Duracell Power Gauge Charger Question

556man

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I saw some Duracell Power Gauge charger with 4 batteries for $15.00. Are these good chargers? There's also a LED indicator that displays the charge status for each battery. Are these smart or a dumb charger? Are the Duracell Mobile charger better?

Thanks in advance for your input.

556man
 
Definitely a good charger. Not too fast, but easy on the cells and terminates reliably. Charges AA at 400 mA, AAA at 175 mA, IIRC. The "Gauge" lights are a bit of a fakey, though. At start, one red LED comes on, at two hours the second comes on, and at four hours the third comes on, so they are really nothing but timers, and are no indication of charge. It IS smart, and if a near-full cell is inserted that will finish in, say, an hour, when it is full the charger will go from one red LED to all three and the green "complete" one. NOT a timer charger, and all four bays are completely independent. That is a good price, and I think these are no longer being produced. The cells that usually come with it are very good, for non-LSD (low self-discharge) cells. They are typically marked 1700 mAh, but tend to test at a higher capacity in the 1800-2000 mAh range.

The Mobile charger, also discontinued now, is very simillar. It charges at 550 mA, for AA and AAA. It does not use a cord, must be plugged directly into the socket. It also has a 12V power input, but is not always sold with the car adapter cord. Both chargers can be used to charge USB devices, like IPods, when not charging batteries, but the Mobile charger can be loaded with four charged batteries and used to charge a USB device while not plugged in, if you ever wanted to do such a thing.

I like them both, and have more than one of each. Sad to see them go, so far it seems that Duracell will be replacing them with a "faster" charger. Not always a good thing.
 
I've also had good luck with this charger. Occasionally one of my old batteries will be rejected (charge light flashes), but most charge up just fine. If you use the USB charge port the battery slots are inoperative.

Geoff
 
My Duracell Power Gauge is my favorite charger. If I saw one for $15 I would buy it like a shot.

Things I like about it:

  • Four independent charging channels
  • Separate progress lights for each channel
  • Reliable charge termination
  • Batteries stay very cool while charging
  • Batteries get a very complete charge
  • World wide voltage input
  • Has an external "figure8" power cord; easy to swap for different countries or use with plug adapter
  • Durable and solid construction
In short, the Power Gauge is one of the best "set it and forget it" chargers ever seen on the market.
 
I just noticed there's a pair of these chargers for sale in the Marketplace. One includes 2 pre-charged AA and 2 pre-charged AAA cells and a 12 volt adapter, the other includes 2 pre-charged AA cells:

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com ... post2351804

The post doesn't state whether or not any of the pre-charged cells are 'Duraloops', but this be readily determined by the seller without opening the packages.
 
Thank you Hondo, Flying Turtle, Mr Happy and Bones for your input. The good reviews you all gave made me buy 5 of those chargers. Got those chargers from Big Lots and it came with 4 1700 cells. I will be replacing my 4 dumb chargers with these.


Thanks again,
556man :twothumbs

Charger2.jpg


Charger1.jpg
 
I just realized this thread is concerning the Duracell Power Gauge charger and not their Mobile charger, which is what I linked.

My apologies for any confusion caused.
 
Thank you Hondo, Flying Turtle, Mr Happy and Bones for your input. The good reviews you all gave made me buy 5 of those chargers. Got those chargers from Big Lots and it came with 4 1700 cells. I will be replacing my 4 dumb chargers with these.
Wow! Why do you need so many chargers? :thinking:
 
Wow! Why do you need so many chargers? :thinking:

I'll be keeping 3 and give the two to my brother and friend. Been using a lot of AA's at work. Tried the charger tonight and it sure keeps the batteries cool while charging. Very happy with it.

Thanks again Mr Happy.

556man
 
The "Gauge" lights are a bit of a fakey, though... they are really nothing but timers, and are no indication of charge.

What was it, three years ago almost, that I returned both of mine after seeing the "timed" LED's? If it has a gauge, I expect it to display something meaningful. Now I am almost sorry I returned them!:sigh:
 
Of course today I had to run down to Big Lots and pick a couple of these up! Thanks for the Big Lots heads up. It'll be interesting to see what those ancient 1700 cells can do once refreshed on teh BC-900. Three years ago they cranked out over 2000 mAh, but my packages purchased to day have Wal-Mart coupons for photofinnishing from 2006, so these have been around a while! Putting the 1700's on 250 mA discharge on the BC-900, they were all about 1.10 volts out of the package... pretty dead. BTW, I just retired all my three year old 1700's after using them in LED candles. They all dropped to 1600 mAh and lower and were uneven, so I ditched them.

