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Battery chargers?

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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 12:58 - 16 Feb 2018    Post subject: Battery chargers? Reply with quote

The ones for AA & AAA type batteries rather than bike/car batteries.

I'm sure this has been talked about before but can't find it so..

We have a Thomas battery train set with multiple engines for my grandson when he comes over.

It eats batteries so I bought a cheap charger and some rechargeables which work but don't last anything like as long as non rechargeables. I accept they aren't going to be as good as Duracells but would like them to last a bit better than they do.

The batteries are 2000mAh from Maplins and the charger is some cheap Chinese shit so I would presume the batteries are ok and the charger isn't doing it's job.

Any recommendations please people?
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doggone
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PostPosted: 14:59 - 16 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

7dayshop often have decent prices, take note of the capacity as you mentioned, ebay cheapies likely have imaginative ratings.
I find rechargeables don't stay charged long if sat unused for a while.
I doubt the charger makes much difference it's only a glorified power supply.
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piazza
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PostPosted: 15:08 - 16 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've had 2 Lloytron ones and neither ever fully charged a battery, would not recommend Thumbs Down
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J4mes
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PostPosted: 15:19 - 16 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use a cheap energizer charger for my headtorch AAA's and DAB radio AA's. Get plenty of use out of them.

Think it was about a tenner Thumbs Up
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kawakid
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PostPosted: 00:58 - 17 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi many moons ago I used to be on battery forums, yup they exist.

I used to spend many hours outside at night and used LED lenser torches.

I would recommend a AccuPower IQ328 charger.

As for batteries I used to use Sanyo Enteloop, but I guess Duracell Nimh are okay these days.
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 20:02 - 18 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is something like this worth the money?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391495597965
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Itchy
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PostPosted: 21:17 - 18 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Polarbear wrote:
Is something like this worth the money?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391495597965


Nope. Because for £25 you can buy yourself a Turnigy accucel 6. All you need is a battery holder and you can use the crocodile clips to charge Nimh batteries. I've had 500+ charges out of some AAA rechargeable batteries with this charger.

It does need a power pack though which is £10 or so.

As a bonus you can connect it to your car/bike battery and program in a regular charge cycle if you leave your bike/car unused for a few weeks.
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ThatDippyTwat
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PostPosted: 21:41 - 18 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

^^^^^
This.

Get a Hobby charger. Turnigy, Imax, any of those sort of things. Will charge anything, including your bike battery, Li-ion cells for torches and vapes, LiFePO4 cells I'm pissing around with, NiMH, NiCd, you name it.
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bamt
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PostPosted: 21:48 - 18 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

The disadvantage of a hobby charger that deals with NiMH cells as a set in series (as opposed to individually as per the BC 700 style chargers) is that a weak cell can bring down the performance of the set. An intelligent charger that deals with them separately can let you pull a weak one from the set to keep overall performance up and allowing mixing and matching of cells from several sets so that the whole battery of them performs the same.

Similar to how charging a LiPo battery is better using a balancing charger to charge each cell individually, rather than simply charging the whole lot together. The latter will work, but isn't optimum.

As to whether it is worth spending that amount of money on a charger - it depends what the application is and how often it'll be used. For a kid's toy, I wouldn't worry too much and just be sure to have enough cells around a fast charger.

A hobby charger is always a useful thing have around though.
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kawakid
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PostPosted: 21:59 - 19 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

bamt wrote:
The disadvantage of a hobby charger that deals with NiMH cells as a set in series (as opposed to individually as per the BC 700 style chargers) is that a weak cell can bring down the performance of the set. An intelligent charger that deals with them separately can let you pull a weak one from the set to keep overall performance up and allowing mixing and matching of cells from several sets so that the whole battery of them performs the same.


Yes this is absolutely true.

With the AccuPower charger, I mentioned earlier you can easily spot a failing battery and also decide at what power level you will charge it. You can also leave it on for a month and when it reaches full, it won't try and charge it anymore.

Though...... If a battery is absoluely drained. The AccuPower won't detect it, I've then been known to use a 99p charger connected to usb, to give a battery a few mins of charge and then stick it in the Accupower.

I still use it, but for Xbox one batteries.
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Andy_Pagin
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PostPosted: 16:02 - 20 Feb 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use an ATC Dr.Charge unit to charge my helmet camera batteries. It's one of those intelligent chargers that won't fry the batteries and works with one, two, three or four AAA/AA units at a time. I've used it to fully recharge AAAs every working day for about six years with no problems. The batteries easily last a year.
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