Another question about charging small batteries.

[Chris Bacon]

When you've a few things which use cells/batteries - childrens toys, for instance - the cells may have a wide range of state of charge. Some cells will be unused for ages, and flatten slowly. Some will be in popular things, and flatten relatively quickly. The cells all get mixed up. Some things use (say) four NiMHs at once. Some things use

1, 2, 3, or 6, or even 8.

I've got three chargers. One's a very old Ever Ready one. Another is a Uniross one. Another is a £3.? "special". The E.R. one is apparently only suitable for NiCds, being old (they may be left on charge for a long time, though). The others will do NiMH as well, and have some sort of cut-out which stops charging after a while.

I have just come by a number of new 2100mAh AA cells, and 4000mAh Ds., and have already got some other NiMHs of 2200mAh AA (Uniross),

1800mAh AA ?s, and a number of NiCds, various.

The chargers I have will take *ages* (24 to 36 hrs.) to charge the higher capacity cells from "flat", and take 1-4 cells (no mixing of NiMH/NiCD allowed). Some cells may be almost flat, some maybe fairly well charged when they're put on charge.

What's the best thing for charging a rag-bag of cells like these ones? I'd *like* something that will put out a reasonable current for charging (the new "D" ones want 7 hours at 800mA each, the new "AA" ones 7h at 420mA from discharged), without cooking the odd cell that gets in which already has some juice in it. I'd prefer not to spend lots of money, else the gain from buying rechargeables wil be less!

[phil]

Have a look at RS Components, go to:

"rswww.com"

And in the search products window type:

"energy 8 charger"

-- Phil

[chris French]

In message , Chris Bacon writes

Something that monitors the charge state individually is the best here.

I bought an Ansmann Energy 8 , but that might not meet your price criteria at about GBP50.

Who I got it from:

Ansmann site:

[Dave Fawthrop]

|What's the best thing for charging a rag-bag of cells like these |ones? I'd *like* something that will put out a reasonable current |for charging (the new "D" ones want 7 hours at 800mA each, the new |"AA" ones 7h at 420mA from discharged), without cooking the odd cell |that gets in which already has some juice in it. I'd prefer not to |spend lots of money, else the gain from buying rechargeables wil |be less!

Just looked at my MAHA MH C401FS Now superceded by MAHA MH-C401FS-DC

works fine for AA and AAA. Like it says it will charge NiCD and = NiMH, and switch off when each individual battery is fully charged. Also has slow normal charge, and fast charge which I use in the car for GPS and Camera batteries.

--=20 Dave Fawthrop Please quote, with quote=20 character, previous post sniped to only the bit you are replying to.=20 Threads often contain 100s of posts dozens layers deep. Other people=20 use different newsreaders, they do not see or do what you see and do.