Like to know the status of the electrons and stuff in your batteries? ThinkGeek has the charger you’ve been waiting for.
The LCD display shows capacity for each battery when charging is complete. This charger will not charge defective batteries and has overheat detection to protect over-charging.
The battery charger can also be put in one of four different modes: Charge, Discharge, Refresh and Test mode. The Refresh mode can help to restore old re-chargeable batteries to their optimum condition. The LCD display provides an individual readout for each of the four compartments and can show charging current (in mA), time elapsed (in hh:mm), terminal voltage (in V) and accumulated capacities (in mAh or Ah).
It’s $40 and in stock. If you can’t contain yourself, read the manual while you wait for it to be delivered!
La Crosse Battery Charger [Think Geek]
Excellent post I just b ought one of these, its the top shelf charger.
Repost from last year. But its so good, it is worth it.
If you are the “chuck the batteries in and plug it in” type you will HATE this charger.
I love it, myself. I can choose the rate of charge, rejuvenate dead batteries (takes about a week), measure battery characteristics, etc. I love manual transmission cars, too.
You’ll want to use this with NiMH batteries, do not use it for LIon cells. In the unlikely event that you have some old NiCads around it works with them too.
–Charlie
I got one of these a while back. Throw in some eneloop batteries and you have rechargeable Nirvana.
Anyone know of an equivalent for the UK? (Or even Europe; just want something that’ll be happy on 230V…)
I have one of these chargers, and it’s one of the best consumer products I’ve ever purchased. No kidding. It restored several proviously “dead” rechargable batteries to full functionality.
I bought one of these nearly two years ago and never took it out of the box. I’m goign to do so now!
I have one of these; it’s so sexy that you don’t need to bother buying a vibrator to put the batteries in.
Stumo, the AC adapter is rated for 100-240 VAC, so it should work just fine on 230. You will probably need a plug adapter for your strange and unholy round sockets, though.
–Charlie
#4 – These are branded Technoline and sold by BatteryLogic in the UK. I have one. It’s ace.
I too have one of these and it is excellent. It is also sold by amazon, if you don’t want to give your info out to someone who does not have it. Same $40, but does qualify for super (slow) saver shipping.
Me too. Got mine here: http://www.batterylogic.co.uk/technoline/technoline-bl700.asp
It’s kept my GPS, MP3 and bike lights all tip-top throughout the winter, with no worrying about overcooking a set. The “refresh” mode helped me identify a couple of really dead batteries, too. Nice bit of kit.
You gotta love those Liquid Crystal Display displays.
I bought one of these a year ago. Fantastic charger- I feel I can see inside the battery with this. My previous chargers wont even tell me when the charge is done- this one informs you about each batt individually and tells you how much juice went in. You can choose a charging rate (lower is better for batt health). I bought from Thomas Distributing which had about a 30% discount to Amazon last year (and Amazon was out of stock anyway!) Thomas seems to be well recommended on the webs. I have no affiliation.