AA Battery chargers

[Davey]

Many thanks for all the replies. I have ordered a 7dayshop 808LCD, it compared well, was well priced, and I needed to order something today.

[Simon Cee]

I got the Aldi charger after recommendations here iirc. Works just fine.

[Brian Gaff]

When you say died, do you mean completely? Normally these single chip type chargers are just four modules connected to a pretty normal supply, either switch mode or analogue.

Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

Hum, mines "Tronic" as well, there are no convient Lidl stores for me but there is for Aldi. I may have got the store wrong... Wanders off to charging shelf... Kompernass KH980.

Yes I like that as well.

Mine has a Manufactured 10/2008 sticker.

[Dave Liquorice]

I was quite keen on that (though the price is a bit steep) but to do it it has to fully charge, the discharge and then fully charge again. Now if it could tell you the capacity after a normal recharge cycle it would have been better.

I currently just measure off load terminal voltage after the cells have been off the charger for a day to group cells of nominally the same capacity into sets. Primitive but seems to work.

[Davey]

It does not show any LEDs under any circumstance. It makes no difference what batteries I install. And the Torx screws holding it together are smaller than my smallest. Once I have a working charger, then I'll open this one somehow.

[damduck-egg]

Bought one last week in a Lidl in Devon, there were a few in the bin so it was probably a recent stock rather than an odd one that had hung around for a while. G.Harman

[PeterC]

The first Eneloop cells that I had (16 of them*) were, on arrival, at the same voltage +-0.001!

*ordered 8 from 7DayShop and 3 were damaged. e-mailed, with offer of a photo, and a couple of days later another 8 arrived! 2 of the damaged ones are useable but the third, although sort of OK, is too deformed to go into anything.

[Martin Brown]

The capacity of the battery should not affect the charger particularly - only the length of time they take to recharge.

They must be incredibly ancient batteries to only have a stated capacity of under 2Ah though in AA size. I didn't think they made AA NiMH in capcities smaller than that certainly not in the last decade.

The smallest NiMH AA I have is 2Ah and the most recent ones are 2800mAh. These days it is worth buying the slightly lower capacity but long life low discharge types (again Aldi/Lidl sometimes have bargains).

Lidl/Aldis own brand smart charger will do all sizes of battery automatic NiMH NiCd detection and in any combination. It seems pretty well behaved apart from being a little conservative about recharging really badly discharged cells that have been seriously abused.

If you need an AA only on then Maplin do one that isn't too bad and cheap - professional ones cost more and will do controlled fast charge. I have the predecessor of this one for travel use:

It is hard to buy a dumb as a rock one that will just keep adding juice until the battery explodes these days. Product liablity prevent them being sold, but I expect you could find nasty Chinese ones on eBay.

[RJH]

Ah, wondered what that was - get it every so often with my Lidl charger. Quick blast on dumb charger 'fixes' it, as you say.

[polygonum]

Trouble with mentions of the Lidl charger is that there are (at least) two such beasts. The compact one which can do AA and AAA cells only. And the larger one which can do at least C as well (and maybe others). Not sure whether there are significant differences other than physical cell holding?

I have a compact one. It charges cells individually. It works and has done for several years - but I am not a massively demanding user.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I have one of each. They both work well.

[Martin Brown]

I have the larger newest one and it will do everything up to D-cells. Some their Tronic low self discharge cells are a real bargain too!

It is also smart about refreshing batteries but slightly too cautious about ones which have become seriously low voltage through abuse.

There are plenty of fast chargers these days which push batteries close to their thermal limits. I have never known the Lidl one get my batteries uncomfortably hot and it works plenty well enough for me.

(I am a fairly demanding user of rechargeables)

[Johny B Good]

I use a Nikon Coolpix MH-71 charger to fast charge 1 or 2 AA NiMh cells (it only takes AA cells) and it's just too brainy to charge some of my collection of LSD cells which have turned 'funny'.

It was one of the accessories in the box when I bought the 3.2Mpxl Coolpix in Toronto back in 2005. It was designed to quick charge the original 1800mAH cells in about 2 hours. It takes a little longer for it to charge the 2000mAH spares I bought at the time and, of course, even longer for the 2300mAH LSD cells I bought in subsequent years.

It's still going strong even after all this time but I suspect that's due largely on account of its built-in 'overheat' protection. As for trying to fool it into charging those funny cells by charging them from a 4 cell (AA and AAA) Uniross Compact Fast[1] ( 'dumb') Charger (AA 350mA/AAA 150mA) which can only charge pairs of cells at a time, it's still wise to the fact that they're 'funny cells'.

Both chargers are, rather usefully, of the 100 -240v AC type which is rather handy for overseas visits and cruise ship voyages. The original Coolpix is virtually unusable now on account the well hidden RTC and settings lithium cell backup 'battery' no longer works. It would need to be reprogrammed after every single time it's switched off, not just after a battery swap out.

However, the MH-71 charger does charging duty for a Canon PowerShot A720 IS [2] which also, rather conscionably, uses AA cells a pair at a time. I wasn't at all bothered by the lack of a charger in the Canon accessories kit since I knew could rely on the MH-71 to keep the AA cells charged up (extracting extended ROI on my earlier Nikon investment).

[1] 'Compact' on account it's a switch mode design which plugs directly into a wall socket and 'Fast' because it can charge the 2000mAH cells in only 6 hours as opposed to the more typical 14 to 16 hour charging time of an 'ordinary' charger. [2] The A720 IS does at least have a user replaceable lithium coin cell so it won't be forced into early retirement for the sake of a 'flat battery' like the little Nikon was.

[Chris J Dixon]

Not so far as I know.

It can select a different action for each cell inserted, whilst the Accupower cannot.

Chris

[damduck-egg]

Fairy Nuff. To clarify the one I got in Lidl about 12 days ago was the one whose mention upthread was quoted in my first reply where it described what cells it took. ,so it will be the smaller one.

Repeated below,

[Peter Crosland]

Unrivalled in my experience.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Beware; my Lidl Tronic multi-NiMH charger has taken to not cutting off properly on a couple of channels. Only today I found a battery which came off the thing with 2.0V in it. Not good - could have fried chips on its case. Ho-hum - that lasted well, but now unreliable and untrustworthy.

[Davey]

It arrived today, which is not bad. The 'User Manual' was printed on a photocopier, and is barely readable, but the charger seems to work. The manual mentions how to set it to 'Recharge' before 'Charge', but gives no indication as to when this might be worth doing, which is very unhelpful. I am currently (sorry) just recharging all the batteries, and I will note any that seem to have problems of any kind. I dismantled the old Duracell charger, and there is nothing obviously wrong with it. Maybe the overtemp. sensor has failed. It might just become a source of parts.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Have you tried cleaning the contacts?