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!