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Cake day: September 13th, 2023

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  • Different chemistries produce different voltages per cell. Alkaline produces 1.5v, NiMH produces 1.2v, Li-Ion produces 3.6v. These are averages, the actual voltage varies over the current charge level of the cell. This variation in voltage is how the low battery alarm actually works, although Alkaline cells produce 1.5v initially, once they are nearly empty they are producing 1.1-1.2v. Your thermostats will likely work fine on NiMH batteries, if you can live with them continually complaining about the batteries being low.

    There are, or at least were, rechargeable alkaline batteries, but they don’t last many cycles.

    The 1.5v Li-Ions have a tiny circuit board on them that regulates the voltage down to 1.5v, which takes up space so the capacity is reduced. You could do that with NiMH, but it would have less capacity than the Li-Ion version, so there’s little point.








  • I’m a little obsessive about this myself.

    Usually I have

    • Dark colours, woolens, and delicates
    • Stuff I think could run (raw denim, etc)
    • Whites
    • Light colours and stuff I don’t care about fading, which can be washed either way.

    While most non-colour detergents don’t contain bleach any more, they contain optical brighteners that absorb UV and emit white light, to make whites look “whiter than white”. This can make dark colours, and especially blacks, look dull grey. Other than that you don’t usually have to worry about most colours, especially after the first wash. There are exceptions to this, such as raw denim which runs like crazy. You can also get “colour catcher” sheets for peace of mind that stop runs.

    Usually I use a non-biological delicates wool detergent for dark colours, woolens, and delicates, which I wash together, on a wool cycle. It doesn’t hurt to wash something more delicately than it’s supposed to be washed, and it means I don’t need to do as many loads. Sometimes I’ll throw light colours in with this if I have room. Anything “runny” I’ll wash with like colours, at least for the first few washes.

    Whites, light colours, and stuff I don’t care about looking dull like towels gets the cheapest own brand biological detergent.

    If you have dark coloured bedding you may want to get biological colour detergent, I don’t.