Four charging slots, bright LCD, reasonable charging speed, 12V car adapter included.
I bought it at local retailer, price paid was less than 8$, which, as far as I know, is cheapest AA/AAA charger with LCD from China, even cheaper than if I bought it online!
Most of these 10-15$ LCD chargers look pretty similar. Some come with lids, some dont, some have “refresh” feature to discharge and then recharge worn out batteries(BST-905 comes both with lid and refresh option), and some also come with flip up power connector built into charger (taking up less space and making it more travel friendly) while others have external power cable, but overall they all look like from one family.
I for one dont see a point in these lids, they are purely cosmetical, they wont keep closed and they might slow down cooling process of batteries during charging, thats why I keep mine open all the time.
This charger has 4 separate charging channels, which means that its possible to charge 1, 2, 3 or 4 batteries and not just in pairs.
CHG indicated charging process.
For some odd reason there are only two AAA slots in this charger, which means that its impossible to charge more than 2 AAA batteries unless you’re using AAA to AA adapters!
Keep in mind that there are two types of plastic AAA to AA adapters, ones with hollow bottom and ones with metallic plate at the bottom, former ones wont work in this charger since bottom of the battery wont make contact with charging springs!
It might not be obvious in this picture, but none of the AAA's with adapters have contact with negative springs.
It has decent looking power adapter with red LED that will light up when plugged into mains.
Rated for 100-240V AC 47-63Hz input and 12V 800mA output. That small LED will light up when plugged in, its a red one.
Some little bonus – it came with 12V car adapter, which means that you could use this charger in your car, for example. Neat addition.
This ones also with red LED that lights up when plugged in. Nothing fancy, looks like every other generic car adapter from Ebay.
Thats all regarding its looks from the outside and features…
As usual, its interesting to take a peak inside of device so I wanted to take it apart!
After all, its important to take a look whats inside and how well and secure the item under review has been made and whether it is both good looking and well crafted or cheaply made and dangerous.
But there was yet another reason to dissemble this charger – it had nasty, fatty fingerprints left on its LCD, so I took it apart to wipe them off with LCD cleaning tissues and microfiber cloth.
It was easy to dissemble, 3 phillips screws and off its plastic top goes! No hidden screws under the sticker unlike in some other chargers out there, makes taking it apart real easy.
You thought that greasy fingerprints all over its LCD was the only drawback of otherwise cheap and functional charger? I thought so too, until I opened it up that is…
The insides of this charger looked horrible – all dirty(covered with pieces of metal), covered in sticky tape and board looks like it has seen some liquid(I hope not human). In other words, it looks like recycled board or one straight from the trash bin :D!
Some sort of sticky tape all over the board!
Take a closer look right under white REFRESH button at the top - look at the question mark/Zorro like piece of metal, nice, isnt it :D?
Back of the plate looks like straight from the sewage without any drying or cleaning done prior to assembly!
Even tho I would never leave any charger unattended, this ones takes the top place in the list of items to be monitored while in operation, after seeing its inside I wouldn’t want to leave it unattended for longer than one minute!
However, I went ahead and tried to charge some batteries with it ;)!
It charged batteries pretty well, heat was under control, batteries got warm, but not hot, while charger itself became rather warm, but far from smoking hot.
Charging current is 1000mA for 1-2 AA batteries, 500mA for 3-4 AA batteries.
AAA will be less, 500mA for 1-2 and 250mA for 3-4 batteries.
I did try REFRESH feature also, nothing fancy, looks like it works the way it should.
It will first fully discharge batteries while in DISCHG mode and then autmatically charge them full in CHG mode. Theres no information regarding discharge and charge current in this mode(not in manual, nor on the chargers back where the sticker with basic information is, remember, this charger only displays CHG/DISCHG and battery charge status, no other data is displayed!). I will try to calculate it later on when I do full REFRESH test on this one.
Well, yeah, thats about it, it looks good from the outside, has refresh feature, but thats about it, due to its terrible innards I would not recommend this charger to anyone!
Thanks for reading!
Wow, advanced formatting is real wizardy, I think I still managed to mess something up, perhaps its not as cluttered as it looks from the outside, it was a real chore to make it through this review this time :D!