Battery charger for digital camera? [OT]

[dmc]

Slightly off topic I know but there are several people on here who have given advice on battery technologies in the past...

I'm looking for a new battery charger for my digital cameras. I need to be able to charge 4 AAs - quickly if possible :)

my favourite so far - it uses -dV which is supposedly good ;-) Comments? I quite like the fact that it has a cooling fan as well. The uniross charger that I currently use makes the batteries very hot and I'm sure it must be cooking them :-(

Any other suggestions? Ideal specs are 2100mAh NiMH AA cells. Being able to use it in the car would be handy but not essential.

Can't say I've ever heard of "HAHNEL" either - google seems to suggest they have been around a while and make a fair number of custom camera batteries so I guess they can't be too bad....can they?

Cheers,

Darren

[Stuart]

You had a look at

Stuart

Shift THELEVER to reply.

[Stefek Zaba]

Looks like the right sort of specs. Per-cell 'smart' charging has come down to this sort of price point - 30-50 quid, and about time too. (At one-off prices the charger ICs needed are maybe 3 quid, so call it half that for production quantities; cell-mounting hardware, LEDs, cheapie SMPSU, and assembly costs should get us up to a mfg cost of 10-15 quid, tripling that for final retail price to cover distribution costs all the way down the chain would account for the price range). Per-cell dV is indeed the 'preferred' control technique, and the charger you point at also connects up the charger-IC thermistor inputs so that there's a more direct 'oops, seem's I'm cooking the cell' control.

Build quality is likely to be no better than reasonable, at the price.

Since (like any halfway decent uP-controlled charger) it's happy to trickle the cells indefinitely, you may want to buy (if you don't already have) another set of cells for your camera, so you can have one set fully-charged in the charger (assuming its fan only cuts in when needed, or the noise will drive you bonkers.

Only car-compatible one I know of - but I haven't searched - is the Friwo, which I notice the same supplier will sell you; but it weighs in at over twice the price - 89 notes!

Maybe someone else can chime in with better knowledge of per-cell AA chargers which occupy the 'middle ground' between the timer-if-you're-lucky cell-cookers and the model-airplane 6x-AH-capacity price-no-object beasties?

[Alan]

Have a look at the Ansmann range of chargers

are a good supplier I've used before) - The "Digispeed 4" charger comes with 4x

2200maH batteries and both a mains PSU and car lead:

[OG]

This isn't a 1 hour charger, rather a 2 hour one; but it works off a 12V mains adapter AND a car lighter adapter. We've used it for holidays etc for a couple of years and are very pleased with it.

£19.99 including 4x NiMH AA (1800mAh ) - £14.99 for a set of

2300mAh AAs.

[Mathew J. Newton]

I was in Maplin the other day and noticed Varta's new range of 'Charge & Go' batteries/chargers. They utilise 'in-cell charge control technology (IC3)' and a 7500mA charging current to charge 2000mAh AA's in 15 minutes without risk of overcharging/damage (so they claim, and up to a 1000 times). A 'resistor strip' on the base of the battery is used to indicate to the charger that it can use this high(er) current thus it can also charge 'standard' cells too, at a lower rate.

I couldn't find them on the website (Maplin) however, as a guide, a charger and 4 cells were selling for =A339.99 (item code N57BN). Replacement cells were =A313.99 for four 2000mAh AA's or 800mAh AAA's. Uniross appear to be using comparable technology in their 'Sprint' range at similar pricing.

Incidentally, whilst I saw some dual voltage (110/240v) chargers I didn't see any 12v versions - at 7.5A it may be pushing some 'cigarette-lighter' supplies.

Mathew

[dmc]

Yeah. Thats where my current cell-cooker came from. Its ok but I want something a bit more sophisticated - and they don't really have anything :(

Cheers,

Darren

[dmc]

Good good. I've ordered one so will see how it goes.

yeah. Still, I'll give it a shot. Can't find anything else of equiv spec for anywhere near the price (which maybe a clue that I should listen to I guess!).

Got plenty of cells so thats not a problem. Any ideas how long cells are likely to remain charged for if not trickled? I seem to recall NiMH having a fairly fast self discharge rate.

Yeah. Not sure I can quite justify that. I'd need to cook a lot of cells to start getting payback at that level. If this turns out to be a turky I'll try one though.

Cheers,

Darren

[Homer2911]

suggest they

IMHO, digi camera batteries lose most of their charge when downloading pics, so I bought a mains adaptor for mine. (Others know far more about chargers than I do.)

[Steve Firth]

Yes, there's a Uniross rapid charger from Argos IIRC that costs £19 comes with four 2300 mAH AA batteries and it works from the mains or from 12V DV. Extremely fast it charges the batteries in about an hour to two hours.

If you want something more off the wall, I got a charger that does 4xAA batteries from the 5V line of a USB port on a laptop. That can be used with 12V and 240V converters fitted with a USB socket. Lots of those about on the interweb.

[dmc]

That sounds much like the uniross I have. It certainly warms the batteries up nicely - so much so that I can't hold them for five mins after I've turned it off.

USB charger is an interesting idea - not come across one of those. Still, I've ordered the Hahnel one to see what it's like.

Cheers,

Darren

[markzoom]

Why not use an ordinary slow cheapo charger (under a tenner) and get some more batteries instead? Trickle charging is way better for your batteries and charges them to a higher capacity than fast charging. Another suggestion: forget downloading pics from the camera and get a USB memory card adapter instead (if you haven't got one already, they're under a tenner), it saves an awful lot of battery juice, worry (batts going flat), they are plug and play (no software to load) and are usually quicker, plus they do about 6 different types of memory. Mark K.