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At wally world, you can get a charger for ~$10 and 4 batteries for ~10. (rayovac brand) The super-quick 1 hour charger is $30, so make sure that's what you're getting from those other guys, or else you may be getting ripped off. The regular 10 dollar charger takes about 15 hours to charge a dead battery completely.

If you've got the cache..hehe, CASH...go for the 1 hr charger. I'm not aware of any problems with it. If anyone knows of any, here would be a good place to let us know icon_wink.gif

 

As far as the life, they seem to power my magellan 320 for ~12-14 hours. It goes almost instantly to 2/3 full (the battery meter) but stays there for a long time. Then it seems to drain the rest of the way pretty quickly. So the meter is more or less useless, so carry spares.

-pizzachef

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At wally world, you can get a charger for ~$10 and 4 batteries for ~10. (rayovac brand) The super-quick 1 hour charger is $30, so make sure that's what you're getting from those other guys, or else you may be getting ripped off. The regular 10 dollar charger takes about 15 hours to charge a dead battery completely.

If you've got the cache..hehe, CASH...go for the 1 hr charger. I'm not aware of any problems with it. If anyone knows of any, here would be a good place to let us know icon_wink.gif

 

As far as the life, they seem to power my magellan 320 for ~12-14 hours. It goes almost instantly to 2/3 full (the battery meter) but stays there for a long time. Then it seems to drain the rest of the way pretty quickly. So the meter is more or less useless, so carry spares.

-pizzachef

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quote:
Originally posted by pizzachef:

 

If you've got the cache..hehe, CASH...go for the 1 hr charger. I'm not aware of any problems with it. If anyone knows of any, here would be a good place to let us know icon_wink.gif


Just make sure you get the "B" model. The early production units had a problem detecting overheating. There shouldn't be any more of these on the shelves, but you never know. Just look on the back of the blister pack. The model number should end in a "B". If not, put it back.

 

PS_sig.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by pizzachef:

 

If you've got the cache..hehe, CASH...go for the 1 hr charger. I'm not aware of any problems with it. If anyone knows of any, here would be a good place to let us know icon_wink.gif


Just make sure you get the "B" model. The early production units had a problem detecting overheating. There shouldn't be any more of these on the shelves, but you never know. Just look on the back of the blister pack. The model number should end in a "B". If not, put it back.

 

PS_sig.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by Visuvius:

So i'm indecisive on which batteries to buy for my GPS V. Will any 1800ma NiMH do the trick? Also, how long will these last? Is 40 bucks about the average to spend on 4 of these and a charger. Thats what Thomasdistributing.com has them for.

 

thanks.


I just did a search on battery(ies) as a thread topic and stopped counting at 40 differentthreads. You should be able to find the answer to your questions in one of them!

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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BTW..

 

The 1-hour Rayovac charger is nice in that it charges each cell seperately. Not a big deal for a GPS (which always used 2 or 4 betteries). However, if you want to use rechargables in, for example, a FRS radio which takes 3 batteries, then the cell-at-a-time charging will be valuable.

 

With a FRS radio that takes 3 AA batteries, and the $10.00 charger, you will only be able to charge two of the three cells (do not mix a dead and a charged cell on this type of charger).

 

-----

Any similarity between my opinions and reality is entirely coincidental.

--Harrkev

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quote:
Originally posted by harrkev:

BTW..

 

The 1-hour Rayovac charger is nice in that it charges each cell seperately. Not a big deal for a GPS (which always used 2 or 4 betteries).

--Harrkev


 

The rayovac PS3 charger charges batteries individually and also has a top-up trickle charge, even though it does not state this on the box. For 1800mAh NiMh, typical charge time is 6 hours from dead. It does have a 12V optional adapter. However, it is 1/4 the price of the PS4 and also is capable of chargeing Alkalines (good for keeping as spares in your glove compartment (won't self-discharge) or in flashlights).

