Chargers for Dummies!!!

OK, I’ve been reading reviews and threads on chargers, till my eyes hurt. I’m semi-new to this hobby and never felt the need to buy a light that wasn’t AA, AAA or CR123 (no charger needed). What I’m looking for is a two bay charger, that will charge AA, AAA, 14500, 18650, plus others. It needs to be dummy proof and user friendly. Like to stay around $25.00 shipped if I can.

If you want NiMh+li-ion charger, the only “good” one that comes to mind is intellicharger 4, fits perfectly your wallet :bigsmile:
A better choice could be li-ion only charger+NiMh only charger. My choice would be XTAR SP2 (li-ion) + BC-700 (NiMh) (good bang for the buck, but not the best)

As SashiX said…I think this charger meets your needs perfectly.I have one on order from Wiseguys(they are close)as a test of there service before I order a PA40NW from them(if all goes well!)When I get it and test it…I’ll give you an update on how it does for us neebies.I think there are real reviews here for it…the V2 version.My review will be basic and probably suck.NOT tacticool at all!-Rick

Sorry, I’m slow.Welcome to BLF….there are a lot of great people here.I’ll be in my cabin in WVa this weekend to mow,shoot, and test flashlights of coures.You live in a great state…probably don’t have to tell you that though.-Rick

check HKJ’s reviews: Batteries and chargers

Welcome to BLF!

The only chargers I am aware of that will do both NiMh and Lion are the hobby chargers that the RC guys use. These are quite capable and allow you to adjust charge rates, charge in a serial configuration and have many other features that can be useful if you want lots of control over your charging process. That said, they can be fiddly and require a little more care and attention to use them safely.

If you just want to insert your cells in a slot and hit the button then separate chargers for Lion and NiMh are probably your best bet. But watch out for the inexpensive Lion chargers that do not terminate the charge properly. Pila makes a good one but the last time I bought one it was about $45.

The intellicharge i4 does both as automatically detects what type of battery it is.

Good to know! Do you know if it is a true CC/CV charger that terminates properly, or does it continue to apply a small “trickle” charge to the cell? The latter is one of the common faults of the cheap Lion chargers.

Photon, check my previous post with the link. You will find all info you need in those reviews :wink:

Seems like a pretty nice charger for the money.

But with only one current setting available to charge so many different sized cells, that setting is necessarily low. Which means the charger will be slow if you need to charge large cells or more than two cells at a time. This is a common “feature” of chargers that do not have a dedicated charging channel for each slot.

The “nearly insignificant” 120uA applied to the cell after the charge terminates means that it would still be wise to remove the cell from the charger as soon as possible after the charge terminates.

If I didn’t already have more chargers than I need I would be tempted to get this one.