Letter from Energizer

[MrAl]

Hello,

I received a letter from Energizer yesterday stating that they reject
the 15 Minute Charger modification shown here:

http://mral.peu.net/index.php?page=EnergizerChargerMod

The reason for rejecting it is because the modification "might" already
be in the works and/or being sub'd out to another company to do.
In other words, they dont want anyone to say it was 'their' idea and
so they should get money for that idea.
This is contrary to what the rep told me on the phone when i called,
and she even told me where to send the 'idea' because they dont
take web email for ideas like that. She even stated it that way,
"They dont take email for ideas like that, they only accept regular mail".
They opened the letter i sent of course, but it's funny that they sent
back the entire letter, complete with ragged torn open envelope <chuckle>.

It's too bad that companies have to be this worried about an idea
submitted to improve their product. Instead of people working together
for the good of all it's instead that companies have to work in secret like
this.

In any case, i hope they use the idea and come out with the mod as
a switch or something. Unfortunately i forgot to mention that it's
much better to have an LED for each cell.


Apart from the charger, i am now seeing a problem with my 2200mAh
Energzier NiMH cells too. They sent me a coupon for the 2500's i told
them about, and that was nice, but now my 2200's are acting up too
and it looks like they are about done for. They arent that old either,
and maybe charged about 20 times or so, that's all.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Al,

Bummer...

I think it would be nice if the charger tested the cells, then adjusted the charge rate according to the cells ability to accept a charge.

Oops, just remembered that is already available from Schulze...

Tom

 

[MrAl]

Hi again Tom,

Yes, that is a good idea. I wouldnt mind having a switch though, that
would be ok for me too.
One thing i dont like is the way i have it set up now i cant set the two
bays i have set up to handle 1/2 charge rate back to normal without
removing the 'card' from between the two switch contacts. I'll have
to install a switch at some point here.
I dont think i will go as sophisticated as detecting anything though,
i'll leave that for my Monitor + chip at some point. With my own software
and hardware i'll eventually do something like this too...adjust the current
for what the cell can handle without overheating. This might even
involve a 'tapered' charge rate that starts out really high and then
tapers down toward the middle of charge, just to keep things cool.
I dont know if i want to bother going to 10 amps however, i'll probably stick
to lower currents like maybe a max of 5 amps per cell and taper down
to 1 amp if need be. I think if a cell cant take 1 amp it's probably
gone south ha ha.
You gave me another idea too, where the current could be controlled
via the cell temperature itself. As the cell heats up lower the charge
rate to maintain some fixed (and desirable) temperature. This would
constitute a new charge algorithm,
"Continuous temperature feedback charge control".
Trying stuff like this is one of the reasons i made that chip in the
first place It's hard to try different techniques out on chargers
that are already built and packaged.

 

[UncleFester]

Hmmm... so the switches tell the charger wether it's charging AAA or AA? So your mod fools the charger into thinking it's charging AAA when they're actually high impedance AA. Cool

 

[MrAl]

Hi Unc,

Yes. This came about because i had quite a few older cells that would not
charge in the Energizer 15 min charger and not in the Duracell 15 min charger
either. Since i owned the Energizer model i decided to look under the hood.
I realized that they might be used the moving action of the positive terminal
contacts to change the setting to AAA, so i looked for something that would
do that. What i found was four switches, one for each cell, that stay open
for AAA size (they dont push the positive contacts in as far as AA do) and
close for AA size. I also knew that AAA usually have higher internal R than
the AA size, and that the older AA size had higher internal R than most
newer AA cells, so i thought that holding the switches open would make
the charger think there was an AAA cell in there and that would switch it
into a mode that didnt care as much about internal R, as well as slow down
the charger rate to roughly 1/2 of that of a normal AA in that charger.
It turned out that it worked just like that, and now i can charge the more
stubborn AA cells that normally cause blinking in the Energizer 15 min charger.

I wouldnt have cared as much about the older cells if i had used them
a countless number of times, but i really didnt use any of them more than
about 50 times i think, if even that much, since they were new. If i can
get another 50 cycles out of them i might be ready to throw them out.

I have some cells that are so stubborn that the contacts have to be
cleaned really good before a charge even on the AAA 'fooled' setting.