Is there a budget but reliable NiMH charger (like LaCrosse BC-700) that can analyze/refresh/test the batteries?
My BC-700 just broke.
Shan SH-168DLCD?
this +1
Thanks. Found it on Fastech. Will look into it.
a replacement bc-700 can be had pretty cheap at the moment… seen it on amazon for $33 (only $7 more than the shan). the accupower iq 328 is a little cheaper than the bc 700 but is a nice charger.
+1 on Accu IQ-328, had mine for two months and love it.
I know this is over a week old now but I thought I should add my opinion…
Sounds like you need it ASAP but if you don’t mind waiting and watching eBay/ amazon I picked my IQ-328 up (used from a individual seller on amazon) for $22 shipped and I couldn’t be happier. I had a BC-700 (that I sold on amazon after I got this one). If you add it to your wish list you will see when a used one comes up easier.
The IQ-328 is much better charger than the BC-700 or bc-900/1000, tho they appear almost the same on the outside I opened both my 700 and 328 up and the circuitry is very different.
The ONLY complaint I have is the instructions appear to have been computer translated from Chinese to German and then again from German to English so theyre pretty hard to read but it took me all of 10 minutes to pick it up after having a BC-700.
+1 on the IQ-328. Very happy with mine.
-Garry
I own the iQ-328 too and I've put it through the ringer. It saw months of continuous use, and performs like a champ. The thing is, it seems the price fluctuates and sometimes it isn't much better in price than the Lacrosse. The one thing that I don't like is how warm the batteries get on the 1000 mah charge level. I usually stick to 500 mah and it they stay nice and cool.
I ordered something that looks exactly like the IQ-328 from DX recently. I don’t have it yet, but it sounds promising. A little pricey, but I used a $10 gift card to drop it down to reasonable territory.
I also have the Shan SH-168DLCD from Fasttech on the way so I can compare them when they arrive.
Looking forward to this
Hi Relic, I ordered mine and it arrived last week, I’ve been testing it , so far very similar to the IQ-328, it uses the same 3 Volt power supply (handy)
It has a few extra features:
Backlight
Repair mode
Timer mode
And the same modes as before:
Test
Discharge
Refresh
charge and discharge rate selection same as the IQ, the display selection switch isn’t the same, have to push and hold to see the selected display mode (bit confusing)
Also the repair mode seems rather quick- still testing.
Brief Conclusion:
The case is the same, internal electronics different but with similar firmware.
Has overheat protection
Operation is the same with subtle changes.
Charge/Discharge current selection operates the same , insert cell into any slot and all other bays cannot exceed the first amphere selection , so first choose highest amp rating if mixing cells during a charge IE: AA first then AAA last.
Half the price I paid for my IQ-328 so I’m pleased at that.
And questions feel free to ask?
Me too, on the way from FT
It is a gift for our friends daughter, but I’m keen to see the results in a test,
The hunt for the perfect NiMh charger, can’t get MA9000 here and I’m not importing it for $120-00.
On the IQ-328
I charge AA at 0.7amps (eneloop 2000mah)
And AAA at 0.5amps (all cells as none are over 1000mah)
The temp of the cells helps with correct termination I believe.
Very true, while hot batteries are never good you don’t want to over do the cooling or they will never reach 1.49v and never terminate while continuing to add more and more mA into the cells.
On my IQ-328 I charge all my AA’s and AAA’s at 500 mAh and I run a small CPU fan underneath the charger so it cools the chargers circuitry and not the cells themselves. If I put cells on when I’m going out for the day or when I’m going to bed I just stick them on and let them go at the preset 200mAh level, its the easiest on the cells. I also never let the cells sit for any time after they read “full”, I could do without the trickle charge function but some peopl will swear that they’re not truely full till a couple hours at the ~28-32mAh charge rate (after reading full)
Is the Shan SH168 or Accupower IQ 328 any better than the Maha 9000?
i don’t think think heat helps them finish charging, on the contrary, heat means they are not storing energy very efficiently
I never have charge failures due to the batteries not getting hot, if they get hot i pull them from the charger (doesn’t happen very often)
Not likely.
9000 is considered by many to be the best NiMh charger out there, the most versatile and reliable.
However, that doesnt mean that SHAN or IQ are worse, it all depends on what you want your charger to do for you and how quickly you want your batteries to be charged and what capacity batteries do you intend to charge.
I for one am still thinking about getting either SH168 or SPX936 from FT (but they dont have valid coupons for all the things I want from them so Im not ordering anything from FT atm), SPX seems to have lesser build quality than SH168, at least judging by google-translated Chinese forum threads.
Perhaps IQ 328 or its clones would be on top of the two I mentioned above, however its considerably more expensive so Im not sure about buying it+SHAN aka Angeleyes has received lots of positive feedback from fellow members through out past years.
EDIT:
I asked similar question regarding good, yet cheap NiMh charger a while ago , take a look at it, lots of info on 2 pages.
I took apart all my Xbox 360 battery packs and took out the 900mAh green wrapper AA’s and charged 2 of them at 1800mAh with a large fan blowing directly down on the top of the batteries (at 1800mAh they should have charged in under 30 minutes, obviously not good but it was just an experiment and I planned to trash the batteries anyway). With the fan they only got to 1.41v and 1.40v after 1.4 hours I stopped it and they were reading ~2400mAh, I switched over to discharge, drained them and recharged them again at 1800mAh this time with the CPU can from below, after ~25 minutes they both terminated at 1.49v reading ~800mAh.
The active cooling from above kept them from reading the full 1.49v and caused them to never terminate, it just continued to pump more and more mA into them, VERY dangerous.
*i did these tests outside on my covered patio on a concrete slab, please DO NOT attempt to recreate these extreme results.
odd that i can take eneloops i charged yesterday, put them on the charger, at 200ma charge rate and they terminate in a few minutes without heating up enough to be detected by my hands.
i have some rayovac cheap nimh that heat up like crazy when i charge at 500mA, but stay cool when charged at 200mA and terminate fine
your batteries may have some weird characteristics about them, try recreating your experiment with eneloops and see what happens.
Your also charging at 2C, i don’t go above 0.33C.