The only time a dumb charger should be needed is if you discharge to zero volts and the smart charger rejects it. The dumb charger generally only needs a minute or 2 to put enough voltage into the cell to be ready for the smart charger. If it still won’t, you can ZAP it (a short quick jolt from a full battery matching polarity). If that doesn’t work, the cell is a dud.
The other time they are useful is if the internal resistance is so high the smart charger continually rejects or terminates the cell. You can then just use the dumb charger…but, that cell is pretty much on the way out and only suitable for ‘trash’ work.
There are LOTS of Panasonic chargers. Mine will start a zero volt cell OK, and generally charge OK, but I seldom use them with several better chargers available.
That could be it. If you use your phones a lot, it would be quite possible for the cells to get worn out after 3 years of use. Another possibility is the phone doesn’t stop the charge when the battery is full; it just continually trickle-charges, which would be tough on the battery.
BTW, the BQ-CC17 won’t finish the charge. They just detect the high internal resistance and refuse to charge them any more.
A dumb charger will just continually charge the cells for 10 hours (or something). It might over-charge them, which is hard on the cells, but they’re on their last legs anyway.
I’m pretty sure if you’ve been using them in a portable phone they are shot. That phone is very likely a dumb charger-it never stops charging at a low rate. Eneloops are not a good choice for that application. LSD cells don’t take well to trickle charging, as HJK has pointed out numerous times in his charger reviews. You want an ‘old school/standard’ NiMh or even NiCad for that.
Or….have you just been trying to charge them in a cordless phone, not use them in the phone?
If so, what kind of use do they get? There are some things that can be hard on any battery.
Just to make it clear, I have never charged the batteries with them inside the cordless phone or even let the phone connected to the base while the Sony batteries were inside the phone, because I knew the phone charger was a dumb one.
As soon as I saw the phone had turned off, I placed the Sony batteries in the BQ-CC17 and then put them back in the phone once they were fully charged. It’s only after the Panasonic charger started rejecting them that I begun to use the cordless phone charger to charge the batteries.
I have 2 sets of Enloop rechargeable batteries (HR-3UTGA) but from different dates. I’ve been using them in my laptop wireless mouse and my camera’s flash. I also have a set of 4 AAA Enloop batteries (HR-4UTGB) that I use on my Casio calculator and a remote controller (IPTV box).
I have bought this Technoline BC700 charger to charge them. Is this charger appropriated? I bought it because of its features and because I found a few nice reviews about it.
Yes it ok , but it sometimes won’t terminate at 200ma ( like almost all chargers ) mine has only missed termination 3 times ,I use 500ma for AAA’s & 700ma for AA’s.
edit , but mine is made by lacrosse.
I would disregard most amazon reviews because there are alot of sellers on amazon that get the reviewers to pay for reviewed stuff & reimburses the reviewer if it’s a good review.
