On 28 Jun 2005 at 12:30, Cory Papenfuss wrote: > I debated about which charger to get for awhile, and ended up with > the BC-900. It's a little bit pricey, but I think it's well worth it. I > had a bunch of cells from a few different manufacturers that I'd been > using for awhile with a cheap 2/4 overnight charger (charging in pairs). > The first thing I did is run every one of them through a couple of test > cycles on the BC-900 and recorded their capacity. Turns out that they > varied widely and were mostly severely underrated (as expected). I paired > them > up in chunks of 4 with similar capacity for the -DS and have noticed quite a > bit > better life. They all go down at the same time, instead of a single weak one > making the camera think the pack is dead. My #1 pack of 4 is made of 2 from > one > brand, and 2 from another, and #2 pack is 3 of one and 1 from another. It's > just the way the capacity turned out. > > My first one actually died shortly after I got it, but sent it > back and got a new one. It actually fried a component inside, so I > suspect it was just a faulty build... customer service was fine. Besides, > with > all of the information available, it lets an uber-geek like myself know WAY > more > than they should about their batteries... :)
Thanks Cory, Just what I wanted to hear (except the part about the first one dying, I understand the case is plastic welded or glued?). My current chargers are either 2 or 4 cell units and whilst all my cells are Sanyos and all have been kept in their original sets I know I've got some bad cells in there. I got as far as buying some single AA battery holders and borrowed my mates top end battery charger/conditioner (Duratrax IntelliPeak Ice http://www.duratrax.com/caraccys/dtxp4170.html) but I'm just too lazy to run the full condition cycle for each cell (24 in all). So this little unit looks like it will do me well, the only disappointment is that it requires a 3VDC supply (which is understandable I guess as it keeps dissipation down). Do you know of any suitable 12VDC to 3VDC switch-mode convertors to buy or build? I have a heap of old switchmode VRMs from ancient motherboards, it would be nice to be able to use one of them. Cheers, Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
