Is my charger pants? Worth replacing with C9000?

fenix-store
Hello Magic Matt,

If it works, and you are happy with its performance, use it.

If you want to know why the C-9000 is so much better, search the many threads on that charger and compare what you find out about that charger with your present charger.

Tom
 
Hello Magic Matt,

No!!!

Crap cells are crap cells. Sometimes it is possible to take a totally crap cell and improve it to marginally crap, but in the end it is still crap. :)

Tom
 
Pity - I guess Vanson batteries are just bad. These are all Vanson "Hi-Power Rechargable NiMH 1800mAh" and they've only been used maybe 20 times in a digital camera since July this year. The Duracells have faired far better.

I'll probably just buy Eneloops since reading this forum - assuming they'd be fine in the Duracell 1-hour charger?
 
My guess is that better chargers give more recharges per cell and slightly high charges. But unless you continually charge cells, is it worth it? Not in my case.

By the way, I noticed you buy at RS. You might like to check out 7DayShop.com. No doubt some stock is junk, but the prices for Sanyo Eneloop etc are excellent. Not super fast delivery though.
 
Magic Matt said:
...It (Duracell One Hour Charger) works.... it doesn't get very hot.... batteries seem to still be working well after over 100 charges (by which I mean they last about the same amount of time as when first charged).
What makes the MH-C9000 so much better?
Click to expand...

LeifUK said:
My guess is that better chargers give more recharges per cell and slightly high charges...
Click to expand...

Two points, first:
  1. Most smart chargers in the $25 range will use negative delta-V to stop the charge. This will "typically" lead to a slight overcharge that will lead to a degradation of the number of charge cycles beginning with the first charge.
  2. As the batteries age, there will be the possibility of an even more destructive cycle where the charger will miss the weaken "stopping signal".

Maha has refined their charge algorithim to tradeoff the above shortcomings by inventing a two stage charge that takes a bit more time but is much gentler on the batteries but still gives a full charge...that plus all the "high-end" features of an analyzer/former.

Your duracell charger might somehow terminate a bit early (i.e. not a full charge) to explain the long life of your batteries and unchanging performance from the 1st to the hundredth charge. There has been speculation that a "0 delta-V" charger could do this providing it could sort out the "middle region" where the slope also approaches "0". This can lead to a early termination and undercharge batteries (not necessarily bad given the problems with NiMH overcharging).

Last, the Duracell Mobile Charger has been getting good reports about reliable termination at low currents (a difficult task). If the "One Hour Charger" uses a similar algorthim at higher currents, then the charger would generate a larger "stopping signal" to end the charge. This could explain the robust cool charging that "Magic Matt" has experienced. What say the other owners of this charger ?
 
Last edited:
PeAK said:
Two points, first:
  1. Most smart chargers in the $25 range will use negative delta-V to stop the charge. This will "typically" lead to a slight overcharge that will lead to a degradation of the number of charge cycles beginning with the first charge.
  2. As the batteries age, there will be the possibility of an even more destructive cycle where the charger will miss the weaken "stopping signal".

Maha has refined their charge algorithim to take the tradeoff the above shortcomings by inventing a two stage charge that takes a bit more time but is much gentler on the batteries but still gives a full charge...that plus all the "high-end" features of an analyzer/former.

Your duracell charger might somehow terminate a bit early (i.e. not a full charge) to explain the long life of your batteries and unchanging performance from the 1st to the hundredth charge. There has been speculation that a "0 delta-V" charger could do this providing it could sort out the "middle region" where the slope also approaches "0".

Last, the Duracell Mobile Charger has been getting good reports about reliable termination at low currents (a difficult task). If the "One Hour Charger" uses a similar algorthim at higher currents, then the charger would generate a larger "stopping signal" to end the charge. This could explain the robust cool charging that "Magic Matt" has experienced. What say the other owners of this charger ?
Click to expand...

My Sanyo charger charging at 1C is terminating eneloops at 1.47V, the same limit at which the Maha will switch from normal charge to topoff, so they won't be overchanged by the Sanyo. If Duracell followed their own technical paper on NiMH-charging, then they won't overcharge batteries either.

Also I don't think the evidence is in for the good termination of the Duracell CEF23. Someone got 1.42V upon termination which is quite undercharged. My four hour eneloop-branded charger terminated the cells at 1.50V last time I checked.

But more hard evidence in these matters would be much appreciated (which is now mostly battery university and technical papers from Duracell and Sanyo versus a lot of fairy tales about 'gentle charging').
 
Magic Matt said:
Would it recover my knackered box of about 20 NiMH cells - they measure under 0.1V open circuit and the charger I have refuses (probably very sensibly being a fast-charger).
Click to expand...
No, the MH-C9000 rejects dodgy cells, so it wouldn't be any more use than your present charger for recovering them.
 
I suspect the charger under-charges slightly, but to be fair I've never tested any further than knowing the batteries last the same amount of time as when new. The main use for the 4-AA Duracells is in a digital camera, and it always lasts about 3 hours continuous use in the camera, which has a large 2" lcd screen being driven all the time, The number of shots varies, but the camera is usually on all the time until the batteries are flat (photo-mad you see).

If there are specific tests that would help assess the cahrger, I'm willing to do so. It sounds like measuring the batteries voltage fresh from charge would help, so I'll do that the next few times and let you know what I'm getting. :)

Edit: I suspect as I'm using the batteries that were supplied witht he charger, and spares that are the same brand and capacity, it is designed to match up. It may be that it doesn't fair so well with other brands, but possibly only time will tell.
 
Magic Matt said:
...Would it recover my knackered box of about 20 NiMH cells - they measure under 0.1V open circuit and the charger I have refuses...
Click to expand...

TorchBoy said:
No, the MH-C9000 rejects dodgy cells...
Click to expand...

True, but you didn't define 'dodgy'.

The C9000 rejects HIGH INTERNAL RESISTANCE cells (Impedance Check Voltage GT ~2.10VDC). It accepts 0.0VDC cells and applies a Charge Rate of 125mA until the cell voltage reaches N.N VDC (I haven't bothered to watch and record it yet; if I had to guess, I'd say ~0.5VDC) where it then changes to the user-requested rate.

The La Crosse BC-700/BC-900/BC-9009 reject cells with an Open Circuit voltage of N.N VDC (again, I haven't paid it much attention - I'll just pop the *CRAP* cell into an old DUMB charger for a few minutes to bring the voltage up a bit and then try it in my BC-900 again) and display 'NULL'. If I had to guess, I'd say ~0.5VDC.
 
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