battery charger

[puzzleriddle]

I 've had this charger La Crosse BC-9009 AlphaPower AA-AAA NiCd NiMH Battery Charger for about 2 years and would like another as good as this 1 but do not want or need the accessories.. & also maybe an upgrade to an 8 cell chargers seeing as I just bought a 16 pack of the new eneloops batteries. any suggestions? on just a charger & NO accessories or batteries etc?
Thanks for any & all feedback in advance

 

[jackj]

Why not get the PowerEx charger, they have an 8 cell charger that lets you program the charge rate for each cell independently. That means you can charge just one cell and leave the other slots empty.

 

[puzzleriddle]

Why not get the PowerEx charger, they have an 8 cell charger that lets you program the charge rate for each cell independently. That means you can charge just one cell and leave the other slots empty.

Thanks, I was looking at that 1, I will think on it a day or 2 & prob get that 1 if no other suggestions come along.

 

[jackj]

I think you will be happy with it. I have the 4 slot charger and the only complaint I have is that the charge rate can't be set below 200 ma. That isn't a problem for NiMH cells but is too high for a lot of NiCd cells.

 

[gmclam]

I think you will be happy with it. I have the 4 slot charger and the only complaint I have is that the charge rate can't be set below 200 ma. That isn't a problem for NiMH cells but is too high for a lot of NiCd cells.

I have the Maha charger and that is my complaint as well. The scanners I have charge only at 150ma and that's better.

The Maha engineer told me the reason they wanted to charge at at least 200ma is because they are otherwise unable to accurately measure end of charge. I guess they've never heard of changing the charge rate for a few milliseconds to (accurately) measure end-of-charge while still allowing the customer to not fry batteries at less than 200ma. But then they want to sell batteries.

 

[nanZor]

Scanners can't detect an EOC delta-v (don't even have the circuitry) either at such low rates and rely solely on an internal timer or none at all. With all the warnings about not charging in your scanner, why do the same with an expensive charger?

Only a higher rate of charge can get the battery to go into voltage depression to signal the delta-v.

Over the years I've found that trying to achieve maximum lifecycles with low charge rates isn't worth the effort. You'll be switching brands for different capacities or capabilities long before.

If you really want 150ma current, just use the break-in feature, and tell the unit that you are using 1500mah batteries. There's your 150ma - of course limited to 16 hours, rest, discharge, and 150ma charge again. You could use an external timer or just pull the batteries manually during the break-in.

 

[nanZor]

A quick explanation for why I think that charging at very slow rates is not worth the trouble - the natural aging process!

Even if we treat our batteries with the utmost care, and try to maximize the lifecycles out of them with very slow charging, their capacity goes steadily downwards with every recharge.

I might get 8 years of life out of a brand new set of 2000 mah batteries with all the TLC in the world, but at 8 years, the cells might be only half that value when measured! I don't want the runtime that only a 1000mah battery will give me, so replacing them before they totally go dead is likely. Even at 4 years with some super TLC, I don't want to be using the aged equivalent of 1800mah.

That is why I personally have no problem with charging at a much faster rate at the expense of life-cycles - I can't beat the aging process, so I just get as much life out of them as I can with a rate of .5C until they no longer satisfy my runtime needs. This rate of charge provides a healthy delta-v signal, and also saves me time, but that isn't the primary motive - capacity is.

Along with this, is that every time we recharge a battery, even at slow rates, and especially with the standard nimh's, the cell impedance goes higher slowly turning the battery into a resistor. The Maha will actually give you a value for this impedance when first starting up so you can determine if you are dealing with a newborn, middle-age, or past-prime impedance.

I guess thats why I don't think that slow-charging is worth it in the long run if you value your time and want more capacity without carrying around a group of gingerly loved, but past their prime in capacity cells.

 

[mancow]

What maha charger are you talking about?

 

[nodak1crdet3]

What maha charger are you talking about?

I think they are talking about this charger. MH-C808M
MAHA / POWEREX MH-C808M Ultimate Professional Charger for Eight AA/AAA/C/D NiMH / NiCD

 

[puzzleriddle]

I have this 1 La Crosse BC-9009 AlphaPower AA-AAA NiCd NiMH Battery Charger I will order this 1 Maha MH-C801D AA - AAA Battery Charger within next week or when I get back in town, I just got a 16 pack of the new eneloops ... I have 12 of the others that are only a year old. So I will be set for a while. But THOMAS Distributing would not give me free shipping on the charger Just ordered the eneloops & received then yesterday. A total of $100 Plue bucks Ouch lol.

 

[puzzleriddle]

That's the 1 Nodak

 

[puzzleriddle]

I just ordered same charger from Amazon, because Thomas distributing would NOttgive me free Shipping ( which was $4.97...said my order did not total $75 or more.. so they lost the sale because of the Shipping ,didn't matter to them if I had just bought $45 worth of batteries... Oh well I do understand their Point. but I urge everyone to "shop around" . FWIW I haggled with them for 5 hours Via email lol. Gave em every chance to "bend a little".. one last "kicker" Amazon's price was 2 cents lower

 

[nanZor]

What maha charger are you talking about?

The C-9000

When you first insert a cell, keep an eye on the display. When it rolls around to the voltage reading, it will show the battery impedance only once. The next time it rolls around to the voltage again, it will show the battery voltage under charge. So don't miss it the first time around.

Thanks to the guys at Candlepower forums, we can interpret this initial impedance check as follows:

1.6v - newborn
1.8v - middle aged
2.0v - past its prime
HIGH - rejected completely

The common complaint of wondering why the Maha will reject cells, whereas an older dumb-charger won't, is that the Maha is being smart not wasting time on cells that even if they wanted to charge it, would ultimately result in a cell that is grossly under-capacity, or has very high self-discharge - even worse than normal for standard nimh.

