Anyone know how this charger works?

Hi all, I brought in another dumpster diving haul with me, a bunch of adapters, vinyl records, Sony record player, etc.

I also found a AA charger, but I’ve never seen anything like this before, and was wondering 1. What input voltage to use 2. Whether it has proper dV/dt termination and 3. Whether it is suitable for charging Eneloop LSD AA cells.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Here are some pics: (Sorry for the horrifying quality.)

Bottom of the PCB:

At risk of inspiring you to start a fire, have you tried loading that thing up with batteries and poking around with a dmm? My wild guess is that it’s a power supply, not a charger, but don’t quote me on that…

Haha, I’ve been too excited with the rest of the haul that I put the charger aide for today.

I’ll load it up with 12x Ni-MH’s and start poking around after I get some sleep. :smiley:

Almost looks like a early back up power supply. 1.2 x 12 would give you 14.4 volts. Looks interesting for sure. Keep us posted………on your recovery! lol :stuck_out_tongue:

Well the LM324N is an op amp, High Gain Amplifier, they don't look like a high current setup, it shows that each channel is capable of roughly 40 mA output, each chip has 4 channels

mc14174bcp is a flip flop, maybe some sort of DC to AC inverter...but not a very powerful one


If those holders are in series 1.2x12=~14.4vdc, if parallel 1.2-1.5vdc


It looks like it's missing something, is there anything on the bottom side of the PCB?



  • Between the two sets of 6 battery holders there is what appears to be a dotted line. On either side of the line are silkscreened labels “DISCHARGER PART” and “CHARGER PART”
  • The two sections are connected with jumpers or diodes or something, hard to tell from the picture.
  • The button on the discharger side has a label that can’t be read in the picture.
  • Each cell position has it’s own LED which looks yellow or green.
  • It’s not 100% clear to me that the banana jacks are part of the original design.

Awesome, thanks for your help guys.

I forgot to upload a photo of the backside, so I added that to the OP.

I haven’t noticed that there was a charge and a discharge silkscreen label, thanks for pointing that out.