Cheap Recharger Better Than Expensive?

[markc987]

Hi all,

I have been lurking for a while now and finally got around to registering. I recently found a mini-mag that I had put in a carton months ago with some totally dead but good quality Sony 2300's. I put these in what I would consider my better recharger, a Lacrosse BC-900, and got nothing at all. The charger couldnt see the batteries at all and just said NULL. So I tossed them in the trash but later on a hunch I pulled them out and put them in one of those cheap 4 cell chargers that plug directly into the wall. Later when I checked that charger was able to charge them and then the Lacrosse could also. Can anyone explain this? I hate to think about others I threw away when the Lacrosse couldn't see them.

Mark

 

[Fallingwater]

The expensive charger is a smart one, and thus better. The only problem smart chargers have is that sometimes they refuse to charge a cell that's dropped to zero. A dumb charger like your cheap one will throw energy into pretty much anything you put in it (that's not necessarily a good thing), and it has done just that with your cells.
After they had some energy in them, the smart charger picked them up again.

I advise to use the smart charger whenever possible. Use the other one just as a cell defibrillator.

Edit: oh, and yes, you probably did throw away a few perfectly good cells.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Mark,

Welcome to CPF.

The better chargers do a voltage check to make sure the cell is good for charging. This protects against trying to charge shorted cells, and alkaline cells.

If your cells did not trigger the BC-900 to start charging, there is a good chance that they have been damaged by over discharging. Your other charger doesn't check for anything. It simply applies a current for a period of time. Sometimes over discharged cells can be brought back, but usually they end up with reduced capacity and higher than normal self discharge.

Run a test on them. If they come up less than around 1800 mAh, recycle them and move on. If they still have good capacity, then charge them up and let them sit for a few days. If the voltage rapidly drops off, recycle them and move on.

At the least, mark them so you can keep track of them. Sometimes you can recover them and they will work decently. Most of the time it is best to recycle them and move on.

Tom

 

[LuxLuthor]

Mark, welcome to CPF. It was a good question, and one that many do not understand, and just throw away the battery.

 

[TorchBoy]

Use the other one just as a cell defibrillator.

Brilliant terminology. I had to do that to one cell recently, but it was my MH-C9000 which did the defib, presumeably by its impedance test zapping it back to life. My not so smart charger had I think just looked at the cell's voltage and rejected it.

 

[mdocod]

a $20 BC-1HU, which is sold under a variety of names, often re-badged for the seller to look like an "in-house" brand is a pretty darn good economy charger that will charge up cells nearly as well as any "pricey/fancy" charger out there. It doesn't have much along the lines of bells and whistles, but it does seem to terminate properly on AAA-C size cells, then followed by a slow trickle charge, (sometimes it misses the end-of-charge indications on cells above ~6AH)

spending some extra bucks for a faster charger that will properly terminate on larger format cells is probably the better way to go, but the BC-1HU is a good bargain.