#1  
Old 31-07-2013, 07:13 AM
hotspur's Avatar
hotspur (Chris)
Registered User

hotspur is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: south east QLD,Australia
Posts: 2,868
Setting uses for Maha battery charger

I just bought one of the Maha battery chargers on a heap of imedion AA's

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/230526454...84.m1439.l2649

After reading Phil's (acropolites) threads-thanks Phil
I bought this set up to supply AA's to my trail cameras.I take it many here use the same for flashes etc.

What settings do most here use on the charger,and what are some things to be aware off? I've never used such an an advanced one before,I've had the basic eneloops and their basic charger-batteries would last me over two years on it.This new set up should be even better.Thanks for any tips.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 13-08-2013, 08:33 PM
atkinsonr (Rich)
Registered User

atkinsonr is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Northern Beaches, Sydney
Posts: 54
I use one of those to charge my Turnigy LSD NiMH batteries (Very similar to Eneloop; available from Hobbyking).

The called "smart chargers" have a chip to monitor the batteries voltage and temperature as it charges. As such they're safe to charge NiMH at 0.5-1C. The term "C" in batteries is basically the mAh rating.

So, if you have a 2200mAh battery, charge it between 1100mA and 2200 mAh. I usually go 1500mA for no particular reason.

Things to watch are:

1. Take batteries out of the charger when they're charged (after the charge is complete the charger switches to a low trickle, so leaving them in for more than a day or so does damage them).

2. If you put AAA batteries in them, note their lower capacity (i.e. 800mAh) requires that you lower the charge rate from the default (1000mAh on mine).

3. NiMH batteries much prefer this fast charging approach to the more typical trickle charge.

It's a great charger. Since I switched to the Maha and LSD batteries, I've never had to throw a battery out.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 19-08-2013, 11:43 AM
sil's Avatar
sil (Steve)
Not even a speck of dust

sil is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Canberra
Posts: 1,474
Use the break-in mode to charge any new batteries (actually its handy for rejuvenating old "unchargable" batteries too. The break-in mode will take a few days to run and when its finished press the slot button to cycle through each battery slot and read the capacity (MAH value) of each cell battery from the display. Write this value with permanent marker on each battery then use them in "sets" of similar values for better performance and to balance the stress on the batteries.

The charge and discharge rates you can think of similarly to fast charging and high performance (discharge) usage. Higher values will stress the battery but will be quicker to charge/discharge than a lower value. I usually just run a slow discharge then a slow charge.

Batteries will change their performance over time, including how much capacity they have so periodically run a longer Refresh Analyze with them to see if they are still holding the capacity they should. Re-evaluate your battery sets to try to keep similar capacities together. Depending on usage you should also rerun the break-in every few dozen cycles of the batteries just to give it them thorough going over and help bring them back to their best performance.

If you're only using batteries in your TV remote the MAHA is probably overkill and not much benefit to you. However in applications where the batteries are under high load and get drained fast its more important to keep the batteries in good working order and in balanced sets.

If you have any older batteries your existing charger won't charge anymore the break-in mode on the MAHA may recondition some to be usable again but if the MAHA says its dead then chuck em.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +10. The time is now 12:44 AM.

Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.7 | Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement
Testar
Advertisement
Bintel
Advertisement