Different kind of rechargeable battery chemistry requires different kind of storage procedures so that the batteries do not get damaged when they are stored.
In case of NiCD rechargeable batteries it’s advisable to discharge them completely if you want to store them, the quickest way to damage a NiCD batteries is by leaving them on a charger for extended periods of time (being topped) or storing them in a charged state.
In the case of NiMH batteries the best way to store them its to partially charge them around 30 – 35% …

You are right that your normal Dry cells and Alkaline batteries are advertised as 1.5v compared to NiMH / NiCD rechargeable that give an output of 1.2v but you should be able to use most of your devices that are advertised to work with 1.5v batteries should work perfectly fine with rechargeable NiCD / NiMH batteries that give 1.2v because the important thing to note regarding the voltage of a battery is the voltage output  a battery provides to your device when it’s under load.

Think of internal resistance as the weight that is being added to a battery over time as it ages that will not allow the battery to perform it to the full extent, for a battery to perform satisfactory it has to supply useful amount of power to the device that is being used as required by the device a new battery has low internal resistance and thus it will be able to supply the required power, but as a battery ages or if a battery is damaged it’s Internal resistance …

Follow these simple tips to get the most out of your rechargeable batteries, with proper care you can get around 5 – 7 years of usage with NiMH rechargeable batteries or over 500 charge cycles, these rules are universally applicable to most of the rechargeable batteries.
* A rechargeable battery is only as good as its charger, avoid using rapid fast chargers like (15 – 20 min chargers) as they overheat the batteries a lot, which in turn drastically reduces there life, I have seen rapid chargers reduce life of quality …

To test the storage capacity of a rechargeable battery like NiMH you need a battery charger / Analyzer like the La Crosee BC 900 / 700 Series or the Maha BC9009  and they have a mode to test the capacity of the batteries.
How do you measure the capacity of the battery

The only way to find out the true capacity is to fully discharge the cell at a fixed current, and measure the time it took and the capacity of discharge in (mAh) that is why the test modes in the …

I recently opened a new pack of “AA” size NiMH eneloop battery pack, based on the manufacturing date the batteries should be around 10 months old, so I thought that its a good idea to test the LSD NiMH (low self discharge batteries) claim made by Sanyo Eneloop batteries, these batteries capacity is rated at 2000 mAh when fully charged. The manufacturer claims that these LSD NiMH batteries should hold 90% of their capacity after 6 months and 85% capacity after 1 year of storage.

If you have been using NiMH rechargeable batteries for some time you might be familiar with the issue of these batteries getting discharged by themselves if  left for a couple of weeks / months, though all batteries self discharge with time, the rapid self discharge is a major problem with NiMH batteries they lose almost close to 1% charge every day and many batteries get discharged within 1-4 months.

Look around you, digital camera, remotes, mp3 players, gaming controllers, toys, flash lights  and other other little gadgets that you use, if I am not wrong most of these use “AA” / “AAA” batteries to power them,  like it or not but we are surrounded by batteries and you might be using Alkaline batteries or the older normal Zinc Carbon batteries in them, the problem with these batteries are that once you use them you just throw them,  image the amount of waste that is being generated due to disposal …