Panasonic BQ-CC17 Charging Circuit

Hello,
I saw this information about CC16 and CC17 chargers on lygte-info
website. What are pros and cons of charger having 2 charging circuits?

Thanks

Don’t know, but I like my pair of CC17s. No muss, no fuss, just work…and lygte liked ’em, so there’s that. They’re not fast, but I don’t need fast - I just want quality.

I see you got your quote from HKJ: Test/Review of Charger Panasonic BQ-CC17

It appears both the CC16 and CC17 are good “smart” chargers, but the CC16 has 2 separate charging circuits which is better than 1. That means the 2 on the left will charge independent than the 2 on the right. With the CC17, all 4 batteries will charge the same.

Ideally, the chargers should have 4 separate charging circuits to charge what’s is needed for each battery. If 1 battery is really depleted and the other is mostly charged, the chargers will will charge both batteries equally. Meaning the mostly charged battery will be charged more than it needs to be.

I’m not sure I understand. The 4 ‘charge / completed’ LEDs on my CC17s seem to indicate independently of each other if I’m not mistaken. Help me out here.

The cc17 has 4 independent channels. I can charge using just one bay, in any bay

Correct. I think some may have inferred something HKJ did not intend to imply. I don’t want to speak for him of course, but I believe what he intended to indicate is:

The circuitry for the monitoring of slot status, controlling charge current delivered to each slot, and determination of charge status for determination of charge completion (and its LED status indication) is independent / per slot. The actual charging output circuitry delivering the charge current is not per-slot, but is effectively shared / multiplexed between the 4 slots. The monitoring / control, and the output delivery circuitry, are two different things. That would be consistent with my observations.

I stand corrected about the CC16, I don’t know why I thought it was a dumb charger, my bad. I guess I confused it with CC18, which is a dumb one.

That sounds more like how the CC17 works. I certainly interpreted it wrong. :person_facepalming:

Although, the charge current is different depending on the AA or AAA slot. 300mA for AA and 150mA for AAA: CC17 Manual

The CC16 also has 2 different charging rates, 550mA for AA and 275mA for AAA: CC16 Manual

So it’s still a mystery to me by what was meant by 1 “charger circuit” with the CC17 vs 2 with the CC16.

BUT, maybe since charge rate of the CC16 is almost twice that of the CC17, that is accomplished with 2 charging circuits? We may never know since it appears HKJ isn’t around much these days.

[quote=NeutralFan]

[quote=Desertcat]

That’s my interpretation of the info we have, but of course, ICBW (and often am).