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Best battery charger and where to get it


daryl20

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My personal preference is the Duracell 2650 Ma NiMh and the LaCrosse Technology BC-900 Alpha Battery Charger and Recovery System. They are available through Amazon or eBay for a pretty good price. Just be sure you get a charger/conditioner. The conditioning is actually just as important as the charging.

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If you want something a little cheaper and a little less deluxe, I've used this Energizer model with great success. It comes with 4 rechargeable AA batteries and it recharges them in only 15 minutes. On a full charge, I get two to three days' full use on my Garmin 60CSX. The link is to an Amazon page, but I've seen it cheaper at Wal Mart and on eBay. I think I only paid $20 or so for mine.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Energizer%C2%AE-CH15...s/dp/B000087BDN

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Another for the Maha (Powerex) MH-C9000. It is one of the super-smart chargers that analyzes and conditions.

 

For a smaller portable with the car and AC cords: Maha MH-C401FS. It is also a smart charger that charges batteries individually in its 4 AA/AAA charging slots. I have owned it for several years and highly recommend.

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LaCrosse BC-900 here. Much better than the cheap chargers that come with Energizer or Duracell batteries.

 

Note: The Maha and LaCrosse are 'smart chargers' as they actually monitor the battery charge level. As someone mentioned, the conditioning is a big piece as well. I had several Energizer AA's that I was going to throw out as they wouldn't hold a charge. I ran them through the conditioning cycle and now they work perfectly again.

 

The smart chargers cost more, but you get what you pay for.

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I'd look for a charger that allows you to charge individual AA cells.

You wouldn't want your set of 2 batteries to only get as well charged as the worst of the 2 that you have plugged in.

 

I.E. I have some 2500 mAh batteries that seem to act like 2000 mAh ones, if I mix one of those, and a good one in my charger, it's a crap shoot if both get charged up to about 2000, or one to about 2000 and one to 2500. It all depends on which side of the charger the sensing circuitry uses to tell that the batteries are charged. With only a single LED, you'd think that it uses both sides, but oh, no, that's not the case at all at least on my Fuji charger.

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I've been using the LaCrosse BC-700. It has a a conditioning cycle that has brought new life back to several batteries I thought were on their last leg. I also seem to be getting much better run time now than I was using my $10.00 Wally World charger.

 

I just bought a Lacrosse BC-700 from Amazon and a new set of 2100mah Imedion (like Eneloops but made by maha powerex) batteries from Thomas Distributing. The charger is for AA and AAAs and charges each battery seperately from each other. There are 4 different charging/discharging/testing modes that can be programmed on each individual battery at any given time. Haven't given the Imedions a try yet but i have saved a couple of my older Energizers using the charger. I think this set up will end up paying for itself in a relatively short time!

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Look for a smart charger that has:

 

individual cell charging;

 

cell conditioning, and;

 

user programmable charge rates.

 

Heat is the enemy of most types of rechargeable batteries. Some smart chargers have sensors to prevent overheating in rapid charging mode, but if time permits, use the lowest charging rate possible.

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Heat is the enemy of most types of rechargeable batteries. Some smart chargers have sensors to prevent overheating in rapid charging mode, but if time permits, use the lowest charging rate possible.

 

Chargers like the maha use a variety of ways to determine charged state, including heat, delta voltage drop and time. They recommend a minimum of .3C charging rate which is far from the minimum otherwise it may not detect the voltage drop. The maha can charge at the minimum rate during a condition charge but then all the other sensors are off and it operates only on time based on capacity with an allowance for energy lost due to heat.

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Hi flyjazz,

 

Good idea that your checking with other users, and advise staying with the "herd". I believe some where in this comparison thread NLee the engineer , there were people that reported fire hazard concerns with some early versions of chargers in this thread. So beware of chargers that don't have a high following, or track record.

 

Cheers,

Jim

Edited by jimlarkey
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http://www.thomas-distributing.com/index.htm

 

I use the MAHA MH-C9000 charger & use Powerex 2700MAH batteries.

 

Add one more to the MH-C9000 crowd. I recently got this charger and it has help me identify some older batteries that are significantly lower in capacity than others of the same brand/capacity. Now I understand the reason why I would occasionally wind up with drained batteries shorly after plunking two freshly charged batteries into my gps.

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http://www.thomas-distributing.com/index.htm

 

I use the MAHA MH-C9000 charger & use Powerex 2700MAH batteries.

I'll also second that motion. I buy them 8 or 12 at a time and then label them in pairs - A1 w/ A2; A3 w/ A4; B1 w/ B2 etc etc, That way I can always keep the pairs together. I carry 8 spares w/ me, all orientated together - with the + end up. When I change a pair out in the field, I put the used ones back in the case with 1 of the pair with the + end pointing down. That way when I get home, I always know which pair needs to be charged.

Edited by GerIRL
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I have a Lacrosse BC-900. After doing research it was a toss up between that one and the Maha. After reading reviews I went with the Lacrosse because it was smaller and didn't "light up the room" with its indicator lights like the Maha supposedly does. I think if you go with either one you'll be happy. I have a cheap charger too, if you stop by my house sometime I'll give it to you. The Lacrosse is much better than that one (Ray-o-vac 15 minute charger)

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Ditto on the Maha charger, Powerex batteries and Thomas Distributing.

 

I've had my share of the cheapy chargers, and I was replacing supposedly defective rechargeable batteries at a pretty high rate. Got a new digital camera and bought the Maha charger and some of the low-discharge rate batteries -- worked great.

 

Just for grins, I put one of the old sets of store-brand batteries in the charger and reconditioned them -- they worked just fine, even though the old cheapy charger wouldn't charge them. Sometimes when the store-brand batteries in the wife's police scanner won't charge in the unit, I pop them out and recondition them in the Maha charger. They work fine for quite a while after that.

 

Later, when I got a new GPS, I bought four pair of the Powerex 2700 mAh batteries -- I regularly get 10-12 hours battery life on my Colorado with them.

 

Look on Thomas' site for a bundle deal with the charger, batteries, battery case and charger case.

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