I’m not garry, but when you charge 2300 to 2600, those 2600 mA’s are mA that have been sent to the batt, not actual capacity of the batt! You should know that part of those mA’s are lost while charging, and IMO, that’s a good result/termination.
I’ve started to write down charging stats of my batts a few month ago ago.
“dia y info” - day and some extra info
“carga” - charging rate (my BC-700 has 200, 500 and 700 mA if I remember well)
“pilas” - batts
“horas” - hours (charging)
“capacidad” - official capacity of the batt
“si/no” - yes/no
“GP viejas” - my quite old GP batts, not LSD (bought about 10 years ago)
“de ratón” - batts from my wireless mouse (that needs 2 to work)
GP Recyko and Varta are 2-3 years old, not more. Nice batts.
As you can see, Recyko and Varta are charged to ~1,5V. These batts can be charged with intellicharger i4 for example, which, if I’m not wrong, stops charging at 1,5V. But take a look at my old GP’s and how they went better from charge to charge!! (I’ve marked in bold “bad” or missed termination chargings) :heart_eyes: Yeah! The final V is lower though, normal thing for such an old batts. Could be a prob for intelli i4 charger, that’s why I recommend a good Ni-Mh charger and good li-ion charger, separately (unless you have relatively new and good LSD batts)
Don’t skimp on this stuff. I bought 3 chargers before BC-700 and all of them were regular or bad. Wish I had seen this stuff before, would definitely paid even 30€ for this charger 10 years ago.
Well I have to preface by saying I'm no battery expert. I have charged those 2300mAh batteries a few times, but haven't done any more discharge tests on them. I have no complaints about the charger whatsoever. It seems to function well. The only time I had a problem with a cell was one that measured 0v (not sure why). That one wouldn't charge in the IQ-328, but it did charge in a "dumb" charger just fine. (I've been watching that cell and ghoul holding voltage just fine .) I don't think there was any problem with the IQ-328 not charging it, just detected it as a bad cell.
It's my understanding that there is no exact "termination voltage" for NiMh cells like there is with Li-Ions. I don't keep track of my "termination voltages" but I don't think I've seen them above 1.50v. My cells have always "terminated" and gone into the trickle charge mode displaying "Full" on the display.
Garry, all batts, if they start the charge process, they will be “Full”/stopped by voltage or time limit. I have quite old and abused (from wireless phone, so 24h a day, 7 days a week… during 4 years :bigsmile: ) Panasonic AAA, 500 mAh, it takes more than 6 hours to charge them at 500 mA (more than 3000 mA sent to those batts! :bigsmile: On the other hand, they always stay cool during charge). They still work in my wireless keyboard and in my Ti, in both cases for very short period of time :bigsmile:
I've never used "Refresh" mode, only "Test" which fully charges, then discharges to give capacity, then immediately recharges til it displays "Full". While "Full" it goes into a trickle charge which seems to start off a little high and then drop to 13mA. The capacity stays shown until the cells are pulled out of the charger or the charger is unplugged. I don't leave my cells on the charger, I remove them when done.
Two reasons I chose this charger over others. 1) max charge rate of 1.8A for two cells (thinking of using with NiMh C's with adapters to charge pin external cradles) and 2) discharge test up to 500mA.
I missed saying that my cells during and after charging have never felt hot, only warm, except that time I posted about where I was charging 4AAA's at 1000mA in order to do a 500mA discharge test on them (the discharge test is always 1/2 the charge rate up to 500mA/1000mA). Even then, the charger must have sensed the heat and quit charging them. I got around this with a fan blowing across them. I'd never routinely charge AAA's at 1000mA.
Verge, check their (AccuPower) manual for IQ328
Here you can find manual for BC-700 charger. Main difference is that BC has individual current for every bay, so you can, let’s say, charge 2xAA at 700 and 2xAAA at 500, while in IQ, all bays will be charged at the same current (i.e. if you first want to charge 2xAA at 700 and then 2xAAA, those AAAs will be charged at 700 too). On the other hand, in IQ you can charge at 1800 mA! (keep it in mind, that 4xAA at 700 could be a little bit too hot, especially in summer)
In REFRESH mode there is no rest function.
