Is this Rayovac Charger any good?

[joepa150]

I just purchased my first flashlight (D10 Tribute). I also just purchased a pack of Duraloops/Duracells. I just need to buy a charger. I may buy the Lacrosse 700. I just remembered that about 6 yrs ago I bought some Rayovac rechargables. It came with the charger below.

Would this charger be adequate or should I just buy throw it away and buy a new one?

Does it charge each batter independently?

Here is the manual

http://web.archive.org/web/20030520042408/www.rayovac.com/busoem/oem/specs/PS1_spec.pdf

 

[Mr Happy]

The Rayovac PS1 is one of the old style slow chargers with a timer. Don't throw it away since those chargers do have their uses, but it does not really meet modern charging requirements. For instance if you try to charge four 2000 mAh cells they will not be fully charged when the 12 hour timer finishes. You will have to put them on a second charge and manually stop it after another 4 hours or so. This charger also has an endless top off charge so you should never leave cells in the charger after the light comes on. If you do they will eventually be damaged.

There are chargers today that will get much better performance out of batteries, and the BC-700 would certainly fit in that category.

 

[Ragiska]

The Rayovac PS1 is one of the old style slow chargers with a timer. Don't throw it away since those chargers do have their uses, but it does not really meet modern charging requirements. For instance if you try to charge four 2000 mAh cells they will not be fully charged when the 12 hour timer finishes. You will have to put them on a second charge and manually stop it after another 4 hours or so. This charger also has an endless top off charge so you should never leave cells in the charger after the light comes on. If you do they will eventually be damaged.

There are chargers today that will get much better performance out of batteries, and the BC-700 would certainly fit in that category.

it's -dV with a backup timer, not timer only.

 

[Mr Happy]

it's -dV with a backup timer, not timer only.

Ah, I see some people have mentioned that it has smart charging features, but it doesn't say so in the specifications. I would be worried that with the low charging current of 170 mA the charger might have trouble detecting the full charge point, however it would also not cause too much harm if it did miss a termination.

 

[Light Sabre]

I had one of those. Good charger, but very slow. Used it for years. You can see from across a room whether the cycle was complete or not. One channel quit working so that made recharging a set of 4 a pain. I gave it to a coworker to give to his son for recharging his 2 AA flashlight batteries.