Maha AA Charger with car adapter?

[etc]

I need a AA charger that can work in a car also, in addition to AC current.

Is there a good Maha charger without the bugs? Or something else perhaps?

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Etc,

The C-9000 comes to mind...

Tom

 

[GaryF]

The Maha 401FS and C9000 both offer a 12v car cord. The Titanium TG-700 is a nice compact design for travel and also comes with a car cord. All 3 of these are independent channel chargers for AA and AAA batteries only.

I got the TG-700 specifically for a month long car trip to Alaska. It worked ok, but missed termination a couple of times. I suspect that it was getting reset when I started the car, and that the resets contributed to the missed terminations. The slower 450 mA charge rate meant that I usually ended up stopping / starting the car at least once during each charge cycle.

The Maha 401FS has worked well for me on previous trips, but I had to leave it at home for girlfriend to use when I went to Alaska.

The C9000 is bulky for travel, but I would consider it for future trips because of it's quicker charge rate capability – up to 2000 mA. It hasn't traveled yet simply because I haven't had it very long.


Actually, in hindsight, I might go with something like the Energizer 15 minute charger, which has a car adapter available or it could charge the batteries from AC while I did laundry, took a shower, or ate in a restaurant. It's pretty easy to "borrow" an electrical outlet for 15-30 minutes. It's not the way I would choose to charge batteries normally, but a few rapid charges aren't going to hurt very much, and will probably do less damage than missed terminations.

 

[servaas]

I need a AA charger that can work in a car also, in addition to AC current.

Is there a good Maha charger without the bugs? Or something else perhaps?

There is also the MH-C204FA. Not a fast charger (around 4 hours), but is the most affordable Maha with 12V adaptor.

 

[TorchBoy]

What voltage does the MH-C9000 need to work off a car? The last time I tried using mine directly off a 12V battery - a portable power inverter thing on a camping trip last October - it didn't work at all well. From memory it had very low charging rates, not that which I had specified. Does it need slightly more voltage than my SLA was giving it (like the voltage supplied by a running car) or just a supply that doesn't sag with load at all?

 

[Mr Happy]

What voltage does the MH-C9000 need to work off a car? The last time I tried using mine directly off a 12V battery - a portable power inverter thing on a camping trip last October - it didn't work at all well. From memory it had very low charging rates, not that which I had specified. Does it need slightly more voltage than my SLA was giving it (like the voltage supplied by a running car) or just a supply that doesn't sag with load at all?

I'm confused about where the portable power inverter thing comes into the picture? Did you feed the 12 V from a car battery directly into the C9000, or did you invert the 12 V to mains voltage and then power the C9000 from the inverted mains voltage?

 

[TorchBoy]

Sorry, I guess I should explain the portable power inverter thing a bit better. It's a device which has a 12V SLA in it, coupled to a 300W inverter, so it's a stand-alone mains power unit. Very handy, and I normally run my C9000 from the 230V mains outlet. It works very well, even with a (presumed) modified square wave output.

But the power pack also has a 12V cigar-lighter power socket on it, which I thought might be ideal for running my C9000 directly with, instead of the inefficiency of stepping up to 230V and back down to 12V with the C9000 power supply. Unfortunately it didn't quite work, so at the time I went back to using the inverter and haven't tried running the C9000 on 12V since.

I guess a similar situation would be running the charger from a car battery with the car not running.

 

[Mr Happy]

Well that seems a bit puzzling. The C9000 says input 12 V 2 A, and the power brick says output 12 V 2 A. Not only that, but the open circuit output voltage of the power brick reads 12.15 V. So by all logical reasoning, the C9000 should run off a 12 V lead acid battery supply.

 

[TorchBoy]

That's what I figured. I wouldn't have thought the Maha cord would have a regulator in it.

Uh... wait a mo. I just tried it again and got really low charge rates (~170 mA and 70 mA for two AA Eneloops), as I did last time. When I pulled the cigar lighter plug out of the power pack it felt rather warm for those sort of rates, so I opened the plug up. It had a really big resistor in it. Looks like 10 ohm, 1 watt. The cord I was using was for a rechargable 6V spotlight.

 

[wjb3]

That's what I figured. I wouldn't have thought the Maha cord would have a regulator in it.

I tried the Maha cord from Thomas Distributing and got decent results.

My power supply was a Black & Decker Start It Jump-Starter (VEC010BD). I will post the details later, but from the results, the SLA was designed for amperage (12V DC, 5 second, 225 Amps) and did not do well with long drains.

I would recommend keeping the VEC010BD charged to HI (Green LED) and only expect about 8 AA eneloops (2000mAh each). 2000mA v. 1000mA charging did not seem to matter, so I would recommend the 1000mA rate.

Extraperlating to an automobile battery, I would recommend driving for at least a mile before and after charging 4 AA eneloops. Or better yet, using a second battery and not your only starter battery.

-WJB3