Help with specific chargers (Titanium, Maha, Sony..)

Hello everyone,

First of all, I found this forum a wealth of information. Thanks to the users' informative posts. I am in the process of getting a AA charger to my dig cam. I have been looking around and reached the following options

1) Titanium Universal Battery Charger that can be found at

http://www.amondotech.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=727

It seems a good one but I can hardly find any user feedback

2) Sony BCG-34HRMD4 available on Amazon and Thomas Distributing at

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/sony-lcd-rechargeable-battery-charger.htm

From one review I read it seems it supports batteries in the range of 18xx - 2300, however I am not sure if this is correct.

3) BC-900 but I am a bit hesitant after reading about its overheating issue.

4) Maha C401FS at

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/mhc401fs.htm


I will be very grateful if you can help with any experience or info you have or any suggestions for other brands. Also, info on batteries will be appreciated.

Thanks.

How about a 15 min charger, is it any good?

DIGIC:

Welcome to CPF!

Look here:Charger Comparison

Yeah, very hard work by Tom indeed. Unfortunately, he couldn't get his hands on either Sony or Titanium V1EC-BC2HU. I like the Sony one for its brand name but I don't think that is enough though.

I am currently using an Energizer 15 minute and a Duracell 30 minute charger. Both seem fine. I opened up the vents for the fan on the Energizer before even using it. Don't know if it helps or not. The Duracell could have temp sensor strips at the negative terminal end. It can get a cell very hot if it is not fully snuggled down to the strip. Don't know if it trickle charges as the instructions were sketchy and the website is only battery orientated.

I have an older Maha 204 and would consider the 401 if I needed to charge individual cells. The Maha 204 at least works best with a small fan blowing on the kit to keep the cells happy. They do not get all that hot anyway but I am kind of freaky on those things.

From what I have read on the Lacrosse, it is a combination of low charging rates on large cap cells not having a voltage trigger that the circuit can detect. Most of the meltdowns seem to be with 2500's and 200ma charging.

Hello Digic; welcome to CPF.

I have all four chargers, and love every one of them. Any of them are an excellent choice for a portable size charger. With that said, since you know I like them all, I can tell you what I find as the drawback to each.

Since I count wall warts as a drawback to any portable device, the Sony, and particularly the Titanium are the only ones of the four that doesn't use one. The Sony does use an external power cord, but no wall wart. That leaves the Titanium as the only totally self-contained unit.

The Titanium and Sony are very similar except for the use of the power cord. The Titanium plugs directly into the outlet. If your outlets are near the floor then the only way to monitor the LED icons is to get down on the floor. There's no obvious way of knowing it's finished charging unless you do view the icons.

The Sony is one I had before Sony revealed their ethics, so unless they haul their CEO and responsible parties off to prison, it's not likely I would purchase their product again; but, that's just a personal aversion rather than a feature problem. The Sony is available under another name, or appears to be, so it may be possible to purchase it without doing business with Sony.

The BC-900, while having some problems documented in this forum, hasn't been any problem for me. I just prefer something a bit more intuitive and straightforward in operation. I hate having to refresh my memory on use by rereading an operation manual when I haven't use something in awhile.

Another important issue is the ability to leave a charger plugged in, with the charger recognizing and initializing through a process other than power-up. All of the chargers other than the Maha have to have the batteries installed first, and then connected to the power in order to initialize the charge process. With the self-contained Titanium, that's not an issue. With the BC-900 and the Sony it is. With the Maha, I just leave it plugged in and drop a cell into it when I want. It's slow charge selection is also great for topping off a cell overnight.

Of the four, my preference for use are the Maha and Titanium; although I still count the Sony and the BC-900 as excellent chargers.

Thank you very much for the VERY helpful info. Just before you post, I ended up placing an order for the Sony one on Amazon at $25.99 including everything + their 4 x 2300 AA batteries, which I thought it is a good deal. Sony ended up having the lowest price with what you also confirmed of having comparable capabilities.

I think that it was not so bad decision anyways.

Hello,

The Sony can charge 2500mAh cells (check here) and, although it doesn't say so, it will trickle charge for an hour after the quick charge. This is just an observation my BCG-34HRD4, similar to yours but with LED instead of LCD.