Best AA/AAA charger

Who? Which?

Someone was having trouble with charger that charged different chemistries. I only use eneloop so I use eneloop brand charger.

Have a look here if you haven’t already https://eneloop101.com/charge/advanced-chargers/

I too only use eneloop so just use the charger that can be bought with the batteries. I’d figure Panasonic/Sanyo would know a thing or two about eneloops.

Panasonic/Sanyo is a good option, but I have a feeling Skyrc/Maha (others) is not worse.

Here they recommend the Skyrc NC2600 as the best solution. I do not know how the NC2600 is compared to the new NC2200 …

Maha/Powerex for NiMH all the way

Maha. Have the old one and new one. The newer one is smaller and has memory setting so not a much button pushing.

What I want avoid for charge AAA are pwm high peaks like happen on Opus3100.
That’s not good for the cell and I prefer constant current
Any suggest for chargers analyzer non pwm and simply with Leds status like Panasonic are welcome

I’m not really a fan of Panasonic’s 1-3h chargers, though I love the little RYG LED indicators. Only way I’ll use that is with a USB fan pointed at it, or you can do a trick where you put three batteries in (like slots 1,2,4) and then remove the middle one after it starts. Then you get the 3h rate in addition to sufficient spacing between cells to prevent overheating.

The BQ-CC17 7 hour charger is golden. Probably make cells last longer than anything else.

The Opus C3100 is a complete no-go for NiMH as it trickle charges at a considerable rate. If it’s 20mA like the manual says, the displays indicate considerably more (30-50mA). The C2000/2400 is great, though 90% of the time I just use the SkyRC MC3000.

Worse than the BQ-CC55 was the SkyRC NC1500. I wanted to like that one. So cute, but it’d go over 50C on a regular basis. Not sure how they did such a bad job on that.

The NC2200 is also cute in its own way. Unless there’s something quite wrong with it, I have to have one.

This.

Mine is probably 10 years old by now.

My C9000 is from when they first came out. Had to get it replaced, early on, because the first ones had an AAA charge termination bug.

It was state of the art, then. I’d generally rather have a modern -dV or 0dV terminating charger than one that uses voltage, like the C9000 or some XTARs that are primarily for LiIon. The Opus C2000/2400 is the closest to the C9000. The new C9000PRO hasn’t really improved the algorithm so it seems Maha’s kind of resting on their 10 year old laurels.

But, they work. Heck, one of my friends is still using the old MH-C401FS (in Slow!).

I have the Maha C801D 8-cell 1-hour charger which has worked like a champ since I purchased it more than 10 years ago.

It is a simple charger, put one battery in and then press a button if you want “soft” charge, then put the rest in. The default charge rate for AA batteries is 2000mA, and “soft” mode is half that at 1000mA (I normally select the soft mode which takes a bit longer but perhaps helps extend the life of batteries).

I use it to charge various NiMH batteries, mostly eneloops but various other makes as well. The 8-cell capacity is really useful (eg, for two camera flashguns). The charger seemed expensive when I bought it but has worked reliably and well for so long that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another if needed.

I just got a Liitokala Lii-S6 in the door today, got it to charge AAA batteries, but it will of course also do others.
So far have charged my 12 new AAA and it was effortless of course
I am going to throw some 18650 batteries in it soon, i think i have some that need a dip in the fountain of power. :money_mouth_face:

The most disappointing thing to me about Maha chargers are that they only display info for 1 slot at a time. I’m leaning towards getting a SKYRC NC2200 because of this, anyone knows how the charge algorithm compares to the Maha C9000Pro?

Did the trickle start immediately after charge ends? Otherwise it would be only a problem for ppl who let the cells long time after charge end in the charger

Just use the eneloop charger for your eneloops, they fit both AA and AAA. I have an old Efest 4 bank that I still use exclusively. It's never faultered and has charged everything lithium based that it can touch both end of...so far. Lol

I don´t have an Eneloop charger and not many Eneloops :wink:

I have some older, slow chargers which charges with ? mAh, the C3100, Vapcell S4 +, VC4SL

Even though six months after your question you’ll sure have a new charger, this is my path in case someone finds it useful.

In a similar case I was looking for an advanced charger as a complement for my BQ-CC65 and my Eneloops.

Due to I was interested in: 1) no tricke charge (Eneloop = LSD) , 2) 1,0 V final discharge voltage (IEC capacity test), 3) no-sensitive IR charger (BQ-CC65 is terrible), my only (and better) option and finally acquired has been the discontinued SkyRC NC2600. The MC3000 was too much for me, I didn’t consider.

MODEL / disch V / Trickle / Battery IR / If High IR
———————————————————————————————-
SkyRC NC2600 / 0,5-1,0 / OFF,10-30mA / YES / Charges
SkyRC NC2200 / 0,9 / 50mA / YES / Max Charge current according to IR
POWEREX MH-C9000 / 1,0 / 10mA / NO / No Charges
POWEREX MH-C9000PRO / 0,9 / 10mA / NO / No Charges

The Battery IR value was only a complement for me, I don’t know about this value accuraccy, but it’s interesting NC2600 charges ‘old’ Eneloop Pro (BQ-CC65 refuses in 5 seconds….) indicating > 300 mOHM, a 3-4 times the IR value seen in a white ‘good’ Eneloop.

About the new NC2200, seems the substitute for NC2600, but acoording to the manual the app only permits viewing, no any ‘interesting’ paremeter can’t be configured.
About Powerex MH-C9000Pro, specificates 0,9V as final discharge and ‘matches IEC test capacity’ (requires 1,0 V). I asked MAHA about this and said ‘I will pass this information to the engineering team.’….

What I’ve seen is in most of actual chargers called ‘PRO’ really are almost ‘black boxes’, except the currents, no any more can be modified.

Regards

My Vapcell S4+ discharge NiMH to 0,86V, my Accupower IQ338XL to 0,9V, not sure about my other chargers.

it may be so, but I use IKEA branded chargers and I have so many ikea branded AA nimh LADDA 2450 batteries…and the POS charger (I have 2) gives me errors on its own batteries. and understand that these batteries were all new from summer 2021.