La crosse technology battery chargers, are they any good?
Yes
While they sell a ton of them to the uninformed, they are definitely not a good product, very shoddy design, poor workmanship and an EXTREMELY SHITTY company to deal with. La crosse does not stand behind its products. There are several threads with dozens of complaints floating about on the internet about the BC900 and 9009 charger overheating, missing terminations, melting the wrappers off of cells, catching on fire, etc. The company refused to admit to its design flaws, because then it would open itself up to litigation and be forced to post a recall and pay restitution for all the damages. Then they made a false public announcement that the problems were caused by overvoltage of the power adapter and offered free replacements. I had 4 of their new chargers at the time and tested all 4 power adapters. Each had a wildly different voltage and amp output. I ordered 4 of their free shitty replacements and was rewarded with 4 more trashy adapters… that again, all had voltages well out of the specified tolerances (I tested voltage and amperage output again and they were all vastly different). I have about 200 Eenloops in a recycling rotation. About every 4-5 charges, one of the chargers would miss a termination and overheat one or more of the cells it was charging! This is a well known problem with la crosse garbage, and complaints by the dozens can be found online. I called La Crosse again and they refused to let me talk to a tech support person, stating that there was no problem with their product and that I needed to stop over reacting and monitor the charger while it was plugged in! NO SHIT! Thats what they told me! Even the crappy cells that come with the charger didnt survive 2 years, while many of the eneloops are now into their 4th year. Every single eneloop is still going strong.
I took the chargers apart and was appalled with the minimalist design and cheap materials they used throughout. There were only 2 cheap temp sensors for 4 stations. They were unevenly caked in a white chalky substance, and then improperly inserted into the reliefs molded into the housings to accommodate them! All 4 chargers where the same way and only 2 of them were purchased at the same time from the same vendor. Pure junk, zero quality control and a crappy design. AVOID! These probably cost less than $2 each to manufacture and half of that was spent in the box packaging.
There is only one top-of-the-line standard by which every other AA/AAA charger is judged by in this price range, and none have yet proven themselves to be even a close match. That charger is the Maha PowerEx MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer. Do your research and you will find literally hundreds of expert testimony to support this fact. If you want to throw your money away by purchasing anything made by La crosse technology, please give it to me instead. With your money, I will build a custom light and gift it to a fireman, policeman or a solder, and post your contribution on youtube to show their smiling appreciative face. Im sure you know how to search the internet… please have at it, and read why others hate La Crosse and their dishonest shitty company of liars.
Lacrosse bc-700 isn’t bad if you’re not a heavy user. I’ve had mine for over a year, use it pretty regularly, and no problems so far. My bro has had his for 7 years, light use, and no problems so far. It’s not a bad charger for $30. Don’t pay more than $30 for one.
Maha is probably better for heavy use.