One can perform this test themselves - charge up a rejected cell in a dumb charger. Perform a * discharge * capacity test at the rate your device uses. You'll most likely find it under capacity severely. If not, it might have high self-discharge - or both. You can perform a discharge capacity check on a cell that was rejected for charge since the impedance check is not performed when just trying to discharge.

While you could coax another few cycles out of these high-impedance cells, you certainly don't want to group them into a pack with healthy low-impedance cells. Either recycle them, put them in kids toys etc. The only thing the dumb charger is doing is pumping a very low current into a battery that has now become a resistor for the most part.

I paid for this kind of intelligence in a charger, so I'm sure going to use it.

 

[nanZor]

... /MAHA-MH-C801D-AA--AAA-Battery-Charge...

Great charger - and great batteries. Just know up front that the default rate is 2000mah for AA's! While quality batteries like the eneloops can handle that, and even with my own personal preference for higher charging rates, you might find that a bit too fast.

Instead of charging the 2000mah eneloops in an hour, you may want to drop back to a 2-hour "soft charge" of only 1000mah. Many have asked for Maha to reverse the default and soft-charge buttons, but so far it hasn't been seen in production.

If you want to do this, just be sure to push the soft-charge button after inserting the cell(s).

 

[gmclam]

C9000

The C-9000

HIGH - rejected completely

The common complaint of wondering why the Maha will reject cells, whereas an older dumb-charger won't, is that the Maha is being smart not wasting time on cells that even if they wanted to charge it, would ultimately result in a cell that is grossly under-capacity, or has very high self-discharge - even worse than normal for standard nimh.

I've got plenty of batteries that the C9000 refused to charge (displayed HIGH) that were successfully charged in other brands of chargers and provided more run time than needed.

Not all of my applications for NiMH batteries are for radios. For example, I've got a couple of LED flashlights than run on AA batteries for days if not weeks.

Like I said before, the C9000 seems to be designed around selling more batteries instead of letting me milk whatever I can out of each battery.

 

[nanZor]

Like I said before, the C9000 seems to be designed around selling more batteries instead of letting me milk whatever I can out of each battery.

I would counter that the C9000 seems to be designed around end-user safety, kicking out high-impedance cells that dumb-chargers willingly accept. I guess we'll have to agree on disagreeing here.

Not all of my applications for NiMH batteries are for radios. For example, I've got a couple of LED flashlights than run on AA batteries for days if not weeks.

Same here. Flashlights, especially with low-drain/high efficiency led's, are notorious battery abusers if you let them drain below .9v on a regular basis. That is very easy to do. You and I both watch them like a hawk, but on occasion I've pulled them and found them nearly drained to zero when I wasn't paying attention.

Anyway, here are three ways to trick the C9000 if you want:

Heat the cells with your hand, or place them on a sunny windowsill for awhile. Then pop them in the C9000 and see if the heat has dropped the internal resistance enough to get them to charge.

Or - initiate the charge in a dumb charger for a few minutes. Hopefully this will bring the cells up to near 1 volt or so. Then swap it into the C9000.

Try fooling the "break in". Tell the break-in mode that you are using only 1000 to 1500mah cells. This will then use the C/10 or 100 to 150 mah charge. Watch the break-in and when the batteries rise to around 1 volt, pull the cell, and try a normal charge.

I know you don't fathom the idea of doing this elaborate setup, but good to know in case of emergency.

 

[jackj]

I have the Maha model C-9000 charger. I use it almost exclusively to recharge AA cells. I have AA and AAA Enloops but I don't recharge the AAA cells in the Maha. The AAA Enloops are rated at 750 mAh which means that the 0.1C rate would be 75 mA. I do use the Maha to recharge the AA Enloops that are rated at 2000 mAh at 200 mA.

There are several problems with using a charge rate higher than 0.1C. The main one is that the cells are not completely recharged, the charger cuts off before the cell reaches 100% charge. They do this because they are looking for the rapid voltage change clue that signals the end of charge. This voltage change comes just a bit too early at higher charge rates. Granted, the charger might achieve a 95 to 97% charge at 0.4C but what's wrong with leaving the charger overnight and achieving 100% charge.

As for the impedance test that the Maha does, it is very difficult to do a proper impedance test on a dead cell. Maha should apply the AC voltage to the cell and test the impedance at the very beginning like it does now. If the cell fails the test, apply a low charge rate for an hour and then do a second test. Reject the cell only if it fails the second test.

My wife has several solar-powered accent lights in our yard. They use NiCd AA cells rated at 300 mAh and they wouldn't run the lights for more than about a hour after spending the winter outside. I tried to recondition the cells using the Maha, it tested all of the cells' impedance as too high. I put them in a 16 hour charger and then cycled them in the Maha, I was able to save about half of the NiCd cells. I replaced the bad ones with 800 mAh NiMh.

I think the Maha C-9000 charger is probably the most advanced charger commonly available. But it can be improved with some slight software changes. Make the default charge rate the minimum instead of the maximum charge rate. Start the charge rate at 50 mA and allow steps of 50 mA up to the current maximum of 2000 mA. If the charger will detect the end-of-charge voltage change on a 2000 mAh cell charged at 200 mA then it will detect that same voltage change on an 800 mAh cell charged at 100 mAh.

 

[puzzleriddle]

I got my new charger & have had a couple of days now & WOW it's the best one I've had yet I HIGHLY recommend it. and along with 16 new version eneloops I got it made!!