Pretty soon I’m going to be in the market for a new charger. I have recently purchased several rechargables batteries, of:
8 AA Duraloops
12 AAA Duraloops
2 AA Eneloops (came with a Sanyo travel smart charger)
Eventually ill purchase more AA batteries and either some C or D or some adapters for a radio I have.
I know most of the recommended chargers run around $50, but what would be good for my purposes? I like the fact that the Lacrosse comes with some batteries and adapters for the same price as the Maha charger.
I like the Maha C9000 … I just wish that I had bought it before I wasted money on the other chargers that I bought first … Same with my Eneloops … I am now slowly replacing my other cells (Hybrios and Recykos) as or when necessary.
Unless you are charging 8 at once for a light like the Fenix TK41 or TK45, the charger above will allow you to transition into Lithium Ion cells without making another charger purchase.
Heck, you can get 2 of the I4s for the price of one Maha.
I have Maha C9000 & 800S, 4 & 8 slots AA or AAA at once respectively, 800S with soft charging & condition function, so far been good.
While I read about the review for i4 being not -dv for nimh termination, but still, tempted for an i2… :bigsmile: if anything happen to my SP2 :cowboy_hat_face:
If I go with the i4 with the intent to mainly use it for nimh batteries what differences can I expect from say a c900 or bc700? I believe they both use dv/dt but I’m not entirely sure what the i4 uses and how it’s different. I definitely want a smart charger that will monitor each cell individually.
+1 for the Maha BC-9000 MH-C9000 or the 800S. Both have individual charging channels, -dv termination, selectable charge current and battery conditioning cycles, amongs other good features. But that said, neither are really budget. However, you opted for high quality cells so you may want to go that route with your charger too.
The intellicharger charges two cells per channel, does not terminate with -dv and only charges at ~375 mA per cell when charging two cells in the same channel. It’s going to take a while at that charge rate. I think the intellicharger is okay if you have mainly Li-ion cells and just need to charge NiMh occasionally. But from your post it seems that you are focused on NiMh, and you also have quite a few of them.
Even if you don’t get one of the Maha units you may be happier with a charger that can do eight cells at a time and charge at 1A or better.
BC-9000? You mean BC-900 from LaCrosse, don’t you? Or does MAHA has BC9000?
Anyway, BC-700 is the cheaper version of BC-900, with max. 700 mA charging current per slot. ~3 hours charging for Eneloops, etc. (2000-2100 mAh LSD batts). I usually charge 2 batts 700 and 4 500 (just to no overheat the charger)
To sum up: if you don’t want hobby chargers for both li-ion, NiMh, etc, I’d recommend one charger for NiMh (BC-700, the cheapest if you don’t want to spend more) and one for li-ion (i2 or WP2). If you want something better, C9000 and XTAR SP2
Good eye… I meant the Maha MH-C9000, which I should know by now since I have one. The Maha and the LaCrosse BC-900 have similar features as well as names. :bigsmile:
I have 2 Maha C9000's (AA & AAA) and a Maha MH-C808M (AA, AAA, C & D) and have never had any problems. I've had the C9000 since Dec. 2009 and use them ALL the time - mostly for maintenance since I have way too many nimh batteries than I actually need. Maha is a bit more expensive but they are THE best nimh chargers you can find.
I paid 14$ and they came with 4 nimh duraloops included .
reason they were cheap is it's a Au version and takes an adapter or you can run a wal wort and plug 12Vdc in the side .I have 3 of these .. love em ...
I'd rather have 50 batteries than 20 that are coddled .I'd buy lots of batteries and a decent cheap charger .or two
