PPUG’s Bob Snow emailed me the following advice on battery chargers for low discharge batteries:
- I have two Soshine Hi-Tech LCD NiMH / NiCD Super Quick Chargers (US$13.98). Probably the best deal for a smart charger.
- The Maha C9000 (US$59.97) is very well thought of.
- Also La Crosse BC-900 (US$38.97, pictured)
Smart chargers indicate the state of charge, monitor temperature and voltage curves and adjust the rate of charge. They charge a fully discharged battery fast and then throttle down to put a small trickle charge on the battery once fully charged. This is not needed for low discharge batteries. Just take them out and store them for a year a more once fully charged.
Sanyo Eneloop is the most well known low discharge NiMh batteries. Rayovac makes some called “hybrid” and Duracell just calls theirs “pre-charged” because they are sold with a full charge in the package and are ready to use. You can really treat these like Alkaline batteries once they are charged, just put them away until you need them. A trickle charge will just reduce their life and waste electricity. These chargers use independent channels for each battery so you can charge just one and when you charge several, each battery is monitored separately.
Although I wish could have bought it alone, I ended up buying the La Crosse BC-900 bundle. I got it from Thomas, because they ship it with 2400 mAh AAs (vs. 2000 mAh on Amazon) and they stock the latest version (33) which is important to me. I like that it has four individual circuits and with separate displays for each one (doubles as an excellent battery tester too).
I’ll continue to rotate out my older AA recyclables and buy low-discharge cells the next time I need more cells.