PowerGenix ZR-PGX1HRAA-4B 1 Hour Quick Charger with 4 AA 1.6v NiZn Rechargeable Batteries

by PowerGenix

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 1.8 x 4 x 7 inches ; 6.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0029NZVZ0
• Item model number: PGX1HRCH-4AAZiNc-1.6v
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #51 in Electronics > Accessories & Supplies > Batteries, Chargers & Accessories > Household Batteries > AA
  • #56 in Electronics > Accessories & Supplies > Batteries, Chargers & Accessories > Household Batteries > Rechargeable
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 5, 2009

Product Description

PowerGenix – 1 Hour Quick Charger with 4 AA 1.6v Nickel Zinc high voltage rechargeable batteries 2500mWh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

348 of 372 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nickel-Zinc battery technology not exactly as advertised, July 19, 2009

By 

NLee the Engineer (Nashua, NH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 10 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: PowerGenix ZR-PGX1HRAA-4B 1 Hour Quick Charger with 4 AA 1.6v NiZn Rechargeable Batteries (Electronics)

This product (PowerGenix 4-Position Charger with 4 AA High Voltage 1.6v 2500 mWh ZiNc Rechargeable Batteries) contains an 'one hour' charger specially designed for Nickel-Zinc AA/AAA cells. But it does not fully recharge to 100% within one hour. If you read the fine prints, it actually says "For maximum capacity from batteries charge up to 2.5 hours".

Despite its misleading name, this is actually a decent 'smart' charger. It works from universal input voltage (100-240V), and accepts 1-4 AA cells or 1-2 AAA cells. Each cell is charged individually (not in pairs). The red LED lights up during charging, and the green LED lights up when done. Just remember that you must not use this NiZn charger for NiMH cells, and vice versa.

The batteries are the new Nickel-Zinc rechargeable AA cells. The greatest selling feature of NiZn cell is its higher terminal voltage. The nominal operating voltage of NiZn is 1.65V, which is very close to alkaline and 30% higher than NiMH (1.25V nominal). However, when freshly charged, the NiZn terminal voltage is around 1.85V, which is dangerously high for most battery-operated appliances.

Upon closer examination, many of the alleged benefits of NiZn turn out to be just marketing hypes. For examples:

"Higher Energy Density":
Despite what the confusing rating on the package ("2500 milli-WATT-hour") may suggest, the PowerGenix AA cell does NOT contain more energy than a SANYO eneloop AA cell. This is because its current capacity is much lower at just 1500 milli-Ampere-hour (based on data sheet of PowerGenix AA cell, and verified by my own testing).
- Energy in eneloop AA cell: 1.25V * 2000mAh = 2500mWh
- Energy in PowerGenix AA cell: 1.65V * 1500mAh = 2475mWh

As an example: Suppose a set of 4 eneloop AA cells can power your external flash unit for 1500 shots, then a set of 4 PowerGenix AA cells will provide roughly the same number of shots. The difference is that your flash unit will recycle about 30% faster with the NiZn cells due to 30% higher battery voltage. On the other hand, this high rate of fire could cause the flash to over-heat and burn out.

"Long Cycle Life":
PowerGenix claims that NiZn has a service life that 'meets or beats' that of NiMH cells. But according to technical data found on PowerGenix web site, the NiZn cell is only rated for 200 cycles at 100% deep discharge. Most NiMH cells are rated for 500-1000 deep discharge cycles.

"Long Shelf Life":
PowerGenix claims the NiZn cells have longer shelf life than Lead-Acid batteries (which are notorious for high self-discharge rate), but did not compare against NiMH cells. In the "Charging Procedure" section, it says to recharge the NiZn battery every 30 days!

In summary: While the higher voltage offered by PowerGenix NiZn cells sounds attractive, it could damage or shorten the life span of your battery-operated appliances. In addition, NiZn cell does not pack more energy than eneloop NiMH cell, yet it suffers from lower cycle life and higher self-discharge rate.

