I had my wife buy 8 EBL batteries and the charger my problem is that all the charger did was blink red. Needing these batteries for my flashlights and blood pressure testers I had my wife get another charger for them and once again red blinking not charging so I got another charger for Nicad batteries and it charges them so im stuck with two EBL chargers that aren’t any good for anything other than paper weights
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Did you try the chargers after recharging with usable charger. The batteries were probably just under voltage where the chargers wouldn’t work
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You need to get more specific.
WHICH MODEL, chargers, and batteries?
As chops728 alludes, there are (very generally) 2 kinds of NiXX chargers:
- smart - more modern charger that uses electronics to CHECK battery status, charge it until it is determined full, then quit…or drop to a low trickle charge. Generally adjustable and faster than #2. Many/most of these will NOT charge a dead battery and give an ‘error message’. Maybe that’s what you are seeing.
- dumb - older style that will try to charge ANYTHING if it fits and isn’t a piece of wood. These are…slow…and generally use a timer to shut off after many hours, sometimes never.
If you had DEAD batteries, put them in #2, it would ‘jump them’, much like using jumpers on a dead car battery. Once the batteries have SOME charge, you can transfer to #1 style to complete charging.
It’s worth having #2 purely to jump dead rechargeable batteries. Hoards of people don’t understand this and throw them away, and forever curse (name brand) NiMh batteries or ‘crap’ charger.
Read your manuals.
FWIW, EBL batteries are so-so (I have a bunch), and their chargers aren’t very good at all. I have one of those too. Very rarely use it.
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I got a pile of EBL NiMH cells here. Had 2 in a tennis racquet bug-zapper, the button got wedged down and drained the cells to a fraction of a volt on one and a negative voltage on the other. “Smart” charger (Opus) did nothing. Hit each with a few zaps of raw usb voltage or something, forgot what as it was months ago, and kicked up the voltages on both so that the Ope charged them just fine. Back in the zapper, and it’s still sizzling flies and gnats like nothing.
I trap 'em against the screen and keep 'em buzzing 'til they start smoking, then plop 'em in the sink and squoosh 'em with a paper towel to make sure no maggots survive, either. Yeah, I’m vicious. But the point is, the cells still work fine, even after being so badly abused, albeit unintentionally.
Oh! I remember… Kept hitting 'em with 4.2V from my 1-slot LK charger left on Li-ion for a few seconds 'til they started registering on the Ope. “Dumb” chargers are invaluable.
I’ve revived more than a few <1V AA NiMH with 3xAA:D parallel adapters : two fresh cells + one dead cell for ~30s will revive to the point that smart chargers will work. But it’s a short reprieve - generally next (short) cycle I’m going to have to do it again.
I find the ‘health’ of a revived cell is similar to the health before the over discharge-just a little bit worse. Every time is a knock against longevity.
Welcome to the forum!
To check all the variables, have you tried a different wife…?
I’ve had best experience with NiMh cells from IKEA (“ikealoops”) or the more expensive Eneloops.
Not sure why you went with the EBL sets, have you seen the excellent site by HKJ?
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Yup, the EBL AA and AAA are not worth buying at any price IMO, especially when Eneloops are (somewhat) inexpensive and readily available. However, the rechargeable EBL lithium 9V are sort of the only game in town so to speak and do OK.
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