Charger question

I just got one of those on clearance from Target. I have not had a chance to test it yet, but the specs are good. It should be fine.
 
I just charged two Hybriloops in this charger to try it out. The charger itself has a very nice and solid feel and a good mechanical design. The LCD display has a pretty blue back light as well.

Unfortunately the charger and the two batteries got very warm during charging. I measured both cells at 55°C at the end of charging, and nearly as warm for a long time before that. A lot of the heat seemed to come from the charger itself and got transmitted to the batteries.

Maybe the temperatures would be less with four batteries at the lower 500 mA rate rather than the 1000 mA rate for two batteries, but such temperatures are not a good sign. For comparison the Duracell Power Gauge charger that takes about 5 hours at 450 mA and the Sanyo MQN05 that takes 7 hours at 350 mA both remain completely cool during charging, as do the batteries.

So concerning this Targus/Titanium charger I'm not sure. It looks nice, but the operating temperatures are higher than I'd like to see.
 
Ok thanks for the info.. I was thinking of ordering the sanyo with four eneloops. I'll wait a little bit. There is a lot of info to consider for sure.
 
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