LaCrosse BC-9009 / BC-900 - The Melt-Downs Continue...

[Mr Happy]

What I'm getting at is the evident lack of customer care or warranty support from LaCrosse when people have problems suggests that somebody doesn't really care enough about this charger to do much about it. If LaCrosse buys it in from outside, and the outside vendor is not terribly concerned about how well it works, then it would tend to explain the current situation.

 

[e_dogg]

I just looked at the Amazon listing...it's not for sale from any of their marketplace affiliates either. It simply says "Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available."

 

[LightOnAHill]

Re: LaCrosse BC-9009 / BC-900 - The Melt-downs Continue...

How can I explain this to you? It is not normal behavior, it is a fault. It does not happen to every charger all the time, it happens to perhaps one charger in a hundred, or 1 in 1000. Your chargers may never develop the fault and may never do anything bad. If one person has a car that breaks down, does it mean that every car of that kind is going to break down?

It may be more than a fault. It may be a flaw.

 

[Turbo DV8]

Here's a thought, after all the pats on the back have subsided... Unless there is an actual recall, which would require the identification of a specific run of defective product to recall, this is nothing more than putting a damper on their sales. And unless actual fires have been started, I doubt there would be any recall at all. Think about it. So a couple sellers have decided to not sell it. If there is no official recall, the BC-9009 will continue to be made, maybe "corrected" maybe not, but who knows what we'll find on the shelves? No recall = no reason for purging of current units from the supply line.

 

[jeober]

My first unit melted down and I posted this on Amazon on Dec 25. My wife had bought another unit to use at her school, also last December. She said it worked fine.

I asked her to bring it home. I put 4 batteries on the 1000ma Test cycle and ended up with two buttons melted down. So this unit is also going back.

I tried to post a new review on amazon and the button for this is gone. I also tried to edit my original review and couldn't.

What's the deal here with Amazon?

 

[Turbo DV8]

I tried to post a new review on amazon and the button for this is gone. I also tried to edit my original review and couldn't.

What's the deal here with Amazon?

Clearly, it's another conspiracy! Either that, or once they pulled the plug and it is no longer sold by Amazon, reviews and edits of reviews are no longer allowed? Just a guess.

 

[ShawnLam]

My first unit melted down and I posted this on Amazon on Dec 25. My wife had bought another unit to use at her school, also last December. She said it worked fine.

I asked her to bring it home. I put 4 batteries on the 1000ma Test cycle and ended up with two buttons melted down. So this unit is also going back.

I tried to post a new review on amazon and the button for this is gone. I also tried to edit my original review and couldn't.

What's the deal here with Amazon?

Makes sense that the review feature is disabled when they stop listing the item.

I've posted a 4th update on my blog - feel free to add your story in the comments.

 

[MarioJP]

So does this means this charger is gone for good and stuck with the bc 700??

 

[n3eg]

...My wife had bought another unit to use at her school, also last December. She said it worked fine. I asked her to bring it home. I put 4 batteries on the 1000ma Test cycle and ended up with two buttons melted down.

If that was my wife's charger, I'd owe her two weeks of doing the dishes...

 

[MarioJP]

that is weird how it just melts like that???

 

[Turbo DV8]

Originally Posted by jeober
...My wife had bought another unit to use at her school, also last December. She said it worked fine. I asked her to bring it home. I put 4 batteries on the 1000ma Test cycle and ended up with two buttons melted down.

If that was my wife's charger, I'd owe her two weeks of doing the dishes...

If that were universally true, then they would sell like hot cakes if marketed on HSN...

 

[ShawnLam]

LaCrosse claims to have identified the meltdown issue and is voluntarily replacing the affected AC adapters.

Link here

 

[sqchram]

Bravo. Great find shawnlam, mine does not

 

[HappyCamp]

LaCrosse claims to have identified the meltdown issue and is voluntarily replacing the affected AC adapters.

Supposedly the issue is that the new AC adapters were outputting to high of a voltage.

I measured my BC-900 AC adapter's voltage and it was 3.03 volts.

