AndyT
Contributor
A bit more expensive but I've just ordered the MAHA C808M charger - does 8 AA/AAA/C/D cells .
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Charlie99:Dying batteries can also often be identified by just leaving them sitting around for a week or two after charging, and then measuring the voltages. If it loses significant voltage over a couple weeks, then it has an internal fault and is bad.
Most chargers don't discharge them first. While some people believe that discharge-before-charge helps maintain capacity, all of the battery manufacturers that I've corresponded with, and all of the extensive tests my company has performed on batteries indicates that you are better off just topping them up after each use, with an occasional trickle charge to equalize the batteries.Lightning Fish:Does anyone know how these things work? Do they discharge the batteries first then charge them? Or do they just top up the battery? To charge a battery to full takes 5 (or 4?) hours. So if the batteries are only half charged, will it take 2.5 hours to charge to full?
The loss of charge varies dramatically with temp. IIRC, the loss doubles with an increase of 10 degrees C. A battery at 60% of capacity has pretty close to the same voltage as a fully charged battery, so you won't know how much it has discharged until you use it.Lighning Fish:I bought Energizer's battery charger and NiMH batteries. I use them for my light and not a camera. The instructions state that the batteries will lose 40% of their charge per month.