SilverFox
Flashaholic
1/9/2006
Many of you are familiar with the La Crosse BC-900 charger. It has a lot of excellent features and has been highly recommended by myself, and others.
In the last month, there have been several reports of meltdowns with this charger. At first I thought it had to do with charging high capacity cells at a low charge rate. Several have reported their chargers and cells melting together when charging Energizer 2500 mAh cells at 200 mA. However, I just recently became aware of another melt down involving Sanyo 2500 mAh cells in the test mode charging at 1000 mA and discharging at 500 mA.
I have been in touch with La Crosse and have discovered that the high temperature shut down on the BC-900 is set for 160 F. It seems that once the outside case of the cell gets to 160 F, there is some momentum left and the cells continue to heat up resulting in a melted case.
The other problem is that the BC-900 does not completely stop the charge in the event of high temperatures. It shuts the charge down until the cell cools off, then resumes charging again.
I have instructed people to keep a watchful eye on their battery charging, and to keep combustibles away. As a result, there have been no reports of loss of property (other than chargers and cells).
I have had no problems with my charger, but in light of the recent reports, I feel a word of caution is advised.
If you have any problems, you can contact La Crosse at 888-211-1923.
Tom
Many of you are familiar with the La Crosse BC-900 charger. It has a lot of excellent features and has been highly recommended by myself, and others.
In the last month, there have been several reports of meltdowns with this charger. At first I thought it had to do with charging high capacity cells at a low charge rate. Several have reported their chargers and cells melting together when charging Energizer 2500 mAh cells at 200 mA. However, I just recently became aware of another melt down involving Sanyo 2500 mAh cells in the test mode charging at 1000 mA and discharging at 500 mA.
I have been in touch with La Crosse and have discovered that the high temperature shut down on the BC-900 is set for 160 F. It seems that once the outside case of the cell gets to 160 F, there is some momentum left and the cells continue to heat up resulting in a melted case.
The other problem is that the BC-900 does not completely stop the charge in the event of high temperatures. It shuts the charge down until the cell cools off, then resumes charging again.
I have instructed people to keep a watchful eye on their battery charging, and to keep combustibles away. As a result, there have been no reports of loss of property (other than chargers and cells).
I have had no problems with my charger, but in light of the recent reports, I feel a word of caution is advised.
If you have any problems, you can contact La Crosse at 888-211-1923.
Tom