My BC-9009 AC adapter's voltage was 3.20 volts.

 

[uk_caver]

That doesn't seem like a huge difference.

I wonder if some adapters were sometimes giving out rather more than that.

 

[MarioJP]

That is possible actually. At 3V alone it is at its limit and with high current charging it can get quite hot. It does not have to be a huge difference to cause a problem.

3V is where it should be and not higher than 3.00. Not perfect on the dot but you get the idea. The MOSFET chip you be quite surprise how sensitive it can be.

never mind the heating factor. For all I know that extra .20V is enough to cause the program on the chip to crash or malfunction. And if it regulates the amount of current I would be guessing it be drawing maximum current draw from the adapter. Minus well just short circuit the charger as that is what is happening.

Case in point. Takes a split second static discharge to crash a motherboard on a computer permanently. Parts of it still function but boy it crashes for no apparent reason. Had a buddy of mine that he was Overclocking his system and accidentally went off by couple of millivolt and fried the cpu. Only thing I don't know is how high he had it in the first place that caused this.

 

[Russel]

That is interesting.

Just out of curiosity, I measured the voltage from the BC-900 and BC-700 AC adapters I have.

BC-900 3.037 volts

BC-700 3.153 volts

AC supply to adapters 119.7 volts AC

Both chargers, the BC-900 and BC-700, have been used dozens of times without problems. My Standard charging method is 700ma with the BC-700 and 1000 or 1500ma with the BC-900 charging two cell at a time. Batteries are almost exclusively Eneloop AA cells.

My AC adapters don't have the symbol on the AC adapter that signifiys a problem unit. Of course, they arn't BC-9009 adapters.

 

[MarioJP]

That is interesting.

Just out of curiosity, I measured the voltage from the BC-900 and BC-700 AC adapters I have.

BC-900 3.037 volts

BC-700 3.153 volts

AC supply to adapters 119.7 volts AC

Both chargers, the BC-900 and BC-700, have been used dozens of times without problems. My Standard charging method is 700ma with the BC-700 and 1000 or 1500ma with the BC-900 charging two cell at a time. Batteries are almost exclusively Eneloop AA cells.

My AC adapters don't have the symbol on the AC adapter that signifiys a problem unit. Of course, they arn't BC-9009 adapters.

question is which adapter is plugged to which charger??

3.1V?? I am hoping it is plugged on the bc-700 instead of the bc-900?? That's quite high.

another factor to consider since technically ac adapters is a power transformer. Wouldn't be surprise if any interference can be causing the chip to crash.

As long as the chip does not crash the charger is ok. For those that had chargers that melted the chip probably crashed the moment the charger started charging the cells without the user even knowing about it.

Definitely between the BC-700 and BC-900 are 2 different programs programmed on the physical chip I am also guessing the bc-700 has a higher resistance than the bc-900 or its like this

BC-700 slight higher resistance = handling voltage maybe up to 3.1V.
BC-900 or 9009 has a much lower resistance which definitely requires no more than 3.00V anything higher you putting it in risk as when the chip crashes your bc-900 has now become a 4AA battery holder directly connected to you AC adapter with no regulation whatsoever lol.

Something has changed since Aug 09. Would start with the AC adapter which I am glad la crosse is stepping up to plate

 

[Russel]

question is which adapter is plugged to which charger??

3.1V?? I am hoping it is plugged on the bc-700 instead of the bc-900?? That's quite high.

Yes, as I posted, the AC adapter with 3.153 volts DC output is the one that came with the BC-700.

another factor to consider since technically ac adapters is a power transformer. Wouldn't be surprise if any interference can be causing the chip to crash.

Agreed. That is why I always plug my chargers into a UPS, or as the case may sometimes be with my MH-C9000, a 12 volt car battery that is charged with a solar power system.

 

[Bones]

If you're willing to wade through it, this thread will provide an educated insight into why a relatively small increase in the output voltage of the BC-9009's power supply resulted in such a dramatic rise in the number of melt-downs:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com ... post1549704

It might also be considered cautionary reading for all owners of a LaCrosse BC-9x series charger.