Results with Flat AA and AAA cells - Update.

Flat AA and AAA batteries work very well in the Joule Smasher Led Flasher. From a starting voltage of 0.944 volts a AA battery has been running for 61 days so far. The benefit of the boost circuit is the brightness is no different from that of a brand new AA battery.

Like the first AG3 trial the wrong fuse was initially programmed into the Joule Smasher Led Flashers. The flash of roughly 1ms resulted in the AA cell recording a discharge rate of 1.3mV/day at 0.78V. The tested AG3 cells pass through 0.78V almost instantaneously as they drop from near 0.9V to 0.4V. Which supports the proposition that extrapolating life based on cell capacities is conservative. 

In the first 78 days (2% of 10 years) the new AA cell has declined at 0.5mV/day. The AG3 cells decline so quickly I don't have a reliable estimate for the first 2% of their life. It appears to be several hundred times faster than this. Again this suggests that my estimate of useful life for a AA might be low.

Likewise, a AAA battery started at 1.012 volts and after 54 days it measured 0.937 volts. At this point I re-programmed the JSLFs driven by the flat battery to give a 10ms flash.  The AAA battery dies after a few days whereas the AA battery drooped then flattened out.

The chart below suggests that initial battery voltage may be inflated from the true underlying energy available when a battery has had a lengthy rest period. See the "exhausted" AA curve sagging in the first 25 days it was running a Joule Smasher Led Flasher. Thereafter it flattens out.