Recommend a battery charger?

[Cubist]

The kids want to know what to get me for my birthday. I reckon a decent battery charger would be a good bet. However, I've only ever seen them on the shelves at ASDA and one of the ones I bought from there failed.

So. Which ones are good, which rechargeable batteries should I use? I'm not necessarily wanting to save a fortune on disposables, I'm more interested in saving the planet from alkaline thorwaways. My criteria are therefore a well made convenient charger that will charge AA and AAA batteries, and I'm looking for high capacity long-lasting batteries to go with it. Ta.

 

[marinyork]

The Maplin standards or hybrids are pretty good. Even better value for money when they are on sale. I got 12 for £12.99 when they were last on sale although the prices fluctuate quite a lot. The hybrids are a lot more pricey, the standards are

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=46414

and are the much better value for money.

The charger I use is a 90 minute uniross one. Obviously if I were buying another one today I'd look at the above one but the one I have is cheaper whilst doing different things. I wouldn't personally buy the uniross hybrio that battery logic recommends. Had those exact ones before the maplins, the maplins are considerably superior, not that the hybrios were that bad it's just stuff moves forward.

 

[Baggy]

We've also been using the Maplin charger and batteries with no problems for about two years now.

 

[marinyork]

I was quite surprised how good both types of maplins are for the price (sometimes very low) vs all four/five generations of uniross I've used. I think the uniross hybrios are more susceptible to low temperatures as well.

 

[andrew_s]

I have one of these, and they're pretty popular on here-
http://www.batterylogic.co.uk/technoline/technoline-BL700.asp

The advantage of these is that using or charging mismatched sets of batteries will kill them fairly soon, and that with one (or similar) you can identify and make up matched sets before you start. It's an unfortunate fact of life that a set of 4 batteries out of the same packet aren't always matched, though often you can force a match by charging and discharging one of them a few times.

A mismatched set is where one is at a significantly different state of charge or capacity than the others. Charging them together, you get either one seriously overcharged, or the other undercharged. If you then use one partly charged battery with one or more fully charged batteries, the partly charged battery will go completely flat, or may get reverse charged if used as part of a set of 4.
Overcharging, running completely flat, and reverse charging are all pretty bad for the batteries, and will lead to increased self discharge and reduced capacity, such that you may only get 20 or 30 useful charge cycles out of them

 

[Old timer]

A friend and I recently did some tests with various batteries and chargers and used a dab radio as the test bench (mainly because they are heavy on batteries and it cut down test time)
Anyway, we used various chargers from Maplin, and various other outlets and left the the cheapest and dearest chargers to last.
The dearest charger was an ansmann that can take up to 16 AA batteries(can`t remember the model but it was over £60) it turned out(using two models because we both own one) that they were actually the worst which was a surprise because they are supposed to be intelligent. The best would you believe was a Lidl cheap charger. The main set of batteries were Ansmann 2500 that we were thinking were useless till we stuck them in the Lidl charger and got 300% longer running time out of the radio.
go figure that one out.

 

[andrew_s]

Testing chargers isn't that simple.
There are two issues with chargers
a) do they fully charge the batteries, or just up to 75% and then give up?
do they damage the batteries when charging them? "Recharge 1000 times" may get advertised, but that's only attainable under ideal conditions. In real life it's common to find that the batteries won't hold a full charge after as little as 6 months use, maybe only having been charged 25 times.

you've only tested (a)

 

[Cubist]

So, I'll be ordering the BC-700 from Batterylogic then, but as for batteries to go in it, then I'll be better off with the Maplins, and if what I'm reading is correct, then I should go for 2100 mAh hybrids?

 

[ASC1951]

I have always had a good service for batteries (and chargers) from these people. http://www.budgetbatteries.co.uk/

 

[andrew_s]

If you are going for 2100 hybrids, I wouldn't bother too much about the brand. There are only three manufacturers of them - Panasonic, Sanyo and Yuasa - all the other brands are one of those three, rebadged.

Another point about chargers is that there are a number of lights that take 3xAA, or even 5xAA. If you have one, and a charger that charges in pairs (as most of the cheap ones do), it's almost impossible to avoid putting in two cells that require different charge times together. Look for a charger that advertises "charges 1-4 AA".

 

[marinyork]

Another point about chargers is that there are a number of lights that take 3xAA, or even 5xAA. If you have one, and a charger that charges in pairs (as most of the cheap ones do), it's almost impossible to avoid putting in two cells that require different charge times together. Look for a charger that advertises "charges 1-4 AA".

Please name and shame, I've never ever come across such systems.

 

[andrew_s]

Quite a lot of headtorches are 3xAA, including most of the Petzl ones.
The 5xAA I had was a Trelock LS600. Came out much the same time and worked better than the Cateye EL530.

A quick look at ChainReaction has also added the following front lights:
BLT Fantom X10
Topeak WhiteLite HP 1W
Wowow Helmet Headlight 8 LED
LED Lenser Biker Duplex
(not a full list - most battery lights don't say what sort of batteries they take).