New poster, lurked for a while, got questions about batteries and charger

[Rocketfish]

I've been lurking on here for a while, I don't have a real collection of lights, maybe 4 total. However my main light(Fenix L2T) and my keychain light(photon) both stopped working, and I decided a serious upgrade was in order. My collection will be growing a bit, but staying purely AA and AAA.
After following some links from here I settled on the BC-900 charger, I liked the features of the C-9000 and all the information, but size is important for me, since I move around alot, and the price difference was huge, for the same # of decent batteries and the C-9000 I'd spend about 250$ to order it in canada.

I've had a few walmart chargers and never been happy with them, the batteries just sucked. With the TK40 on order, I figure I'd be burning the AA's pretty quickly.
I probably use a flashlight for 2-3 hrs a night, and a headlight often as well.

I picked up an order from Thomas Distrubting and I've now got batteries and more especially battery holders out the wazoo.
for 138$ I got
the BC-900
carrying case
8 Maha Imedion AAs
8 Maha Imedion AAAs
8 Sony Eneloops(included with BC-900)
4 La crosse Tech AAs
4 La Crosse Tech 2600 mah AAAs
8x 4 batt holders
2x 8 batt holders
1x 8 batt bright yellow heavy duty delrin battery holder.
Powerex battery tester
misc AA->c/D adaptors
a dvd on digital carmeras(It was free)

I put a lot of research into this, and I was tempted to get some other battery types and lights(CR123 mostly) but decided that using the same batteries in every light is important to me.
I still have a few questions I haven't found good answers for:

The La Crosse tech batteries, are they any good, I know they aren't LSD but I would still like to find information on them, it's hard to search for them since most results talk about the charger.

What is the difference between the break in cycle of the C-9000 and the refresh cycle of the BC-900

Is there somewhere with an in-depth guide on using the BC-900 like there is for the C-9000 on here?

Should I run a refresh cycle on all the new batteries to start, or go discharge, refresh and then test?

Should I stick with the same charging rate for both LSD and the La crosse cells, or run a higher setting on the la crosse ones since they are a higher Mah rating?

Too many cool things to read here, I think I'll be reading her for years

 

[alfreddajero]

You seem to be starting off pretty good.....i hear that the Lacrosse batts are way under there rated mah.....break them in and see how close you can get to the actual mah of the cells.

 

[Elliot]

Sounds like you did Ok, and will have your hobby time all taken up for a few months. The La Crosse batteries are not crap but not the best. I still have have most of mine and use them - but only when I can charge them up right before use. I have also found that the BC-900 stays alot cooler when I raise the "front" (the LCD part) off my tile floor a half inch or so. Alfreddajero's adivce about running the La Crosse throught the refresh/breaking cycles is spot on.:welcome:

Best of luck

 

[Bones]

...
What is the difference between the break in cycle of the C-9000 and the refresh cycle of the BC-900
...

I'm not sure exactly how the refresh cycle of the BC-900 works Rocketfish, but this is what you want to accomplish to break-in or 'form' your new batteries:

Discharge each new cell at .2C (400mA for the Eneloop AA cell) to 1.0 volts.

Charge each cell at .1C (200mA for the Eneloop AA cell) for 16 hours or as close thereto as possible.

Discharge each fully charged cell once again at .2C to 1.0 volts.

Your cells have now been through one break-in cycle.

Of course, you now have to charge them back up again before they can be used. You can choose to do this with a higher charge rate, or apply another 16 hour charge at .1C. I tend to use the latter charge in the belief that it further induces the benefits of the forming charge.

...
Is there somewhere with an in-depth guide on using the BC-900 like there is for the C-9000 on here?
...

I know I've seen lots of Q & A about using the BC-900, but I can't recall an all-inclusive thread.

You can try Googling the following search string, and also add whatever terms after bc-900 that you think might help drill down to useful information:

allintitle:bc-900 site:candlepowerforums.com

 

[Rocketfish]

Hmm I think by setting it to discharge first, then refresh I am getting that effect, I don't understand why people say the break in feature of the C-9000 is a dealbreaker vs this charger?
I don't really understand how to interpret the read out properly, but would doing this also tell me the full capacity at the end? or would I need to set it to test to find that.


It appears to do just that, a discharge, slow recharge, dischage again, repeating until battery capacity doesn't increase.


So the la crosse batteries would be good in a EDC light, or something where I'm draining them often? I wish I could find some stats on them though, I know they aren't LSD but it would be nice to see how they stack up against other ones.

