NiMH AA cells & Charger - any help?

Hi guys,

I need help to choose the best AA cell & charger, also in respect for value vs money.

I need the cells for my Nikon SB80 Flash and for my son "hungry" toys.

Thanks

Well I am not sure if its the best, but I use a Maha four channel charger. I was using a two channel charger but something about that bothered me. With the two channel charger, you have to charge in pairs and they batteries should be in the same condition. Since there are many things that I use rechargables in, I am afraid I will eventually put two batteries of different charge level in the same channel. Example: A half drained battery and a fully drained battery. I do not know if it will overcharge the half drained battery, undercharge the drained battery, or a little of both. I prefer not to worry about it so I use 4 channel chargers and be done with it. I wonder how others feel about this aspect of battery charger.

I use maha 2200 because of the reviews I have seen on some camera sites. I do not know if they are the best but each review says that Maha does not over rate ther products.

I just bought a 15 minute Rayovac charger and batteries at Walmart. $28 for the charger and 2 batteries (2000 mah). 4 more batteries are $13. The charger has 4 independent circuits. It's pretty convenient.

Are you sure the Rayovac charger is a 4 channel? I heard that these chargers also had quiet a few complaints.

Each Rayovac 15 minute battery has a chip in it that talks to the charger, so each battery has to be charged independently.

It says right on the package - "Charges 1 to 4 AA or AAA".

I just read through 3 recent threads regarding the Rayovac 15 minute charger and the only "complaint" I saw was that the batteries may not be fully charged after 15 minutes. For me, that is actually a plus, because I don't want to accidentally burn up my 5W luxeon, or my 1W luxeon. When the batteries are at 1.3 volts they deliver just the right amount of current.

One important factor which was overlooked in the posts I read is that if you want to charge more than 4 batteries per day, this charger is a great boone. I'm using 6 rechargeables to power my 5W and 3 rechargeables to power my 1W, so I really like the speedy turnaround.

I like the Maha MHC401fs. You can buy several 1750-1800mah batteries for the cost of 1 2000-2200mah battery. See http://www.thomas-distributing.com/batteries-size.htm
& see what's on sale..........

LightScene - not having NiMH batteries fully charged is not going to have any measurable affect on the voltage. Take a look at the manufacturer's discharge curves sometime. I use a cheap charger at 50-90ma to top off my batteries ocassionally.

I'm usually not near electricity when I need a fresh set of batteries, so a quick charger won't help. I keep about a dozen extra charged. I haven't needed a 15 minute charger yet (an hour is fine) & I don't like the fact that it only works with special batteries. Eventually they will all be suitable for this. -RussH