked around the top of the ear. The part in the ear looks like a tiny loud speaker, attached by a piece of 6 pound nylon fishing line to the hearing aid. That has to be a wire, but it is amazingly small.

snailgate

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Gob
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Re: battery technology Air Activation?

Post by Gob »

Mine use 312 too.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: battery technology Air Activation?

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

All electrical batteries work in the same way: an oxidation reaction occurs at the anode (the positive end) and a reduction reaction occurs at the cathode (negative). It's the reaction itself and the components which differs from battery to battery and determines the voltage generated. And a single battery (like for example the battery in your car) can consist of multiple cells which are additive. A lead acid cell generates 2V so for the 12V needed by most vehicles, six cells are piled together into one battery.

The zinc / air cell is just a variant on this process and in fact has been around for well over 100 years. The overall reaction is the oxidation of zinc: 2Zn + O2 --> 2ZnO which gives off 1.6V. So the zinc in the battery needs the oxygen - O2 - in the air to work.

In the modern zinc / air cell, there is a plastic tab which shuts out the air until you need the battery. If you just left it exposed it would exhaust itself very quickly. It's not unlike the plastic tab you have to remove from an ink cartridge before you put in it the printer. So you take off the tab and leave it for the recommended time for air to get in and kick start the reaction. The packaging should tell you if it's one minute or five or whatever.

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