no motor?

I got 4 AA and 4 AAA rechargeable batteries "free" with the LaCrosse battery charger I got in January, and last night when I went to use the Cateye EL530 the AAs were in they barely lit up the light. They had been charged in the charger (set to the lowest setting) and then stored in the charger until Saturday afternoon, and weren't used until Monday evening. I swapped them out with the batteries I had in another light (the trusty old Vista light which had a set of Duracells that had been charged about a month ago) and they had enough charge left in them for me to see to pedal home. Which was a good thing, because I saw more people and animals on that trip home than I have a long time, and really needed the lights. Two of the LaCrosse batteries wouldn't charge today, the display reads "null" indicating they can't be recharged again. I haven't used them very much and can't complain too much about something that was "free" with the purchase of one of their battery chargers, but I'd hoped to get more use out of them than that like I have with the other brands of rechargables. What kind of life have others gotten out of their LaCrosse rechargable batteries?

agarose2000

Sounds like something's wrong with your batts or charger. Mine are 6 months and kicking strong. Make sure that they're seated correctly as well - I've been fooled once or twice when I didn't seat AAAs properly.

no motor?

I tried reseating them, rotated them to other positions, turned the power off and still had the same results last night, but they just started charging this morning. What's with that? The other batteries I've charged in there have held a charge for longer, and haven't had this problem.

CCrew

Some battery chargers circuitry is such that if you turn it off with the batteries in place, they'll actually discharge in the charger. Basically poor electronics design in the charger circuit - those couple extra diodes would cost .03 or so.

Try charging them and pulling them from the charger when charged and see if that helps.

As an aside - Ni-Cad rechargable batteries develop a charging "memory", and are really designed to go through a full discharge/charge cycle. Running them 1/4 down from full then parking them in a charger is pretty much a guarantee that their little lives will be shortened. If you do opt to replace, buy by the mah (milli amp hour) rating. Higher the number the more charge they hold.

Hope that helps.

-Roger

no motor?

It does help. The charger has a setting that is supposed to counteract the "memory" effect, but using that at the beginning hasn't helped them to hold a charge for longer. If I don't keep them in the charger, they wont work, especially when I tried to use them 2 weekends in a row (I usually only use the lights on Sunday night). The Duracells will hold a charge for longer, I'm getting more of those when it's time to buy more batteries.

Sir Bikesalot

The LaCrosse BC-900 has a charming little "quirk." It won't be able to start charging a battery if it's completely discharged. It doesn't mean the battery is necessarily bad. Try charging them a few minutes in another charger, then switch to the LaCrosse. It's a pain I know. A reviewer on Amazon has found a workaround. It involves shorting a good battery with a "null" battery prior to charging. Search there for details.

Torgrot

First off, I doubt the LaCrosse batteries are NiCads. They are more probably NiMH which don't develop memory problems and in most cases have replaced NiCads. NiMH batteries have another problem, they don't hold a charge for very long. Some newer NiMH batteries i.e. enerloops claim to hold their charge for up to a year. I don't think you can get quite as high a mAh rating on these though.

torgrot