Update: While gentle charging the new-but-dead 1700's the first time tonight at 200 mA, the four terminated at 717 mAh, 720 mAh, 1061, & 1066 mAh input, so they're gonna take some TLC to get them going again. I think these non-LSD cells must be at least four years old, so if they can be coaxed back up their prior glory days numbers of 2000 mAh, that'd be astonishing.

I also picked up a Mobile Charger at Walgreens today. Safeway also had two left on the peg at $23 each, thick with dust. Funny thing is, all their other "dumb" Duracell chargers were 50% off for quick sale, but this "discontinued" charger was the only one still at full pop.
 
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Yup, those Duracell 1700's in the package have been on the shelf for a long time. I just put a set through a break-in on the C9000. I also measured 1.1 V out of the package, which is not bad after three years of storage. The break-in capacities were between 1650 mAh and 1800 mAh -- not as good as before when I got about 1900 mAh, but still respectable.
 
Yup, those Duracell 1700's in the package have been on the shelf for a long time. I just put a set through a break-in on the C9000. I also measured 1.1 V out of the package, which is not bad after three years of storage. The break-in capacities were between 1650 mAh and 1800 mAh -- not as good as before when I got about 1900 mAh, but still respectable.

You're doing better than I am on my BC-900. After two refreshes at the lowest 100/200 mA rate, I've only gotten up to 1000 mAh, some quite lower. I'll let them keep going now at higher rates, but...

I was hoping I would feel the love for this power gauge charger the second time around, but it just ain't happening. So we know the LED's are timed (sort of) but the problem I am having is the cells just are not terminating consistently and when i know they should. For example, I took three fully charged AAA ROV Hybrid cells, and with the BC-900 drained 175, 350, and 525 mAh from them, respectively. Then threw them on the charger. At 1 hr. 45 min. the first cell terminated. But even after 7 hours (!) neither of the other two had terminated. So that's two cells that only had 350 and 525 mAh drained from them, and they had not trerminated yet by 1,225 mAh input! (7 hours x 175 mA) Then I took eight different fully discharged AAA cells, recently all capacity-tested to within 6 mAh of each other on the BC-900, and put them on, and the termination times were all over the board, with many far exceeding the time it should have taken at 175 mA. Keep in mind these are all cells which terminate fine, and in the time expected, on the MQN05 at 150 mA, and on the BC-900 at either 200 or 500 mA charge rate.

So I just can't get excited about this charger, once again. Just as a few years ago, I don't trust it. The mobile charger works like a dream, reliably, consistently, every time, so if I had to recommend I would say if you can find residual stock of a mobile charger (look at drug store) they are far better. I'm returning my power gauge chargers (again.)
 
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I barely use AAA cells, so I can't honestly say I have ever put any through the Power Gauge charger. I find it very consistent with AA cells (though I only use eneloops, which may be a factor).

Now, doesn't the Mobile Charger charge AAA cells at 550 mA? That would be solidly in the range of 0.5C to 1.0C, which is of course going to give a better termination signal than 175 mA/0.2C.

I'm afraid that AAA RoV cells are not something that's going to happen in my world, so I can't feel your pain... :shrug:
 
While gentle charging the new-but-dead 1700's the first time tonight at 200 mA, the four terminated at 717 mAh, 720 mAh, 1061, & 1066 mAh input, so they're gonna take some TLC to get them going again. I think these non-LSD cells must be at least four years old, so if they can be coaxed back up their prior glory days numbers of 2000 mAh, that'd be astonishing.

Update: Well, I thought I'd mention the numbers I finally got out of these approx. 4 year old 1700 mAh cells before I returned the chargers. It took about five refresh cycles on the BC-900, but all eight ended up delivering between 1896 - 1981 mAh, with only the lowest one under 1900 mAh. So I am still, and once again, astonished!
 
Ok so the red lights are just timer based per hour. The green light is smart and turns on when complete? So just ignore the red and focus on green?
 
Yes, that is basically it. Actually, the red lights will advance every two hours, if it does not complete. You are out of red lights at six hours, but that will usually be about as long as it would ever need to run, so the green will be on soon. I guess they wanted to give people something to watch so they knew it was still working :shrug:. The name makes it confusing to us, since it suggests that the lights should have something to do with the state of charge of the batteries, but no such luck. I still like it and use it often.
 
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