On the other hand, suppose you have an inexpensive camera (*cough*Kodak*cough*) that does not work well with NiMH cells, then the higher voltage offered by NiZn cells may be exactly what you need. If your camera gets fried... oh well, at least you have an excuse to upgrade to a better camera!

[Update on Feb 9, 2010]
Several people have commented that my review above is heavy on technical data and not on personal usage experience. Please note that it was written shortly after NiZn AA cell was introduced. See my other review on PowerGenix ZRPGX-AA8 AA 8 Pack, which was written 3 months after this one. It includes my preliminary test results on self-discharge rate (good) and cell longevity (not so good).

Another point to note is that: since I'm an engineer, I'm overly concerned about applying 20% higher voltage (1.8V vs. 1.5V) to any electronic appliances. For example, I have tested my MAGLITE SP2209H 2-AA Cell Mini LED Flashlight over difference input voltage, and concluded that applying anything higher than 3.3V is dangerous (see my Customer Image for details). But other people may be happy to get extra light from higher voltage, without knowing that this can severely shorten the lifespan of the LED. Ignorance is bliss.

[Update on Nov 21, 2010]
My original review was written more than one year ago. At that time, I was just pointing out the marketing hypes surrounding the release of this product. Since then, I also found NiZn cells to be very poor in terms of quality and longevity.

My first set of four NiZn cells was used for capacity testing and long-term self-discharge testing. They have gone though maybe 20-30 deep discharge/recharge cycles (discharged down to 0.9V only, not 0V) over the past year. As of right now, two out of four cells have already failed, suffering from voltage depression and rapid self-discharge problems. The other two suffered from reduced capacity (~1200mAh, down from the original 1500mAh). The PowerGenix '1-hour' charger needs to detect 1.9V during charging, before it can change from constant-current mode to constant-voltage mode. When voltage-depression hits a cell, its voltage cannot reach 1.9V during charging, so the NiZn charger will simply fry the cell!

[Update Jan 31, 2011]
I recently discovered two other problems with the PowerGenix '1-hour' charger.

1. If a NiZn cell has been severely over-discharged and its voltage drops below 0.5V, the charger may not be able to detect its presence. If you insert this 'dead' cell together with three other good cells, the charger will not give you any warning signal (red LED flashing). But by the time the charger finished charging (green LED on), this dead cell is still empty. In this case, you need to use a 'dumb' NiMH charger to charge the dead cell for a few minutes, so that it can be recognized by the PowerGenix charger again.

2. If you store a set of fully charged batteries in this unplugged charger, each cell will be draining a current about 5.7mA into the charger. That means after about 10 days, all cells will be completely drained! With most other NiMH chargers I have tested, the leakage current is only 0.05-0.5mA, so you can store cells in them for several months without too much loss.

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are these things really better? Or are they going to destroy your gear?, December 7, 2009

By 

James P. Garin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PowerGenix ZR-PGX1HRAA-4B 1 Hour Quick Charger with 4 AA 1.6v NiZn Rechargeable Batteries (Electronics)

Interesting technology....and somewhat scary if you look at the 1.8 volt figure. I got a 2 set of them to test. I have UW LED lights..and two large strobes that both take 4 AA batteries.

Until trying these, I have been using eneloop's (or the japanese duracell version)..which are very nice nimh's. The larger capacity standard rechargables work well in the strobes for the first 20 or 30 cycles, but eventually one of them will have charging/discharge issues and mess up the strobe firing and recycle time.

As they are higher voltage, there is the possibility that they would not work, or could damage equipment, so I started my testing with a simple 4 AA LED light that produces around 100 lumins. I charged the batteries and put them in light, and tested the light for one hour every week. The light was slightly brighter initially, but to my amazement, did not loss very much brightness over a two month test window (standard Ninh's drop off considerably after the two houra with this light). After nine weeks and 9 hours, I stopped the test (the light is supposed to last 6 hours with standard Ninh's).

Note: Capacity and discharge rate are related with batteries....faster usually means less capacity, slower means more.