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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I agree. It does appear to have a trickle charge feature which is unmentioned anywhere on the packaging, the instruction manual, and even the phone tech people weren't certain. I discovered this by charging (4) dead NIMH 1600mAH batteries, each in it's own place (you can charge 8 at once, two per slot, but I placed only one battery per slot). I removed two of the batteries as soon as I realized the "charging" lights went off. These two batteries I removed cooled down quickly. The two batteries I left in the charger are still warm (granted they are not as hot as they were during "full-on" charging) about 14+ hours after removing the first two batteries. This indicates to me (without breaking out the digital multimeter) that these two batteries I left in the charger are being "trickle-charged." I wish they would have stated that in the manual (at least).

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quote:
Originally posted by IHTFP:

I agree. .


I don't know why my character imposes on me to research so much trivial things such as batteries. Once I had read up about batteries and went and bought a charger and cells, a few more questions arose. I ended up writing to Rayovac for the answers. They gave me a decent reply but also gave me the number to a former R & D guy that wroked there, so I called him. He's the one that really gave me the low down on this charger. You could tell he wasn't biased or anything either, typical electrical engineer personality.

He told me about the trickle charger. He also told me how it senses what type of battery is being charged. Also explained each bay is charged indiviually, BUT, when you double up AA or AAA batteries in a bay (i.e., if you were chargeing 5 or more batteries), the paired batteries MUST be same level of discharge. He didn't like this aspect of the unit. Also stated that the unit can be fooled (well, this is how i took it) if you put fully charged NiMh in the unit to charge. I noticed this one time after about 4 1/2 hours of chargeing 1700mAh Nimh batteries. The indicator lights went off, indicating a full charge. Moments later, there was a power interuption but when power was restored, the charger proceeded to charge the already fully charged batteries. Indicator lights stayed on for 8 more hours! He explained this something to do with a cycle reset. He said the current through the batteries at this point was negligeable (sp?) and an over-charge isn't really occuring. The unit is waiting to sense a change in voltage from the batteries which it is not receiving becasue they are already at full. The unit has a built in safety feature that prevents chargeing for more than 8 hours, so it shuts off.

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by MajBach:

quote:
Originally posted by IHTFP:

I agree. .


I don't know why my character imposes on me to research so much trivial things such as batteries. Once I had read up about batteries and went and bought a charger and cells, a few more questions arose. I ended up writing to Rayovac for the answers. They gave me a decent reply but also gave me the number to a former R & D guy that wroked there, so I called him. He's the one that really gave me the low down on this charger. You could tell he wasn't biased or anything either, typical electrical engineer personality.

He told me about the trickle charger. He also told me how it senses what type of battery is being charged. Also explained each bay is charged indiviually, BUT, when you double up AA or AAA batteries in a bay (i.e., if you were chargeing 5 or more batteries), the paired batteries MUST be same level of discharge. He didn't like this aspect of the unit. Also stated that the unit can be fooled (well, this is how i took it) if you put fully charged NiMh in the unit to charge. I noticed this one time after about 4 1/2 hours of chargeing 1700mAh Nimh batteries. The indicator lights went off, indicating a full charge. Moments later, there was a power interuption but when power was restored, the charger proceeded to charge the already fully charged batteries. Indicator lights stayed on for 8 more hours! He explained this something to do with a cycle reset. He said the current through the batteries at this point was negligeable (sp?) and an over-charge isn't really occuring. The unit is waiting to sense a change in voltage from the batteries which it is not receiving becasue they are already at full. The unit has a built in safety feature that prevents chargeing for more than 8 hours, so it shuts off.

 

MajBach

_You can't have everything,where would you put it?_

http://www3.sympatico.ca/majbach/images/1compass.gif


 

It sounds like the charger is a pretty good one for the money.

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.

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quote:
Originally posted by MajBach:

quote:
Originally posted by IHTFP:

I agree. .


I don't know why my character imposes on me to research so much trivial things such as batteries. Once I had read up about batteries and went and bought a charger and cells, a few more questions arose. I ended up writing to Rayovac for the answers. They gave me a decent reply but also gave me the number to a former R & D guy that wroked there, so I called him. He's the one that really gave me the low down on this charger. You could tell he wasn't biased or anything either, typical electrical engineer personality.

