Universal Intelligent Battery Charger with LCD for NIMH/NICD AA/AAA/C/D/9V Batteries

by Tenergy

Product Details

• ASIN: B001902EEA
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,554 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 4, 2010

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Versatile battery charger with nice features. Does the job., January 11, 2009

By 

_nicebook_ (Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Universal Intelligent Battery Charger with LCD for NIMH/NICD AA/AAA/C/D/9V Batteries (Electronics)

The Tenergy T6278 Universal Intelligent Battery Charger is one of the smarter chargers on the market. I bought two chargers over the holidays and a bunch of rechargeable batteries (AAA,AA,C,D,9V). Rechargeables are greener than buying dozens of alkalines over the year and throwing them away when they're depleted.

Some chargers only charge AA/AAA batteries; this one charges C,D,9V sizes as well. The charger looks and feels solid, although the door release button feels gummy -- I have to hold down the side of the charger when pressing the button for the door to pop open. The six LED's atop the charger are bright; the 2" x 1" LCD panel actively displays bar graph charge levels for 4 charging cells, whether the cell is BAD (no voltage/no current drawn), when trickle charging=OK. For each battery, the bar graph fills in a downward direction if discharging, upward for charging.

The LCD display is readable, but there's no LCD indication for the 9V port. Also, the LED for the 9V will not change color when charging is done. I found that the charger will discharge batteries while it charges other slots: Place batteries to discharge into the charger first, press the discharge button to start discharging these; Second, insert the batteries to recharge into the other slots -- these will start charging at the same time.

This charger has a mini-fan on the side that draws air from the opposite side of the charger over the batteries to cool them during the charging process; it runs as long as the unit is plugged in, even with no batteries inside. The batteries get very slightly warm with the cover closed, so I guess the fan is ok. This charger monitors the battery voltage during charging; when fully charged, the voltage in the battery will actually drop by a tiny amount (Delta-V) over a very short time. This is the preferred stop-charging indicator. The charger senses this and switches to trickle charging to top off the battery's charge until it's removed. It's supposed to have a safety timer in case a battery is charging for too long, but I've never tested this.

This charger's use of the Delta-V measurement is better than cheaper ones that use a timer to stop charging process -- not all batteries will fully charge given a fixed amount of time -- some may overcharge -- and not all batteries are the same.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice features but cheaply manufactured, November 18, 2008

By 

wwjda2z (Central CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Universal Intelligent Battery Charger with LCD for NIMH/NICD AA/AAA/C/D/9V Batteries (Electronics)

This charger has some good features that are hard to find in a charger but it is somewhat cheaply manufactured and a bit flimsy. It's probably not a good choice for people who are hard on their equipment (kids etc). Mine arrived with the LCD screen hold-down screws stripped out of their plastic holes and the screen would not function.

It can charge 1 to 4 AAA/AA/C/D batteries at a time or two 9 volt. It charges my AAs in about 3 hours. It has a fan that cools the charging batteries (not loud for those who care about noise). It has a 'discharge battery' function to drain NiCad batteries and prevent memory problems but this feature drains all 4 ports at the same time so if you want to charge a NiMh battery while you drain a NiCad, you're out of luck. It gives a rough readout telling how charged each battery is but it's not very accurate.

It has a feature that supposedly tells you when a battery is bad, but it doesn't really work; I placed 3 batteries that I knew were bad (they only hold about 30 seconds of flashlight power) and it did not report any of them as bad - just said they were fully charged in about 5 minutes.

The main unit measures 7.5 x 5.5 x 3 inches. Its wall-plug DC converter is narrow but long (3.5 x 1.5) so it only takes up one outlet when plugged into a lower wall socket or a horizontal outlet bar. The converter's cord is approximately 6 ft long.

A note on its box says it is 'better to charge batteries of the same capacity in each charging process' so if you mix and match battery sizes frequently, there may be some side effect.

Overall, I'm happy with it. Its ability to charge each battery separately (instead of 2 at a time like most chargers) and the cooling fan were enough to make it worth it to me.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a good charger!, May 4, 2009

By 

Jimbone (Calif, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Universal Intelligent Battery Charger with LCD for NIMH/NICD AA/AAA/C/D/9V Batteries (Electronics)

Having owned various batt chargers in the past (including Radioshack), i have to say this is the best one I have owned so far. It is fast and will inform you if your batt is non-chargeable. This latter feature was something that was lacking in all my previous owned ones. I also liked that you can charge different batt types simultaneously. The only con would probably be the fan noise. This thing hums along when plugged in even if you're not charging...lol. Doesn't bother me much. Might for others. I think for the price and practicality this batt charger is a winner in my book. Good luck.