battery dots and don'ts(1powershop)

Usually, only one battery in a set is bad
When a device that takes two or more batteries stops working, probably only one of the batteries is fully exhausted. The others probably have some juice left in them. I was in Radio Shack a while back and a guy came in to get new batteries for his TV remote control. He brought the four "dead" alkaline batteries so he'd know what size to buy. He was going to throw the old four away, so I asked if I could have them, and he gave them to me. I took them home, and found that only one was dead. The other three still had close to a full 1.5 V charge. Whoo-hoo, three free batteries!

Don't mix battery types
Don't mix different battery types in a device, or the batteries can leak. For example, don't mix NiCads and alkalines. It's happened to me, with two brand-new alkalines and two brand-new, freshly charged NiCads. Always use all alkalines, all nimh's, or all Nicd's.

For that matter, try not to mix batteries of the same type in different states of freshness. (If you have one freshly-charged or brand-new battery in the set, they should all be that way.)

It doesn't matter what battery type you use, as long as they're all the same type If your device takes AA batteries, it'll take any type of AA battery. Same with the other sizes. No device needs a special type, all it cares about is the size. The only exception is that some devices that take three or more batteries might not work with NiMH or NiCd batteries since those batteries have lower voltage than alkalines. But even in that case, the worst that will happen is that the device won't power on or gives poor performance (it shouldn't damage the device).