yep its true i have found batteries that dont seem to die. e2 lithium batteries from energizer. ok yeah they will set you back nearly $15 for four but on my etrex legend ive used two batteries not even a quater percent when by now i would have already replaced the batteries. This would be a best practice cause you can geocache non-stop for days now.
-Amaizngracer

I have been using the same batteries in my GPS for months now. They are Energizer Ni-MH rechargables.

I'm not sure these are the rechargable.

The batteries.

I used to use rechargables until the recharger tried to burn my house down. Now I just shop the sales. These seem like a good deal considering how long they last. When I run out of the over 100 batteries I have on hand, I'll give them a try.

See ya on the hunt!

I am going, I think, to adapt a larger NiCd or sony lithium ion battery as a replacement for my gps. It shouldn't compromise the watere proofness of the Garmin unit.

With a battery blank, a ribbon cable. some wire and the battery it should not be any big deal to make it work. I'll take pics when I get around to it.

I found 8 rechargeable AAs and a charger for 19.95

Pretty decent price methinks.
I had to buy one. Now I have 12 batteries to rotate into my 2 chargers.

I too have made the jump to mostly using rechargeable batteries. I did a little research before I plunked down a bunch of money for batteries. I found out that today most NiMH batteries are made by only a few sources. Sanyo makes everything from Energizer to Kodak to Sanyo to industrial batteries. Surprise they perform about the same. Powerex is a competitor trying to carve out a chunk of the market. They are making some really good batteries. While most retail store batteries are rated at 1800-1850 mah companies like Powerex have introduced both 2000 and 2100 mah batteries. More mah . . . . more run time. Word or warning as expressed by DaRebel. The wrong charger will produce tremendous heat. The article that I read suggested that you stay away from one hour chargers. They literally fry your batteries and cause tremendous heat. Energizer makes the worst one hour charger and it is the one most frequently found on retail shelves. Instead, I picked a charger I found on the web called the MaHa CF 201 from Thomas Distributing. The dang thing even has some kind of a computer chip in it. It wasn't cheap. I paid $40 for the charger (both ac and dc inputs) and four 2000 mah Powerex Batteries. I have been very happy with this charger and the batteries. I ran my Magellan Meridian all day today (okay for about 7 hours out on Lake Al the Tuna) with one set of batteries and still have about 40 percent left according to the power bar. Give Thomas Distributing a look. I'm sold.

I noticed several posts over several threads claiming that Lithium batteries seem to last forever because somebody has used them for a total of around 10 hours (give or take) and their gps battery meter says that they are still at 80 percent. Wrong. All of our GPS recievers are calibrated for alkaline batteries.

Alkaline batterie have a power curve that predictably declines in voltage as the life of the battery degrades. That is the way we think a battery should act. However, Lithium batteries have a relatively constant voltage over their life and then die almost instantly. In camera equipment and other uses where a constant voltage is crucial they can not be beat. With Lithium batteries in a gps I could see some one stepping out of their vehicle and when checking their gps battery meter they would see that the batteries have a 60 percent life. Great! Unfortunately when you get five hundred feet down the trail they could be dead before you knew what happened.

Just be mindful of trying to compare apples to oranges. Heavy duty, alkaline, NiCad, NiMh and Lithium batteries have very different power curves.