Looking for Nimh charger

[DogSoldier]

Wasn't sure where to put this.. anyways, I'm looking to restore/recondition my Nimh batteries. I UNDERSTAND that these things will not last forever, but I read something about chargers that could discharge and restore old Nimhs. But I lost the link. So I'm looking for experienced advice. My oldest consist of 4 AAA Nexxtech batteries+charger and they are about 2 years old. My newer set are Sony AAs and they haven't faired so well with the Nexxtech charger. I use the Sonys in my camera and they are seriously undercharged. Even fresh out of the charger they will give me very limited use. I suspect the batteries are fine and the problem lies with the Nexxtech charger. Anyways, I'm looking for a good Nimh recharger/restorer/reconditioner. Any help would be appreciated.

[DogSoldier]

Considering the geeky bent of this forum, I was surprised by the lack of response to this thread. So I did my research and got a La Crosse BC-900 version 34 (The newest one, which doesn't melt batteries) over the Maha C9000 for 2 reasons, it's simpler to use and you can monitor each battery with the LCD. I'm just now testing my batteries and I'll be posting the results here.

[Donut]

Please keep us posted with your results. I've been wondering also.

[DogSoldier]

K, my first attempt went stupid.. On Wednesday I tested a quad of Sony 2500s, looked at the mAh and thought, "That's well within nominal capacity.." Pulled them out and started testing another set. But I forgot to note the mAh of the Sonys LOL.. I retested the Sonys last night which ranged between 2420 and 2500 mAh. Yeah, a battery rated at 2500 which is actually 2500.. I won't be refreshing/restoring the Sonys, I figure they don't need it.. Rather, I sorted them into matched sets and marked them with a Sharpie.

The new Powerex 2700 AAs are a mixed bag, after charging (Not testing).. they range from 1234[?], 2530, 2850 and a Superbattery rated at 3250 mAh. I'm not sure if these capacities are accurate so I'll be testing them after the new Lacrosse AAAs that came with the charger. I was anxious to see how well the Powerex performed in my camera, so I'm using the 2530 and 2850 as a matched set and have been snapping photos with flash since yesterday. Just random shots of the room, the computer, the dog.. so far I've taken over 250 shots and the batteries are still holding up. I'm quite impressed with them.

The Lacrosse AAAs that came with the charger are looking cattywumpus... They’re rated at 800 mAh but after charging (Not testing) they range from 466 to 591 mAh. They are testing right now and I’ll see if the charging mAh numbers were accurate. Then I’ll probably begin the process of refreshing them. Which will take about 30 hours. I haven’t looked at my old Nexxtech AAA 800s, Duracell AAA 1000s or the new Lacrosse AA 2400s yet so I figure another week before testing is complete. Then I’ll just screenshot the table I made and post it here.

[DogSoldier]

In case it wasn't obvious.. The La Crosse BC-900 charger rocks!!! The functionality, the options, the ability to ascertain the mAh and voltage.. It just all blows me away.

[Donut]

Major cool, thanks. maybe I'll finally get rid of some of my "dead" rechargables.

[muddocktor]

That's good to know, DogSoldier. How much to the charger cost, if you don't mind me asking?

[DogSoldier]

I got it on special from Thomas Distributing for $35.97. Shipping was extra of course. I also got dinged $8.00 by Canada Customs. But you get the charger, a travel bag, 4 La Crosse 2400 mAh AAs and 4 La Crosse 800 mAh AAAs, and C,D adapters.

http://thomasdistributing.com/shop/la-crosse-bc900-battery-charger-w-lcd-displaybrdeluxe-travel-bag-accessory-kit-brprice-5497-p-539.html?SP_id=41&osCsid=45hnt0drr2bdhr3tuchrcpoap4

If you don't see the $35.97 special, come in from the front page and look for AA-AAA Chargers, page 3

[muddocktor]

That's not a bad price for what you get. I'll have to talk to my wife about getting one of those. Thanks for the linkage. :thumbsup:

[DogSoldier]

I finished testing and charging all the batteries - chart is at the bottom. I only needed to run one set of batteries through the Refresh phase, and it perked them up perceptibly. I matched up all the batteries as best I could and used a Sharpie to mark them. Having batteries of similar capacity - paired up in your devices - will optimize the performance of the batteries.

One another note, the Powerex 2700 AAs are amazing. I took 300+ full size, fine quality photos over the course of 3 days and they never ran out of juice. I only removed them in order to charge them all as a set. I've found that charging new batteries (That presumably, have been in storage for some time) gives you anomalous results. So you'll need to charge them a few times before you start getting accurate numbers.

http://www.planetfortress.com/tfa/stuff/lacrosse_results.gif