Either way I'm very happy, glad I don't need to set things individually as with the c-9000, and the size and price difference. I'm very happy so far

can't wait to finish my lighting upgrades, power goes out and stays out too often for my liking here

 

[VidPro]

la cross cells, not so great capacity, and not LSD, because i have other cells, they were a waste of time , i might toss them in some device that i dont portable, or depend on.

refresh cells you buy once, the multiple going round and round again with the hard hitting V-drop isnt USUALLY worth the next 50-25ma difference after that.
better to go once or twice around at most, then just start using them. squeezing out 5-10ma via each cycle is a waste of time and battery. but no less fun for playing around and testing what it does.

using the "test" cycle good way to do a "refresh" , and find out about what the capacity is.

the 9000 CAN slow charge for a forming charge, the 900 (basically) cant, if a full cycling was needed it is that kind of break-in which would be a better single full cycle, on the other hand the 900 seems to discharge further down, for whatever reason, making it somewhat relative.

my 900 got a computer lockup, so i know that happens, caused serious problem. It always uses V-drop and has topping, some versions of the 9000 use V-max, and topping which IMO is much better, there IS a max voltage on the 900, but its above a nice area like the 9000.

900 has readouts for all 4 channels, making it great to get info quick, and move on.

you can adjust the rate for all 4 items at ONCE, or push the button for that cell, and adjust the rate for just that cell. i dont ever bother with putting in 2 different capacity of cells, or bother with individually adjusting any single channel, i would rather finish similars, then go to the next similars, vrses trying to get 2 things going that are different. as that is a pain, and it is more likly to have something set wrong/different by me, then wonder why the result is different. and the buttons are unruly when trying to piddle with a lot of changes anyways.

there is no light on the lcd :-(

the buttons suck, and those types of buttons the harder you push them the harder they work there is sometimes a computer delay is responce to buttons, so dont fight it, it will win , take you time, and let the poor computer think

rate for discharge is stuck at the 1/2 rate for charging, it will not stop after "discharge", discharge is only a part of cycles it does, the 9000 aparentally can.

on testing it doesn't do a pregnant pause before testing what it has charged, so the cell is just "hot off the charger" so the test doesnt really represent full reality

that is all i can think of for now, make sure you use fairly high currents because it is V-drop for termination, without a Visable v-drop for the machine to read , termination will be done only on time.
parked cells and new cells will not show as strong a v-drop, sooo you should not use lower amp rates, when they might be the best thing for that.
^
now see if it is good to Form the cells, or condition them or just get them going, whatever words you want to use, the 900 cant really do that , it cant do the slow charge, and the last thing you want to try and do on the 900 is attempt a slow charge, or you wont get a good v-drop signal for the computer to see.

so there is the differences you wanted to know about, but dont need to know about, because it doesnt make as much differance as it sounds here.

 

[Rocketfish]

la cross cells, not so great capacity, and not LSD, because i have other cells, they were a waste of time , i might toss them in some device that i dont portable, or depend on.

refresh cells you buy once, the multiple going round and round again with the hard hitting V-drop isnt USUALLY worth the next 50-25ma difference after that.
better to go once or twice around at most, then just start using them. squeezing out 5-10ma via each cycle is a waste of time and battery. but no less fun for playing around and testing what it does.

using the "test" cycle good way to do a "refresh" , and find out about what the capacity is.

the 9000 CAN slow charge for a forming charge, the 900 (basically) cant, if a full cycling was needed it is that kind of break-in which would be a better single full cycle, on the other hand the 900 seems to discharge further down, for whatever reason, making it somewhat relative.

my 900 got a computer lockup, so i know that happens, caused serious problem. It always uses V-drop and has topping, some versions of the 9000 use V-max, and topping which IMO is much better, there IS a max voltage on the 900, but its above a nice area like the 9000.

900 has readouts for all 4 channels, making it great to get info quick, and move on.

you can adjust the rate for all 4 items at ONCE, or push the button for that cell, and adjust the rate for just that cell. i dont ever bother with putting in 2 different capacity of cells, or bother with individually adjusting any single channel, i would rather finish similars, then go to the next similars, vrses trying to get 2 things going that are different. as that is a pain, and it is more likly to have something set wrong/different by me, then wonder why the result is different. and the buttons are unruly when trying to piddle with a lot of changes anyways.

there is no light on the lcd :-(

the buttons suck, and those types of buttons the harder you push them the harder they work there is sometimes a computer delay is responce to buttons, so dont fight it, it will win , take you time, and let the poor computer think

rate for discharge is stuck at the 1/2 rate for charging, it will not stop after "discharge", discharge is only a part of cycles it does, the 9000 aparentally can.

on testing it doesn't do a pregnant pause before testing what it has charged, so the cell is just "hot off the charger" so the test doesnt really represent full reality

that is all i can think of for now, make sure you use fairly high currents because it is V-drop for termination, without a Visable v-drop for the machine to read , termination will be done only on time.
parked cells and new cells will not show as strong a v-drop, sooo you should not use lower amp rates, when they might be the best thing for that.
^
now see if it is good to Form the cells, or condition them or just get them going, whatever words you want to use, the 900 cant really do that , it cant do the slow charge, and the last thing you want to try and do on the 900 is attempt a slow charge, or you wont get a good v-drop signal for the computer to see.

so there is the differences you wanted to know about, but dont need to know about, because it doesnt make as much differance as it sounds here.

