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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Would be a great mobile charger - except for one flaw, August 14, 2009
This review is from: Duracell Go Mobile Charger / Rechargeable / includes car adaptor and 2 AA / 2 AAA precharged, rechargeable batteries, (Health and Beauty)
The Duracell Go Mobile Charger CEF26 sounds like an ideal solution for recharging AA/AAA cells on the road. It accepts either universal AC (100-240V) or 12V from car battery, and it recharges cells in just around one hour. Note that many other so called 'one hour' charger usually require at least 2 hours when charging 4 cells. But this Duracell Go Mobile charger charges at the same current of 2.3A (for AA) or 0.98A (for AAA) whether you put in 2 or 4 cells. That's why it takes less than one hour to fully recharge those included 2000mAh Duracell Pre Charged AA cells.
Unfortunately, there is a major design flaw with this charger: it charges in pairs only. That is, you can only recharge either 2 or 4 cells, and you cannot group AA and AAA in a pair.
Why is charging NiMH cells in pairs a very bad idea? Suppose you have one cell that is only partially discharged, and another one that is fully discharged. When you charge those two as a pair in this charger, the charging process will terminate as soon as the first cell is full (signaled by a negative dV/dt in the combined voltage). But the second cell is still half empty at this point. Naturally, when you use those two cells together in an appliance, the power will run out much sooner.
Then there's always the problem when your appliance requires either one or three cells. Now you are left with one drained cell that you cannot charge. If you try to charge a drained cell in series with a full one, you're end up with the above situation again.
If you always use identical NiMH cells in pairs, and you never mix up cells from different appliances, then the Go Mobile Charger is still worth considering. For the rest of us, however, the Duracell Mobile Charger CEF23DX4N may be a better choice. It charges cells individually (but at a lower current of 550mA), has four status indicator lights, and even doubles as an USB power source.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
really good...but with a big drawback., December 22, 2009
This review is from: Duracell Go Mobile Charger / Rechargeable / includes car adaptor and 2 AA / 2 AAA precharged, rechargeable batteries, (Health and Beauty)
I would like to give this charger 5 stars, I really would. It charges both the batteries it came with and the extra pack of NiMh AAA's I bought seperately in record time, between 30-45 mins usually. That is spectacular.
However, it absolutely will not charge any of the batteries I already own and have charged previously with a different charger. Eight of these are Duracell NiMh 1000mAh AAA's and are less than two months old. And they charge fine in my old charger. I also have assorted AA's I tried, some of which are Duracell and are all NiMh and fall within the specs of the charger. No dice, it just flashes red.
So, if you are planning to charge only new Duracell batteries and only in this specific charger, then this may be the charger for you. If your situation is like mine, then you will likely need to have two chargers going. Just remember not to mix up your batteries or all you will have in the end is a charger that constantly flashes red.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Duracell Go Mobile Charger, December 18, 2009
This review is from: Duracell Go Mobile Charger / Rechargeable / includes car adaptor and 2 AA / 2 AAA precharged, rechargeable batteries, (Health and Beauty)
So far...The Duracell Go Mobile Charger is working as advertised...I will report to you at a later date how it performs over time...I was impressed with how quickly it charged four Duracell AAA nimh pre-charged Batteries [about 30 min.]...
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