What is the best Portable battery charger for Nimh cells

July 3, 2015 9:44 PM

I have an old wall wart charger that seems to run all the time-I think it is about worn out,, I read reviews about better chargers and batteries- like on amazon the eneloop battery and charger sets look great. Looking to get the most bang for my recharging of aa,aaa,-with the option to charge 1 at a time or more, any feedback on batteries and charger kits will be appreciated,thanks
posted by Upon Further Review to Technology (7 answers total)

I've had a La Crosse Technology BC1000 for years and it's great. It's even brought a few cells back from the dead. The kit comes with C & D size adapters as well.
posted by GuyZero at 10:16 PM on July 3, 2015

The best chargers are either LaCrosse or Nightcore. I have a Nitecore D4 myself. However, it's not really... "portable", as it's a 4 space charger. It's also got a display. If you dont' want the display, get the i4. For 2 space, the D2 / i2.

D4 -- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L10CO7U

I've charged at least 5 battery types in this: D, AAA, AA, 18650, and 14500's. Works great for all of them.
posted by kschang at 11:19 PM on July 3, 2015

I have also been very happy with the same LaCrosse model that GuyZero linked to. Mine's roughly 3 years old now, as are my Eneloops. Everything seems to be going strong still.
posted by ktkt at 2:44 AM on July 4, 2015

That LaCrosse charger seems to be a generic charger sold under many different names (I have an identical one branded 'technoline'). They're pretty good and can sometimes revive cells that some other chargers can't. Not what I'd call the 'best' charger, but it works very well.
posted by pipeski at 3:05 AM on July 4, 2015

Maha Powerex are good, but criminally overpriced.
posted by scruss at 5:11 AM on July 4, 2015

The Eneloop charger is slow and not terribly smart. I have one and, IIRC, it is one of the sort that charges in pairs rather than individually, so if you are charging two cells that are starting from a different state of charge it will undercharge one of them.

I also have a Duracell 1 hour charger (CEF80NC, I believe. This version is the one I have) that can be found on eBay for around $10. It is cheap, but it's a smart charger, will also charge NiCd batteries, and despite the quick charge speed has worked well with both 1800mAh Eneloops and the 2650mAh Duracell NiMH batteries it was packed with. The batteries lasted for years doing 1-4x a week charge cycles. I was using them in a high power camera flash, so they weren't being coddled in any sense of the word.
posted by wierdo at 8:20 PM on July 4, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the info I will give one a shot that will check out nitecore and Lacrosse!
posted by Upon Further Review at 8:37 PM on July 6, 2015