I realize this is an old thread but I was faced with a similar choice myself. I went with the c9000. I was shortly thereafter presented with a question similar to the OP and had to think about it. I recommended to him that he choose between the maya c800 and the maya c801 based on the following criterion:
If you are willing to press a button to select “soft charge” every time you normally charge the batteries in order to have the option of a quicker charge that “may” shorten battery life if you ever want it, buy the 801.
If you want a charger that will “just work” without having to press any buttons, buy the 800.
He bought the maya c801D which will charge 8 aa’s for 65 dollars (8 dollars a slot) in about an hour unless you press the “soft charge” button when it will take a little over 2 hrs. It also has a “condition” button.
The maya c800s for 55 dollars is probably what I would have selected given his usage.
Myself, I was torn between the iq-328 and the c9000 and went with the c9000 simply because I have used maya chargers for the past 20 yrs. Calmer minds and thinner wallets might have gone with the 328. The c9000 has features I don’t need. I never put one 1600 mahr cell in slot 1 followed by a aaa in slot 2 followed by …… … Never. The ability to individually program every slot means you MUST individually program every slot even when they are all the same. What I use the c9000 for is to identify the capacity of the cells so I know when to toss (ewaste) them, and the other choices do that just fine for a fraction of the price.
The bc-700 at 36 dollars is about the same price per cell as the maya c800s and has more features. So it is a better choice if you need features over capacity. I find I want one full function charger plus enough slots to keep up with demand. For me the c9000 does it all. I might choose differently if I had more cells to keep charged.
I believe its better to keep this thread alive and resurrect it rather than post new ones simply because this one contains pretty diverse info on different chargers.
As you might have noticed, if you read the whole thread, I went with the C9000 too, best charger money can buy, at leats for NiMh’s :)!
I would love to get my hands on one of those 8 slots MAHA’s, but only if they came cheap, but here in Europe they dont, so Im staying with my C9000+2xi4 v2+BTY N96 (rarely use it-only on old or “unknown” cells).
What sets C9000 apart from other smart chargers is its size - its huge compared to “regular” smart chargers, thus theres plenty of room for air to circulate, looks like that helps to avoid too much of overheating when batteries are charged at high amperage.
i have the issue with hard pressing the buttons on voltcraft ipc1L (bc900 clone) and that is from day one till today (roughly 3 years) but i kinda got used to it…
I have this charger and more and more I find that I am using this charger over Maha C-9000. I like it and it gets it’s job done. I do not have any scientific data to back up what I say, just going by feel.
There is a quite a debate though about it’s noisy fan which I don’t find it a problem as I do not sleep in the same room as I the room which I charge my batteries so I do not find it a problem.
About the NC2500 being relatively unknown I think that this is relatively unknown because SkyRC does not really do a lot of marketing for it. I stumbled upon it one day while browsing their site.
I saw this on DX and wondered about it too. Has some nice features but low current. I did not know it has a cooling fan. Their Imax B6seems quite popular, although I wonder if it is one of the products Turnigy refer to here.
This charger looks almost identical function wise (and display) to my Technoline BC-900. The only major difference I can see is that the BC-900 has individual selector buttons for each cell, though to be honest, I’ve never used them, as I’m usually charging/discharging a full set of batteries at a time.
I’m thinking of getting the IQ328 as it seems a much cheaper option (£24.99 on Amazon) than my current charger, which I seem to recall cost around £40+ shipping.
It appears the IQ328 has four independent charging channels - looking at Point 3 on rdana’s item description: “Select different charging current for each channel.”
The final V is lower though, normal thing for such an old batts. Could be a prob for intelli i4 charger, that’s why I recommend a good Ni-Mh charger and good li-ion charger, separately (unless you have relatively new and good LSD batts)
