On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 09:08:02 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 04/04/2014 11:30, Davey wrote:
Our Duracell NiMH AA/AAA recharger has died. I have recently added some
1700 mAh batteries to the mix of original 1300 mAh ones, which may or
may not have precipitated its death. I am looking for a replacement
charger, able to sensibly recharge these, preferably in any mix.

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).

Are there any brands/models known to be good or bad?

I'll look at Maplin, CPC, etc, but personal recommendations are always
welcome.

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:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-nim...-charger-n42bx

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.

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.
--
Regards, J B Good