Use Maha 401 to charge other batteries?

[Chief_Wiggum]

Hey folks,

I was hoping someone could tell me whether or not my Maha 401:

http://www.thomasdistributing.com/mhc401fs.htm

can charge other types of batteries besides aa and aaa cells. Specifically:

http://www.planetminidisc.com/nh-14wm.html

Seems like it'd be okay since it's an NiMH cell that outputs 1.2V. Although, I must confess I'm a complete idiot when it comes to batteries /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

The cell won't physically fit, but I can always clip some leads on /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Any info?

Thanks!

 

[srue]

I don't see why it would be a problem, though I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I have this charger, and it correctly charges my old 1500 mAh NiMH, which is pretty close to the cells in question, as well as 1000 mAh NiCD. The charger shouldn't care if you use leads.

 

[medix]

I have asked this question before and it was not recomended.

 

[Doug Owen]

[ QUOTE ]
medix said:
I have asked this question before and it was not recomended.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually not exactly this question. If I 'read' this right, this is *not* an issue of trying to cobble together some kluge to charge D cells, it's a AA size NiMH with unusually low capacity. I suspect some marginal cell when abused by constant charging as the NiCd would handle as routine?

Anyway, I bet it's OK on the Maha.

OTOH, 'normal' NiMH cells are easily killed by the Sony and it's charger.

Doug Owen

 

[Mednanu]

The Maha 401 automatically detects which type of battery you have, either NiCad or NiMH, and charges accordingly. I've charged 2200 Mah batteries in them before and it didn't cut off the charge cycle prematurely - it should have no problem with the cells. If it does, it will tell you by blinking the light within the charge bay ( which indicates that the cell is bad or simply has too high an internal resistance ).

 

[SKYWLKR]

so using an adapter to charge C's or D's will not work?

 

[Mednanu]

[ QUOTE ]
SKYWLKR said: so using an adapter to charge C's or D's will not work?

[/ QUOTE ]
When I referred to the Maha detecting the 'type' of battery placed into the charger, I was referring to the battery chemistry type ( ie - NiMH or NiCad ). The size of the casing shouldn't matter (although an adapter will obviously be needed for batteries above AA in size ).

I don't think that Maha puts a safety timer on the 401's which turns the charger off after a certain # of minutes even if the battery isn't registering as fully charged yet ( some chargers do this to try and prevent fires ). So you should be able to charge larger cells w/o much difficulty. If it shuts off prematurely though, just let it sit for a while then try to recharge the cells again - you can sometimes trick chargers with timer cutoffs into fully charging larger cells this way.

....and of course, be at home while you try this for the first few times. Just to make sure you don't blow up your battery and char your house royal while using the charger outside of normal specs.

 

[SKYWLKR]

Yea that what I figured... I had plans on trying it. but wasnt sure what amount of mA the smart charger stoped out putting at...(I was refering to mendex's comment)

all it'll know is dang that's a big AA :-)

 

[medix]

I was told that the charger would not be able to detect a full battery because of the leads nessecary to adapt to the larger cells, and that someone who tried it had their charger get really really hot during the first little bit of charging. Let me know if your experiment turns out differently, I thought it was a great idea, but not willing to take the risk. Be extremely carefull. My$.02

 

[Chief_Wiggum]

Thanks, guys. I'm going to give it a shot.