Hmm it seems to me that mine does do discharge only?
I set it to discharge once, then refresh once by pushing the mode button a couple times. I don't know if I could charge the setting on the discharge, or how to change any settings really, but I could definitely do discharge only.


I could have just left it at discharge only.
As for the buttons, they are great to me, perhaps they will degrade with time, but right now they are a very light press(on par with a tv remote)
What is a slow charge, and how do I see the charge rate?
It sure seemed to take a long time. I think the discharge was about 4 hrs for AAA's that were sitting around 1.24ish(some a bit higher or lower)
then the little icon flipped to charging, it was still doing that 3 hours later when I left.

Does the test cycle does discharge, recharge, discharge(display amount) then recharge again?
If I were to park my butt in front of the charger and watch, would I see it when it's done(if I wanted to do a slow charge) I have it set up where I'm sitting around it for 9-10 hrs a day anyways.

It's funny that you mention the backlight, it was one of the big points that made me reconsider(aside from cost) I HATE backlights you can't turn off, my Li-ion 18v drill charger has that, drives me nuts.

I think mine said something about 200Ma being the automatic setting, how do I determine a good setting for eneloop AA's Imedion AAs(and AAA's) and La Crosse AA's(and AAA's)

This is sure confusing, maybe if I figure it out, I'll write a FAQ like the awesome one for the Maha charger on here

 

[alfreddajero]

For new cells i like to charge them up at 1amp and discharge them to see how much capacity was drained, then i put the cells through a cycle mode (2cycles) since it takes too long for my liking. Its good to have two chargers so you can charge cells on one and use the cycle modes on the other.

 

[VidPro]

the test charges then discharges, then recharges, displaying the discharge capacity in the final, as opposed to the charge.

for the rest, mabey the new version has better stuff ?
your sure to discover it all quick enough.

rates 500min for a AA that has been being used, 750-1000 for normal use
200min for a AAA that has been being used 500-750 for normal use
meaning at 200 a AA would not terminate usually properly
at 200 even a good fresh AAA can not terminate but usually
at 200 with a AA it is .1c and so potentially it could be classified as a slow charge, BUT its pulsed higher amperage not a real 200, so it really isnt
there is no setting for a AAA that would be concidered a slow charge because it would have to be 100, and not a pulsed 1000 anyways

if they changed the sensitivity of the end of charge v-drop recognition, then of course that would change the parameters, but its the few that dont work as expected, not the many that work all the time, that become a termination problem.

 

[Rocketfish]

For new cells i like to charge them up at 1amp and discharge them to see how much capacity was drained, then i put the cells through a cycle mode (2cycles) since it takes too long for my liking. Its good to have two chargers so you can charge cells on one and use the cycle modes on the other.

I'm a bit confused, since it takes too long to cycle them(refresh?) you first charge them as fast as possible, drain them equally fast to find out the MAh of each battery then run a refresh on them?




quote=VidPro;2866671]the test charges then discharges, then recharges, displaying the discharge capacity in the final, as opposed to the charge.

for the rest, mabey the new version has better stuff ?
your sure to discover it all quick enough.

rates 500min for a AA that has been being used, 750-1000 for normal use
200min for a AAA that has been being used 500-750 for normal use
meaning at 200 a AA would not terminate usually properly
at 200 even a good fresh AAA can not terminate but usually
at 200 with a AA it is .1c and so potentially it could be classified as a slow charge, BUT its pulsed higher amperage not a real 200, so it really isnt
there is no setting for a AAA that would be concidered a slow charge because it would have to be 100, and not a pulsed 1000 anyways

if they changed the sensitivity of the end of charge v-drop recognition, then of course that would change the parameters, but its the few that dont work as expected, not the many that work all the time, that become a termination problem.[/quote]

I still don't really get the test thing vs refresh, but I'll just muddle along on that I suppose. So the BC-900 doesn't charge at the rates you set but is pulsing 1 amp?
I shouldn't bother to break them in by doing a refresh of 200Mah charge 100 Mah discharge, because it will take forever and maybe end up in flames, got it

Should I see a capacity increase?

I ran a test on my La crosse AAA's they came out at 954 921 975 917
would a refresh get that evened out/closer to 1000?

It sure was slow at 200, much nicer at higher settings, although I'm not a big fan of how warm they get at the higher settings.

I now definetly understand why people like 2 chargers
thankfully I don't have any pressing need to use the batteries, I want to make sure I break them in as perfectly as possible, can't afford to dump this kind of money into batteries often at all.