Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Radio Shack Battery Charger

I checked out the duracell pack which comes with a mini charger. It takes 8 hours to charge the AA batteries and the AAA. At Duracell there is another one that takes 15 minutes to charge the same and holds maybe 4 at a time.

What is it on the time it takes to charge? Is there like a "best one"?

15 minutes is way too fast, it will cause the batteries to be good for at most 100 cycles (A good NiMH with a good charger can go 1000)
8 hours is safer but going too slow can make a charger make the end of charge termination less accurate if that charger is even smarter than a times charger.
Knowing radio shack's over priced stuff i bet you could get a good charger for the same $

I recommend the La Crosse BC-900:

http://www.amazon.com/Crosse-Technology-BC-900-AlphaPower-Battery/dp/B00077AA5Q/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229449610&sr=8-1

It lets you charge batteries at different rates for optimal performance, test battery capacity, renew older batteries, and also comes with 4 AA, 4 AAA batteries, and a travel case.

Read the customer reviews on Amazon, you will like it.

Either the lacross or MAHA are considered the best. If you exapnd into a larger picture than bike lights then you can use the charger for things like gps, camera, radios, etc. So the cost of ine charger is spread across multiple devices.

Thanks, very helpful about chargers.

There is one charger, the cell phone charger, that many of us deal with. The car battery charger doesn't really draw my attention.

If we know this about the NiMH battery, what about the cell phones? What type do they come with and what are we doing right or wrong when we merely plug it into the wall and let it sit till the green light turns on?

cell phones use a lithium ion or lithium polymer. they need a charger specific to them.
Don't worry about trying to extend the life of a cell phone battery, the lithium rechargeables loose 10-20% of their life per year used or not so they wear out no matter what.

I recommend the La Crosse BC-900:

http://www.amazon.com/Crosse-Technology-BC-900-AlphaPower-Battery/dp/B00077AA5Q/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229449610&sr=8-1

It lets you charge batteries at different rates for optimal performance, test battery capacity, renew older batteries, and also comes with 4 AA, 4 AAA batteries, and a travel case.

Read the customer reviews on Amazon, you will like it.

the batteries are what mAH?
and does mAH 2700 vs. 2500 tell you how long the battery will last between charges?
I know NOTHING about electronics except what I can vaguely remember from college physics

the mAh rating of a batter is its capacity. Like the gas tank in a car can hold 15 gallons or 20 gallons. the amount of load placed on the battery and its capacity determines how long they will last between charges. Just like how a car could get 20mpg or 30mpg.
The only other gotcha there are now low self discharge batteries. All batteries will loose some charge while sitting, its like leaving the gas cap off your car and some gas evaporating. Higher capacity NiMH will self discharge between 10-20% a month or more for some poorly designed (energizer 2500's), you could think of those like having a small leak in the cars gas tank. There are now low self discharge NiMH such as sanyo eneloop, rayovac hybrid, duracell precharged, etc that only loose 1-2% a month. Think of those as havinh a tightly sealed gas tank on the car. The trade off is those low self discharge are slightly lower capacity so they are like having a tightly sealed 15 gallon tank where the high capacity NiMH are like having a 20 gallon gas tank with a leak.
Depending on how you use the batteries you choose the appropriate. a bunch of smaller trips spread out over a month then you can get by with the smaller less leaky tank, if you make all long trips and have to always fill the tank anyway then you could tolerate a bigger but leaky tank since your useing the fuel faster than it leaks out.

the mAh rating of a batter is its capacity. Like the gas tank in a car can hold 15 gallons or 20 gallons. the amount of load placed on the battery and its capacity determines how long they will last between charges. Just like how a car could get 20mpg or 30mpg.
The only other gotcha there are now low self discharge batteries. All batteries will loose some charge while sitting, its like leaving the gas cap off your car and some gas evaporating. Higher capacity NiMH will self discharge between 10-20% a month or more for some poorly designed (energizer 2500's), you could think of those like having a small leak in the cars gas tank. There are now low self discharge NiMH such as sanyo eneloop, rayovac hybrid, duracell precharged, etc that only loose 1-2% a month. Think of those as havinh a tightly sealed gas tank on the car. The trade off is those low self discharge are slightly lower capacity so they are like having a tightly sealed 15 gallon tank where the high capacity NiMH are like having a 20 gallon gas tank with a leak.
Depending on how you use the batteries you choose the appropriate. a bunch of smaller trips spread out over a month then you can get by with the smaller less leaky tank, if you make all long trips and have to always fill the tank anyway then you could tolerate a bigger but leaky tank since your useing the fuel faster than it leaks out.

thanks

Now when it comes to charging not all smart chargers are equal. There are various methods to determine when the battery is full and some are more accurate than others. There are also low end chargers that charge batteries in pairs.
The better chargers let you specify the mA its putting in so the time all depends on how low the battery is but too fast of a charge is bad and sometimes too slow of a charge can lead to under or overcharging.
Thats why the chargers like the higher end maha's and lacross let you specify the current.
If your going to use rechargeables then get a decent charger from the start, don't do as I and run through a half dozen $20-$30 each and end up replacing them with one good one in the end.
To make a long story short, in the early 2000's I gave up on rechargeables, the higher capacity were coming out then and suffered from high self discharge and the chargers I had weren't doing a good job of charging. I started spending a lot of $ on lithium's until I learned about eneloops and got some of them and a maha charger.

Now when it comes to charging not all smart chargers are equal. There are various methods to determine when the battery is full and some are more accurate than others. There are also low end chargers that charge batteries in pairs.
The better chargers let you specify the mA its putting in so the time all depends on how low the battery is but too fast of a charge is bad and sometimes too slow of a charge can lead to under or overcharging.
Thats why the chargers like the higher end maha's and lacross let you specify the current.
If your going to use rechargeables then get a decent charger from the start, don't do as I and run through a half dozen $20-$30 each and end up replacing them with one good one in the end.
To make a long story short, in the early 2000's I gave up on rechargeables, the higher capacity were coming out then and suffered from high self discharge and the chargers I had weren't doing a good job of charging. I started spending a lot of $ on lithium's until I learned about eneloops and got some of them and a maha charger.


where do you shop?
where would you suggest getting good stuff.........
AA/AAA/18650 (I heart my P7s)
is the deal at Amazon a good one? it doesn't specify which batteries it has with the charger

Thanks,
A

Thomas dstributing is pretty popular for batteries and chargers

Will the La Crosse or the MAHA run an analysis to tell you what current to use on a particular battery for charging? In other words, what good is it to me to have all this option on current if I don't know what current I am supposed to use?

That kind of analysis would take more equipment and long term (years) to determine. The general rule to thumb is
.5C to 1.0C where C = the capacity of the cells.

Of course checking the manufactuers spec cheet will be a good help too
For exmaple I use eneloops so I check http://www.eneloop.info/fileadmin/EDITORS/ENELOOP/DATA_SHEETS/Datasheet_-_HR-3UTG.pdf

and see the .5C to 1.0C is a good fit. The Maha defaults to 1000mAh which is 1C.

This is one area where standardizing helps too, I don't have to remember to charge at one settng for this battery or another for that battery. I tried to standardize on all eneloops so someone else in the house (wife) can just pop them in and hit enter and go.