Hello all!
Here is my review of the Ambient Weather BC-2000 battery charger/analyzer. It is not a full blown in-depth, lab tested, guns blazing review, just my own observations using the unit. I am still new to this so, if I missed something fundemental to evaluation, constructive feedback is welcome.
I have had this charger for about two weeks and have probably spent way too much time thinking about batteries and charging them in that time than I really care to.
I pulled out all but a few of the rechargeable batteries from my various devices. One thing I noticed is that Duracell really has had many different looking batteries over the years. I count 5 different looking cells in my small collection of about 20. They are all AA batteries. The AAA I have are in infrequently used devices and I have never had to recharge them, believe it or not.
Anyway, here goes...
Modes
The manual gives just basic information with some explanation of how things work and why they are the way they are. There was quite a bit of trial and error on my part before I could figure out how to effectively use the unit. For instance, I didn't realize there were rest periods in between charge/discharge cycles using Refresh mode. I had no idea what the unit was doing really. Even today I am guessing at some things.
Charge/Discharge modes are pretty much self-explanatory
Charge Test mode can be used to find out the capacity of a battery (in mAh shown after discharge part of the cycle). It charges, discharges, then it charges one more time to finish.
Refresh mode is used to try and "fix" older batteries that won't take a useful charge or any charge at all. It will do 3 charge/discharge cycles and one more charge to finish. As you can imagine, this takes a very long time (the better part of two days in my case). So you should consider this and maybe only use this mode as a last resort.
Quick Test mode is very fast and displays the internal resistance of your batteries measured in mOhms. I'm not sure how useful this truly is as most of my cells are in the 50-75 mOhm range and do charge well. The one outlier in my collection @ 100 mOhm won't take a charge of more than 450mAh. I can't even imagine what a battery with a rating of 500 mOhm would be like (recommended end of life according to some battery experts).
Pros
Cons/Suggested Improvements
Conclusion
Overall, I am basically happy with this charger/analyzer. It does a much better job than the standard Duracell chargers I've been using and it is fairly inexpensive. That said, there's much to be desired and I would be much happier if some of my suggestions were already incorporated here. Of course, I would certainly be willing to pay more for it too if that were so. Regardless, I'm probably ok for now.
Here is my review of the Ambient Weather BC-2000 battery charger/analyzer. It is not a full blown in-depth, lab tested, guns blazing review, just my own observations using the unit. I am still new to this so, if I missed something fundemental to evaluation, constructive feedback is welcome.
I have had this charger for about two weeks and have probably spent way too much time thinking about batteries and charging them in that time than I really care to.
I pulled out all but a few of the rechargeable batteries from my various devices. One thing I noticed is that Duracell really has had many different looking batteries over the years. I count 5 different looking cells in my small collection of about 20. They are all AA batteries. The AAA I have are in infrequently used devices and I have never had to recharge them, believe it or not.Anyway, here goes...
Modes
- Charge
- Discharge
- Charge Test
- Refresh
- Quick Test
The manual gives just basic information with some explanation of how things work and why they are the way they are. There was quite a bit of trial and error on my part before I could figure out how to effectively use the unit. For instance, I didn't realize there were rest periods in between charge/discharge cycles using Refresh mode. I had no idea what the unit was doing really. Even today I am guessing at some things.
Charge/Discharge modes are pretty much self-explanatory
Charge Test mode can be used to find out the capacity of a battery (in mAh shown after discharge part of the cycle). It charges, discharges, then it charges one more time to finish.
Refresh mode is used to try and "fix" older batteries that won't take a useful charge or any charge at all. It will do 3 charge/discharge cycles and one more charge to finish. As you can imagine, this takes a very long time (the better part of two days in my case). So you should consider this and maybe only use this mode as a last resort.
Quick Test mode is very fast and displays the internal resistance of your batteries measured in mOhms. I'm not sure how useful this truly is as most of my cells are in the 50-75 mOhm range and do charge well. The one outlier in my collection @ 100 mOhm won't take a charge of more than 450mAh. I can't even imagine what a battery with a rating of 500 mOhm would be like (recommended end of life according to some battery experts).
Pros
- Inexpensive
- Backlit LCD
- Fairly Compact
- Charge rate selectable in 200ma units from 200ma to 1000ma (1400ma for slots 1 and 4 if only charging 2 cells)
- No noisy fan
- Thermal Protection
Cons/Suggested Improvements
- Although it does have a backlit LCD it gets its light from two LEDs on each side of the display. This isn't sufficient enough to really do the job well. As a result the screen is very unevenly lit.
- Backlight only stays on for 30 seconds at a time.
- The unit has no audible sound to indicate transition between cycles or upon completion of the selected mode.
- Even with the improvements in v2.1 the bays are still a bit snug for my taste.
- Could use an on/off switch. Unplugging/re-plugging the power seems kind of tacky.
- When batteries are fully charged the display shows "Full". Pressing the Display button cycles through ma > Volts > mAh > Time. However, the display will fall back to "Full" within just a couple seconds. I found this really annoying when trying to write down the final voltage and current readings in my tests. What's the rush to display "Full" anyway? I already know the batteries are full.
- The unit will go into Charge mode with fully charged batteries (maybe 1-2 days since last full charge with no load on them) for quite some time (as long as 35 minutes) before it stops. To me, 5 minutes would be reasonable, but 30?
- The unit seems pretty solid but has something rattling inside it.
Conclusion
Overall, I am basically happy with this charger/analyzer. It does a much better job than the standard Duracell chargers I've been using and it is fairly inexpensive. That said, there's much to be desired and I would be much happier if some of my suggestions were already incorporated here. Of course, I would certainly be willing to pay more for it too if that were so. Regardless, I'm probably ok for now.
