LA CROSSE BC-900 BATTERY CHARGER $38.97 + Ship

[Mitch101]

If your looking for a battery charger this is the bomb.

LA CROSSE BC-900 Battery Charger
http://thomasdistributing.com/...u0gvpkks3iv99jlelqgve3

Helped me identify batteries that weren't performing up to spec and the refresh mode saved a lot of them from going into the trash.

In a lot of cases one in four batteries drains low enough that the device turns off.
This happened a lot with my kids portable game devices. With this charger I was able to identify the problem battery causing the short life spans.

Amazon is selling the same kit for $49.99

Amazon does have the BC-700 for $32.99 shipped.
http://www.amazon.com/Crosse-T...&qid=1209419275&sr=8-1

Read the reviews on Amazon about the BC-900.

As far as the so called heat talk. Unless you set the charging current to super high - Which you shouldn't rush the charging of your batteries to begin with - thats when the unit will get hot. I charge at the default level and occasionally will refresh batteries I know are not holding a charge like they should.

 

[Danzilla]

First off, Amazon usually sells this for $39.99 too, with free shipping, so don't get too excited about 38.97+ shipping. If you look on the Amazon page you'll see a link to the 'replacement' BC-700 along with the info that the BC-900 currently ships within 1 to 3 months. So it's probably reverted to some base/suggested price (list price just meaningless these days) while out of stock.

Secondly, it sounded like you were responding to something when you mentioned the heat the unit can produce, but I can't spot the original. At any rate, I'll just add that the heat issue I'd heard about was the not the result of charging the batteries regardless of current, but from discharging while refreshing or whatever.

EDIT: okay, think I spotted the 'heat' issue the OP is talking about. The reveiw complained that BATTERIES can get hot during charging. The OP however said "... that's when the UNIT will get hot." which threw me. As I see it, the unit get's hot discharging... batteries get hot during charging.

 

[Muse]

The BC-900 used to have a problem in that in some uncommon instances, people had theirs actually melt down. It was uncommon, and the one I have had for over a year has never in my experienced even gotten warm or made the batteries warm. I love it. It's the perfect geek's charger, or so it seems to me after having owned a couple of Maha chargers and quite a handful of cheap no-think chargers over the years.

There is a controversy concerning whether La Crosse changed the firmware in this charger, presumably to fix the reported problems. La Crosse support denied that this was the case, but some people don't believe them. I have one of the "newer" ones, which have a different designation. You can read the reviews (there are many) at Amazon.com, and if you really want to get into it, check out the Candlepower Forums, where there's a tremendous amount of information (i.e. threads) on chargers of various kinds. At both sites, if you look you can find discussions concerning the reported meltdowns of some BC-900s, reports from the horse's mouth. Most users had no such problems, it was just the occasional user. I don't know what the current experiences are, however, just my own experience, which has been great.

I don't quick charge, and I usually don't use the lowest charge rates except for AAA's. I usually discharge/recharge my NiMH's (occasionally refreshing batteries if I think they will benefit), and the BC-900 tells me the accumulated charge when they are done, for each battery. I keep records for each battery so I know how they are doing.

As long as this thing works, I don't use another charger. One thing though - if a battery has too low a charge to begin with (say under 0.90 or 1.0 volt), it won't begin charging. The LCD will read NULL for that battery. In that case, you have to give it a seed charge in another charger that isn't so finicky. For that reason, I retain some other chargers.

I got mine for ~$35 shipped at Amazon.com. At least a year ago they used to periodically drop the price $5 and I snagged it then.