He told me about the trickle charger. He also told me how it senses what type of battery is being charged. Also explained each bay is charged indiviually, BUT, when you double up AA or AAA batteries in a bay (i.e., if you were chargeing 5 or more batteries), the paired batteries MUST be same level of discharge. He didn't like this aspect of the unit. Also stated that the unit can be fooled (well, this is how i took it) if you put fully charged NiMh in the unit to charge. I noticed this one time after about 4 1/2 hours of chargeing 1700mAh Nimh batteries. The indicator lights went off, indicating a full charge. Moments later, there was a power interuption but when power was restored, the charger proceeded to charge the already fully charged batteries. Indicator lights stayed on for 8 more hours! He explained this something to do with a cycle reset. He said the current through the batteries at this point was negligeable (sp?) and an over-charge isn't really occuring. The unit is waiting to sense a change in voltage from the batteries which it is not receiving becasue they are already at full. The unit has a built in safety feature that prevents chargeing for more than 8 hours, so it shuts off.

 

MajBach

_You can't have everything,where would you put it?_

http://www3.sympatico.ca/majbach/images/1compass.gif


 

It sounds like the charger is a pretty good one for the money.

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.

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The Rayovac 1 hour charger has been working great for me for a couple of months. Walmart had the best local price on the charger and additional batteries. I haven't measured the actual time I get on my vista, but it seems near alkalines. They do really good on our digital camera - hundreds of pictures on a 4 battery set.

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quote:
Originally posted by hawkeye1101:

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.


 

The websites for Duracell and Eveready do list mA-hr ratings for alkaline cells, but they can be a little misleading. The effective mA-hr rating for these cells depends strongly on how high the current drain is of the device in which they're used. The nominal rating is based on a very low current drain of about 20 mA and is typically about 2800 mA-hr. GPS rcvrs. draw around 100-200 mA and at that current level the capacity of alkalines is down to about 1800-2000 mA-hr. Many digital cameras draw much higher currents of around 1000 mA and then the alkaline capacity is only around 700 mA-hr. So for GPS use the alkalines still last a little longer than a single charge of NiMH cells but in digital cameras the NiMH cells easily outperform them.

 

Rechargeable alkalines start with a slightly lower capacity than regular alkalines and the capacity per charge drops slowly on subsequent charges - especially if the cells are used until they're almost discharged. They usually only last for about 25 recharges compared to the hundreds of charges obtainable from NiMH. They're a good choice for applications where the self-discharge rate of NiMH cells is unacceptable.

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quote:
Originally posted by hawkeye1101:

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.


 

The websites for Duracell and Eveready do list mA-hr ratings for alkaline cells, but they can be a little misleading. The effective mA-hr rating for these cells depends strongly on how high the current drain is of the device in which they're used. The nominal rating is based on a very low current drain of about 20 mA and is typically about 2800 mA-hr. GPS rcvrs. draw around 100-200 mA and at that current level the capacity of alkalines is down to about 1800-2000 mA-hr. Many digital cameras draw much higher currents of around 1000 mA and then the alkaline capacity is only around 700 mA-hr. So for GPS use the alkalines still last a little longer than a single charge of NiMH cells but in digital cameras the NiMH cells easily outperform them.

 

Rechargeable alkalines start with a slightly lower capacity than regular alkalines and the capacity per charge drops slowly on subsequent charges - especially if the cells are used until they're almost discharged. They usually only last for about 25 recharges compared to the hundreds of charges obtainable from NiMH. They're a good choice for applications where the self-discharge rate of NiMH cells is unacceptable.

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quote:
Originally posted by hawkeye1101:

It sounds like the charger is a pretty good one for the money.

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.


 

Good observation!

Sorry it took so long to respond - out of town.

