Energizer has new 8 Cell LCD Charger, Any Good?

Was at Target today, and saw an Energizer Family Charger. Will do 8AA, 8AAA, C, D, 9V. It has an LCD display with 4 bars status for each battery.

Says it will charge:
2-8 AA
2-8 AAA
2-4 C or D
1-9V


I'm not sure if the limit of 2 indicates that it's an independent charger. It seems to have the ability to charge anything in between, so it must be semi-independent. It was only about $30. If this is a smart charger, it might not be a bad backup for when the c-9000 is doing break-in/cycle/etc... and it would be cheaper than the 8 Cell Maha options. Too bad it has no conditioning mode.

The only place I could find one online was Here, so Apparently it's a fairly new charger.

Looking carefully at the description, it seems to charge batteries two at a time, so possibly 4 charging circuits.
It also has "a built in safety timer and temperature sensor", which make it sound like it's just a timer charger with a temp cut-off. I also noticed the charging rate is fixed at 200mA. which means it'll take 16 hours to charge a set of eneloops, or multiple days to charge a D sized cell.

It's possible that this is a 4 channel smart charger, with timer and temp sensor for back-up termination (this is how most smart chargers work), but I seriously doubt it. Yes, the LCD is interesting, but otherwise it seems like a timer based dumb charger.

EDIT:
It seems to me, Duracell and Energizer are not interested in making smart, independent chargers. Except their 15minute chargers, all the other ones seemed two-cell timer based chargers. Rayaovac, too, even with their Hybrid batteries, include a 2 cell timer charger. Where as all of the Sanyo chargers are smart, including their 7 hour charger bundled with eneloops (Ok, so they did make an overnight charger at one point). Panasonic, Sony makes independent smart chargers, and of course Maha.

Are American companies just don't want people to use smart chargers? Ruin their cells so they buy more batteries? Is it a cost consciousness thing, where chargers should be as cheap as possible?
Even Sanyo's 2-cell charger is independently controlled! Come on!

The front of the package also says it's a 3 hour charger. I don't know what you could possibly charge on it in 3 hours, but it's probably not worth using. Maybe some 600mah AAA's.

I was looking for a dirt cheap 8AA charger that wouldnt kill batteries, to avoid long waits on the C-9000. I guess I should keep looking. Maybe the Vanson or titanium ones are a decent deal.

This does appear to have some smarts built in - here is the datasheet:
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/chfc.pdf
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/chfc_instructions_english.pdf

itguy07 said:

This does appear to have some smarts built in - here is the datasheet:
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/chfc.pdf
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/chfc_instructions_english.pdf

Click to expand...

Ah, look at that. It does say "Delva V Charging Cutoff", and 1100mA charging current. Smart charger indeed. But two cells per bay charging make it sound like a parallel charger. Maybe I should go pick one up and take a look at the insides. For $30, it might be a good deal. :thumbsup:

Sounds like the Energizer version of the Rayovac PS3 which will charge AAs and AAAs in parallel. I keep it around incase I need to charge a ton of batteries at once and for nostalgia's sake but I'd at a minimum go for one of the Vanson Speedy Boxes, I got one for my In-laws and it seems to be working great for them.


***EDIT***
At a second glance it seems to be an alright charger but I've had bad experiences with these "name brand" chargers. I'd be interested to see if it actually could charge a decent sized D cell or if it's designed for only Energizer style 2500s and times out too early.

macdude22 said:

Sounds like the Energizer version of the Rayovac PS3 which will charge AAs and AAAs in parallel. I keep it around incase I need to charge a ton of batteries at once and for nostalgia's sake but I'd at a minimum go for one of the Vanson Speedy Boxes, I got one for my In-laws and it seems to be working great for them.


***EDIT***
At a second glance it seems to be an alright charger but I've had bad experiences with these "name brand" chargers. I'd be interested to see if it actually could charge a decent sized D cell or if it's designed for only Energizer style 2500s and times out too early.

Click to expand...

Is the Maha 800-S so much better than the 8 cell vanson charger, and why.? If it is better does that
paying twice as much or more ?

I haven't had any experience with the S but I have an 808M and I do like it. Batteries come off it cool. It has a 3 year warranty and Maha is known to back up their stuff. I'm assuming you're referring to the V-6280. I don't have any personal experience with that specific model but I have used a BC1HU that seems to work quite well. Perhaps someone that owns one can speak up but I've no reason to think that the V-6280 couldn't suffice as a value priced alternative to the Maha units.

I'll note that my 808M seems significantly more sturdily built than the BC1HU.

Does anyone have personal experience with the V-6280? On that same note I see Vanson has a new universal charger the T6278, does anyone have experience with that as well?