More Power for Circuits with Brownout Protection?

Question

Which will last longer - this rechargeable battery pack (the cells are in parallel): (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062121&cp=&sr=1&origkw=rc+battery+packs&kw=rc+battery+packs&parentPage=search)

or 6 energizer 1.2V, 2500mah rechargeable batteries in series?

The power supply will be routed to a 5V regulator, which, if it gets below 5.7V, will constantly reset (this is the "brownout protection; the supply is for powering a BS2e microcontroller, and other devides connected to a robot I am making. The brownout protector is internal in the microcontroller).

Ok. But a worker at radioshack told me that my robot will have a longer run time with cells that are in parallel vs. in series. Is this true?

Answer 1

If you mean which will store the more power, I'd go for the 6* 1.2V energizer cells.

7.2V@2000mAh verses (1.2*6= 7.2)V@2500mah
All that matters here is the mah.
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Don't know which would cope with the greatest number of recharges.
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Perhaps you'll get better performance if you look again at your voltage requirements. Most 5V regulators simply "waste" voltage that's supplied at more than about .5V above their ouput, and dissipate it as heat.

Power dissipated by regulator = (Vin-Vout) * Output_Current

Might be better only using 5*1.2V cells (series) . You can use parrallel banks of 5, if you need more current. If you must work with 7.2V, perhaps think about using switch mode regulators to drop it. Some can even be used to step low voltage up to the voltage you require, which might mean your battery backup got used less.

You might be able to use surplus capacity on your microprocessor to regulate a switch mode converter. It's fairly easy with PICs, don't know much about the BS2e

Answer 2

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Answer 3

They are probably made the same but you are going to use cells with higher capacity if you use the Energizers, so your six cell method will provide more operating time. Unless the Radioshack product uses better quality cells, which I doubt.

Are the Energizer cells NiMH? The Radioshack products are NiCd so they are likely to suffer memory effect a lot sooner, so you'd get more service life and run time with the Energizer cells.