Maha C801D - Advice please :)

[Niconical]

I have a Maha C9000 as my main charger. I don't really use the advanced features too much, most of the time it's just charge at 2000ma/800ma for Eneloops, with the occasional discharge/charge cycle, and break in for new cells.

One thing that is becoming more obvious to me though is that the 4 slots on the C9000 aren't enough. I'm using batteries more and more now, and the thing is getting backed up. There's often a traffic jam while cells wait in the queue.

So, for a few weeks I've been digging up info on the 8 cell Maha chargers. I settled on the 801D. Unless I'm mistaken, charge at 2000ma/700ma normal for AA/AAA and (presumably) half that for soft. That's perfect, but I have two questions, and one possible problem.

First a question. Let's say I put in 4 x AA and 4 x AAA and charge at 'normal'. Will that then automatically charge each AA at 2000ma and each AAA at 700ma, or is it more like the C9000 in that I set each slot individually or select 'AA or AAA' on the LCD or something like that?

Also, what exactly does the conditioning cycle do? I assumed it would be a case of set it to normal or soft then it would charge/rest, discharge/rest, then final charge. However, the user guide (available here) says it can take up to 14 hours to complete (35 on soft), so assuming an average 2000mah cell, what is it actually doing to take up 14 hours?

Now the problem. I finally decided to just go ahead and order, I've read all I can read, so it's time to get one. Unfortunately at some point this morning I found a page somewhere saying how some of them don't terminate or something like that. The thing is, I had so many windows open comparing prices and reviews that I lost it and can't find it again. I'm pretty sure it wasn't on CPF as I've searched here and can't find it.

It could be that I didn't understand what I read, or I mixed it up with something else, or in fact that I was reading about a totally different charger and was just confused by all the windows. So, before I order, can someone confirm that the 801D doesn't have anything 'wrong' with it specifically, that it works as it should etc, and that I haven't missed something fundamental along the lines of "Oh no, any Maha except the 801D, it has that well known XXX problem".

Thank you :)

 

[Kremer]

All bays charge normal or soft at the same time
so:
on default AA's are 2A, AAA's are 700ma.
on soft AA's are 1A, AAA's are 350ma.

You can mix and match any combination of cells at the same time, but they all charge together at either normal or soft. You can't charge one AA at 2A and at the same time charge another at 1A or a AAA at 350ma.

EDIT: on condition it does a full charge, waiting for all bays to terminate. Then it does a discharge, waiting for all bays to terminate, then it does a full recharge. The soft setting applies to the discharge too, making it discharge at 1/2 the normal discharge current.

I have an 808M, the functionality is the same, it just does C and D sizes also.

 

[Niconical]

Thank you :)

 

[VidPro]

hey Niconical , I ordered one of these (before reading everything) too, it just seemed like the best item for the job based on the specs.

i had to charge many and many AA , and also must have some charger for C & D which i was doing more manually.
they didnt have Available super slow chargers, and aparentally i need to give up my life savings for a simple Discharge before charge, all in a seperate channel type of charger.
so that is what i got.

i will be able to measure some stuff with it in a few days.

---- removed speculation to cleanup-------

 

[VidPro]

RATE : AA
well so far it seems to be 2amps, 2 amps 2 amps, and 2 amps :-) pulsing at about a 1 sec on 1 sec off rate for "soft". discharge seems to be at a similar 2amps, with simlar pulse rate for soft.

Slots:
the battery slots having each only perfect size for the exact battery that fits, are hard to get access in with a meter.

Heat:
really good idea there to have lotta space between cells , thanks to its mondo size, but they still "seal" the heat in on the bottom of the AA and AAA cells thanks to the "seat" they made for them there, that is sorta dum, the cells are already getting , err very warm, and they arent even charged yet. C&D cells sit with a nice gap all around them for air movement, and so uneven heating doesnt occur.

Channels:
it is indeed single channel but the Whole thing does either charge OR discharge, not like my cheap AA charger that can be charging one and discharging another at the same time, so all the cells in the machine get to WAIT till all the rest of the cells have completed the task first , before the Whole machine switches to do the next task.

Display:
The instructions sound like you need a code book to understand it :-) but the almost worthless display does show what you have selected, like the slow charge rate, and the conditioning,so even though there is a , "must do this before that", and all, you can tell if its doing what you set it out to do easily enough via the display. The display has a very well blended backlight (not spotty lighting like some) and its pretty bright for those who dont Like backlights :-)

power Interrupt:
pull the plug out on it , and the entire thing goes brain dead (as usual) on reconnect starts doing a FAST charge, which might be a good thing beings it should terminate quickly using that type of charge on a power interupption.
and although they say insert the first cell then make settings, i was indeed able to Set the settings right after a "reset" by messing with the buttons after a power removal, which means it is possible to toss in all the cells and power down, then set it, which works with other chargers too.

Discharge: discharge depth is poopey :-( due to the 2A speed (pulsed) the depth of discharge is not very low, dang i was hoping it would pick up on the last bit of chemicals by having a deeper discharge so it would condition, beings it takes Forever to do the conditioning, but alas it only discharged it so far, and is resting end voltage of ~1.2v, i assume a cutoff underLOAD of ~1v, completly insufficent to recover a battery that has been abandoned, uhh shelved, forsaken, ostrasized.

Disclaimer: i just got it, and i am just relaying what i have seen so far, i will need more time, to confirm anything i said as being actually fully true. for every situation there can be positive and negative ramifications, so what sounds good for some things might be bad for others and so on.