Only issue I had was that this underwater light was not meant to be run for any length of time on the surface and there was some heat distortion of the plastic case making getting the thing apart really tough. My latter tests were with lights in water.

Then I installed them in a larger LED with 180 lumin light output....to my surprise, the light was the same intensity as with Ninh's.. as it turns out the unit has a voltage regulation system and and over temperature sensor.. which never went off. However, overall light output was much more consistent over the 4 hours I tested it. ( the time the mfg stated the light would be at around 25% output).

Having success with these two guys, I tried them out in one of my strobes. Ok, the recycle time is faster... and I suppose, if my camera could recycle faster and I could shoot fast enough to over heat them. However, I would find that very difficult to do, as one has to focus and compose the shot, and that takes time.

Strobes and cameras tend to do short duration, rapid charging... which is very stressful to batteries. Each of my strobes have three flash heads, and they recycle in around 2 -3 seconds and have any battery variation in internal resistance or capacity and they will not charge correctly. It has been common to shoot 40 or 50 flash images, and then have to reset the auto system due to a faulty charge cycle...

Note: These are underwater strobes, and essentially every image is a strobe pictures...so far this year, that means around 5,000 strobe flashes.

Recyle time, after a couple hundred flashes, takes less than an hour, compared with the typical 4 hours for eneloops and the best battery chargers I can find.

No battery I have used has ever recharged as fast or been as cool after recharging. That, by itself, would make it 5 stars to me.

I have tested the voltage after using them in the strobes for a day and have only seen less than a .1 volt variation.

I think the charging time issue is nothing more than the difference between a typical charge and the time it takes to completely charge dead batteris.. which hopefully no one does.

I happen to have all the test equipment necessary to do detailed electrical analysis... but these are just batteries and in the end, they either work better or they don't....

Nice product...

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powers Things Longer than NiMh AA's, November 16, 2009

By 

Kevin Larke "Radio Nut" (SAint Johns, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PowerGenix ZR-PGX1HRAA-4B 1 Hour Quick Charger with 4 AA 1.6v NiZn Rechargeable Batteries (Electronics)

I've been using these new nickel-zinc AA cells for about 2 months now. I'm impressed by how long they will power things compared to the usual NiMh cells.

I have a Magellan GPS unit that uses 2 AA's. It was probably designed for alkaline cells. New alkaline cells give a full scale battery bargraph, but freshly charged NiMh cells only make the bargraph hit about 80%. NiMh cells drop to about half scale after an hour. I only get about 4 hours with NiMh cells before the voltage drops too low and it turns itself off. Alkalines will last about 7 hours. The new PowerGenix NiZn cells give a full scale battery bargraph for about 3-1/2 hours, then it slowly drops until the unit turns off. My first test powered the GPS for 6 hours and 20 minutes, the second time it went 6 hours and 55 minutes. I left the batteries in the charger longer the second time I charged them, about 4 hours instead of 2. With my GPS, the PowerGenix AA's lasted almost twice as long as 2200mAh NiMh.

I have also used these in my Fuji digital camera that uses 2 AA's. They also last a long time, longer than the NiMh cells I have used in the past. The LCD display is also just a little brighter with the NiZn cells.

I have a little Grundig G6 radio that also uses 2 AA's. It won't turn on with these installed. I'm guessing that the radio is sensing the higher than usual voltage (about 3.6 volts) and won't power up. This is the only device I have found so far that isn't happy with the NiZn cells.

When these come out of the charger, they read about 1.82 volts without a load using my Fluke DMM. Of course the voltage will drop when current is drawn and as the battery discharges.

To sum it up, these cells act a lot more like alkaline cells with the higher voltage available. It takes a lot longer for the voltage to drop down to about 1.2 volts per cell when comparing to NiMh types. These start off at a higher voltage than alkaline and take a good long time to drop to the point when you need to recharge.

Give these a try, I think you'll be happy. I'll be buying more AA's and some of the AAA size when they are available.