As you probably noticed, there is anothoer thread currently discussing your question. My experience is the NiMh last about40 % longer than bunnies. So far, i have only seen this when using the full charge of the batteries with 5 days or less.

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by hawkeye1101:

It sounds like the charger is a pretty good one for the money.

The question I had is why they never put the mA/H rating on Alkaline batteries, but they do on re-chargables.

Maybe they don't want you to be able to actually compare the bunnies to the copper tops etc. icon_smile.gif

 

So do the Ni-Mh run as long as or longer than Alkalines? I also wondered how the rechargable alkalines fit into the picture.


 

Good observation!

Sorry it took so long to respond - out of town.

As you probably noticed, there is anothoer thread currently discussing your question. My experience is the NiMh last about40 % longer than bunnies. So far, i have only seen this when using the full charge of the batteries with 5 days or less.

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by peter:

Rechargeable alkalines start with a slightly lower capacity than regular alkalines and the capacity per charge drops slowly on subsequent charges - especially if the cells are used until they're almost discharged. They usually only last for about 25 recharges compared to the hundreds of charges obtainable from NiMH. They're a good choice for applications where the self-discharge rate of NiMH cells is unacceptable.


Precicely why i bought a charger that charges both types. The recahrgeable alkalines are great for remote controls (I have about 7 of them - the era of hi-tech. Man, I'd probably be 50 lbs lighter if I didn't have remote controls!), flashlights for my car, boat, motorcycle & toolkits, and wall mounted clocks.

 

MajBach

You can't have everything,where would you put it?

1compass.gif

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As is obvious, I did a search & yanked up an old thread to try to get an answer. I'm running Panasonic 1600 mAh batteries, & am curious as to the proper charging procedures. I've got a whole bunch of these batteries & I'm not sure how long ago I charged some of them. I'll be heading out on a trip,& want these things to be charged to the fullest. I've got the Rayovac PS3 charger(as well as the Panasonic charger that came with the batteries), & would like to top them off in the PS3. I want to use the PS3, because it will charge 8 bats. at a time, & according to this thread, although I bought the PS3 for my rechargeable alks., it will also work well for Ni-MH's.Is it necessary to have them drained completely to re-charge, or is it OK to charge them if they may have, say, 50%/75% charge already? Can't remember if it will hurt the life of the batteries if I charge them when they're not fully drained. Unfortunatly, I've got them all stored together, so some may have been charged 3 weeks ago, & some may not have been charged for 3 months. I've got like 30 of the batteries, but I'm putting them in 5 gpsr's, 2 frs radios & 2 digital cameras. How long should they maintain a good charge, if I keep them in the fridge? Is that necessary? I think I'll have to start keeping them somewhat separated in baggies & mark the date they were last charged. Thanks for any assistance. icon_smile.gif

 

"Gimpy"

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As is obvious, I did a search & yanked up an old thread to try to get an answer. I'm running Panasonic 1600 mAh batteries, & am curious as to the proper charging procedures. I've got a whole bunch of these batteries & I'm not sure how long ago I charged some of them. I'll be heading out on a trip,& want these things to be charged to the fullest. I've got the Rayovac PS3 charger(as well as the Panasonic charger that came with the batteries), & would like to top them off in the PS3. I want to use the PS3, because it will charge 8 bats. at a time, & according to this thread, although I bought the PS3 for my rechargeable alks., it will also work well for Ni-MH's.Is it necessary to have them drained completely to re-charge, or is it OK to charge them if they may have, say, 50%/75% charge already? Can't remember if it will hurt the life of the batteries if I charge them when they're not fully drained. Unfortunatly, I've got them all stored together, so some may have been charged 3 weeks ago, & some may not have been charged for 3 months. I've got like 30 of the batteries, but I'm putting them in 5 gpsr's, 2 frs radios & 2 digital cameras. How long should they maintain a good charge, if I keep them in the fridge? Is that necessary? I think I'll have to start keeping them somewhat separated in baggies & mark the date they were last charged. Thanks for any assistance. icon_smile.gif

 

"Gimpy"

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