Best charger for Eneloop Cells ?

It should be fine for now, but a MAHA C9000 would be a nice xmas gift to yourself in the future if you can spare the money down the road. :stuck_out_tongue:

I use the La Crosse BC-700 that comes pretty highly recommended on amazon

Digital display and 4 channels for only $35 bucks

It is a nice feature to be able to charge one cell at a time (or 3 if convenient). The charger in the OP seems able to do this. (You might have a single cell light.)

The Sony BCG-34HRE seems only capable of charging 2 or 4 cells. Edit: It will charge 1, 2, 3, or 4 cells.

Yes, the one I have has discrete charging circuit for each cell which means you can charge just one battery

I bought some Eneloops at Costco. They came in a combination pack wiith the Sanyo model NC-MQN06U charger.

http://us.sanyo.com/dynamic/product/Downloads/4_Position_Charger_IS-4508168.pdf

The Sanyo charger charges 2/4AA at 300ma, and 2/4AAA at 150ma. I guess the moral to this story is that the Eneloop cells will take a range of charging currents.

Eneloops seem pretty hardy but I wouldn’t want to leave them in one of those dumb wall chargers. I like my Angeleyes charger (see my review). It’s not the quickest (my Soshine SC-F3 can charge an AAA eneloop in an hour @ 800mA) but it can discharge, refresh, shows capacity etc. and stops when charged.

If I was charging eight cells every day I’d simply get another Angeleyes. Best is relative to your needs and budget.

Maha C808-M.

If you ever want to charge C or D, then you don’t have to buy another charger. It’s 8 bay for AA, AAA, C, or D.

http://www.amazon.com/Maha-Powerex-MH-C808M-Cell-Multi-Charger/dp/B000E65DG6/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1369334248&sr=1-4&keywords=maha+charger

+1 for many of the Maha chargers. The La Crosse smart chargers are similar to Maha 9000 but the Maha tends to get better reviews.

The Maha 8xxx and 9000 series of chargers are very good, having adjustable charging current and discrete channels for each cell, as well as many other functions. Ideally you want to charge NiMh cells at .5C to .8C to provide a nice delta V signal to tell the charger when to terminate the charge.

Lower powered chargers that only charge at ~500mA will work fine for younger cells in good condition, but as the cells age they need a higher charge rate to provide a good delta V signal to the charger.

Your hobby charger can charge one or more NiMh cells in a serial configuration, but if you use the cells in different combinations in different devices they will age differently and a dedicated multi-bay charger will be better for them.

OK, thanks. I have my Hobby charger which I will try out once I get a battery holder to use with it. It should be good for discharging and refreshing the batteries.

It seems the cheap 'Fast Charger' I have might do the job as an addition to the Hobby charger.

It has discrete circuits for each of the 4 charge slots (so you can charge 1, 2 3 or 4 batteries) and will charge 4 at 500ma. As they age, I can charge 2 at a time to get a 1000ma charge.

Saves me some money too ;)

I’m surprised it took 10 posts for anyone to mention the La Crosse BC-700. I’m also surprised that so many people recommend the MAHA C9000.

For the purposes of charging, testing, reconditioning, and other common needs, they’re more or less the same. However, the BC-700 costs less than half as much, is smaller, displays more info at once, and requires far fewer key presses to access the same functions. I mean, like, maybe 6 keypresses versus 150.

I already mentioned the BC-700 in the first reply :wink: In Germany its sold als “Technoline” - The BC-700 seems to be a OEM devices under many different labels… So you get this thing from “Voltcraft” too.

I second that. LOTS of people might disagree with me in this one. But a AA/AAA only charger just seems limiting to me. Even if you only have NiMH AA/AAA batteries, you never know what the future holds. And the 808 can charge more than four at a time.

I’ve gone through maybe 6-7 different kinds of chargers over the years. I’ve been using the LaCrosse BC700 since about one and a half years ago. It works pretty well IMO and remains my go-to charger for my eneloops :slight_smile:

I believe Sony BCG-34HRE is able to charge 1-4 cells, not limited to 2 or 4 cells charging, it also have “Refresh” function as in highend Sanyo Eneloop charger, because I have one myself :slight_smile:

Sorry. My mistake. I was looking at the Fasttech picture.

http://docs.esupport.sony.com/BCG34HRE.pdf

Why? It’s the best charger for AAs around, as far as I can tell. The Lacrosse chargers have a bad history of overheating, perhaps they’ve fixed that now. The C9000 can charge 4 cells at 2A without a problem if that’s your wish.

However, I normally charge at 1A - all I have to do is drop the cells in, push no buttons, and off it goes - no requirement for 150 button presses! :smiley:

Cheers

I read about Lacrosse chargers melting down on the other place (someone had to say it!). I thought the Technoline looked too similar, same OEM.

The 7dayshop charger actually looks quite good. Discharge, thermal and timer protection, individual cell monitoring.

I guess you’re talking about CPF - it’s OK, you can say that here.

There is a huge thread over there about the 9000, which one of the Maha engineers frequented until he was severely pissed off by a few idiots, but before he went, he gave lots of good information about how the 9000 works. I have the original firmware version. The later ones have a slightly different discharge algorithm, but you can look that up as an exercise. :slight_smile:

Cheers

photon1k

Thanks for answering that, I was thinking about buying a jack of all trades hobby charger, but I guess I still need the Maha C-9000.

I own numerous AA chargers and Eneloops, the Maha C9000 will not fully charge an eneloop because of the low cut-off voltage, you can get around this by leaving the cells in the charger for an additional 2 hours when they are “finished” charging and because of the trickle charge it will “solve” that issue.

You should take a look at the BM200 charger, it charges the Eneloops just fine and can test the cell’s internal resistance too plus a whole lot more and they sell the adapters separately too;

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Nimh-battery-charger-5-7-battery-intelligent-charger-measuring-resistance-charger-black-BM200/851457969.html

or from ebay;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330918860473?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&\_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I would also pick the La Crosse BC1000 works just fine for Eneloops and in case of a power failure when the charger comes back on, it will charge at 200ma so you don’t have to worry about over charger your cells. The problems of the past with La Crosse chargers have been resolved with the BC1000, no worries I own it too.

Lastly the Accupower IQ-328 would be another good choice for Eneloops.

Especially important if you put AAA cells in the charger and the power goes off and comes back on, 1000ma default charge of the C9000 is going to cook your cells.

The Nitecore doesn’t terminate correctly for Eneloops and the cells get extremely hot.