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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2005
Ni-MH batteries have become ubiquitous over the past decade. Their low cost and ever-increasing capacity make them a great alternative to alkaline batteries. Of course, you need to keep these batteries charged... And that's where things get complicated.
Charging Ni-MH batteries is the result of a compromise. A low current is gentle on the battery and maximizes its lifespan, but a full charge takes hours.
A high current will recharge the battery much faster, but put more strain on it, causing it to wear out prematurely. It also requires careful monitoring of the battery's electrical characteristics to prevent damage.
Most of the chargers you can find on the market today use one or the other of these methods. The fast chargers, especially the cheap ones, excel at one thing: destroying perfectly good batteries, because they lack the monitoring circuitry to control the charge current and detect when the battery is full. The slow chargers are usually better, mainly because it's harder to design a really bad slow charger. Unfortunately... they're slow.
The BC-900 is a completely different breed: it lets you pick the charge current for each individual battery, has very sophisticated monitoring circuitry that controls the charging process, and is also capable of "renewing" batteries by running full controlled discharge-recharge cycles.
I was a little skeptical that a fairly inexpensive product would be so thorough, but after reading all the 5-star reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did: it's all it's cracked up to be, and more. I ran all my AA and AAA batteries through it; some of them had been destroyed by my previous charger, and it weeded those out right away; some were in pretty bad shape, but a refresh brought them back to life at almost full capacity.
The pleasant surprise was to find out all the freebies that come with the charger: four AA and four AAA batteries to get you started, four C-cell adapters, four D-cell adapters, and a nifty carrying case.
The less pleasant surprise: it can take several days to refresh batteries. I suppose this explains why the box didn't contain a cigarette lighter car adapter. Also, different batteries will take a different amount of time to complete a similar charging cycle. The charging slots being individually powered and monitored, it's not a real issue, since you can yank out any cell that's finished charging and insert the next one that needs recharging as soon as the little LCD screen warns you it's done.
As far as I know this is the best charger you can buy. It's reliable, gentle on the batteries, has useful capabilities not found on other models, and comes with a lot of extras. It's more expensive than your ordinary cheap slow charger, but the increased battery lifespan more than makes up for the price difference.
Highly recommended.
Charging Ni-MH batteries is the result of a compromise. A low current is gentle on the battery and maximizes its lifespan, but a full charge takes hours.
A high current will recharge the battery much faster, but put more strain on it, causing it to wear out prematurely. It also requires careful monitoring of the battery's electrical characteristics to prevent damage.
Most of the chargers you can find on the market today use one or the other of these methods. The fast chargers, especially the cheap ones, excel at one thing: destroying perfectly good batteries, because they lack the monitoring circuitry to control the charge current and detect when the battery is full. The slow chargers are usually better, mainly because it's harder to design a really bad slow charger. Unfortunately... they're slow.
The BC-900 is a completely different breed: it lets you pick the charge current for each individual battery, has very sophisticated monitoring circuitry that controls the charging process, and is also capable of "renewing" batteries by running full controlled discharge-recharge cycles.
I was a little skeptical that a fairly inexpensive product would be so thorough, but after reading all the 5-star reviews on Amazon I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did: it's all it's cracked up to be, and more. I ran all my AA and AAA batteries through it; some of them had been destroyed by my previous charger, and it weeded those out right away; some were in pretty bad shape, but a refresh brought them back to life at almost full capacity.
The pleasant surprise was to find out all the freebies that come with the charger: four AA and four AAA batteries to get you started, four C-cell adapters, four D-cell adapters, and a nifty carrying case.
The less pleasant surprise: it can take several days to refresh batteries. I suppose this explains why the box didn't contain a cigarette lighter car adapter. Also, different batteries will take a different amount of time to complete a similar charging cycle. The charging slots being individually powered and monitored, it's not a real issue, since you can yank out any cell that's finished charging and insert the next one that needs recharging as soon as the little LCD screen warns you it's done.
As far as I know this is the best charger you can buy. It's reliable, gentle on the batteries, has useful capabilities not found on other models, and comes with a lot of extras. It's more expensive than your ordinary cheap slow charger, but the increased battery lifespan more than makes up for the price difference.
Highly recommended.
