Way to Go Nyko!

Along with aftermarket controllers Nyko is also famous, perhaps infamous, for making rechargeable battery packs. From both online reviews and personal experience these rechargeable battery sets don't seem to be the best quality. To be fair they are used when I buy them, and as for the online reviews I could use the old saying "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" could be applied here. Most reviews are negative, but if a person is happy with a product, do they necessarily have time or the desire to give said product a review? I doubt it.

A few months ago I picked up a Nyko Charge Station (87000-A50) for the Nintendo Wii. I had become ever increasingly irritated with the fact that my rechargeable Energizer AAs were slowly but surely losing their longevity, so I needed an alternative. The outlet store, once again, came through and saved the day when I found both the charger and two rechargeable batteries for the Wii motes.

With hopeful wishes and childlike wonder I put the batteries into my Wii motes and quickly realized a few things. Firstly you need a special Nyko battery cover for these battery packs, the original Nintendo battery cover will not work. Secondly, and probably most expected, the batteries were dead, but lucky for me I had the charging base. As soon as I put them into the charging base the blue light lit up and within seconds it turned green. After a short bit of internet Columbo sleuthing I found out blue means charging and green means full.

Obviously the batteries weren't full already, the Wii mote didn't even flicker with them installed. I continued my Columbo sleuthing and found a tutorial online where someone replaced the batteries with regular rechargeable batteries, which greatly appealed to me, because it meant I had a project on my hands, and I love projects!

A few months after buying the Nyko Charging Base, the outlet store also gifted me a pair of Rayovac hybrid rechargeable AAAs. After recharging them in my wall charger I noticed the Rayovac batteries seem to have held a charge for a long time. It only seemed natural that these two should go together, and so they shall!

I carefully pried the top open and removed the cells from one (the pack that seemed the worst off anyway) of the battery packs. With a small piece of aluminum foil folded and placed in the bottom, the AAAs batteries fit quite snug, yet quite well within the battery pack. After everything was all put together it seems to work just fine; the Wii mote lit up and worked as to be expected, without going dead within a few minutes.

Hopefully I'll find a way to recharge the original cells and get them back to a semi normal charging cycle, but otherwise the Rayovac hybrid rechargeable AAAs really seem to have saved the day. One thing I will say about this new pack is that there is no way I'll be using the Nyko charging base to recharge this particular pack. I feel it would be much safer to just pull them out and charge them in the normal wall charger, as I would have done anyway. Better safe than dead!