Monday, July 31, 2006

LaCrosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger

One word - wow!!. This IS the Best charger ever. Its most distinguishing feature - "It shows you numbers". Instead of saying something like - the light is green or the battery shows three bars so it must be fully charged, I hear my self saying the battery has 2250mAh of charge. Numbers man numbers. It appeals to the engineer's heart. Now one can compare good with the bad. Moreover now there is a way of classifying "goodness". Moreover this charger can charge, refresh, test and discharge with various settings. It can automatically charge discharge a battery multiple times to remove the memory effect to get an optimal charge capacity. Mind my words I say exactly what I mean and mean exactly what I say. By charge capacity I mean "mAh" or "Ah" that is how long the battery will last (now that is battery lingo). One can set each of the four compartments to different settings i.e one can be charging one battery while disharging another while testing another one. The LCD can display Voltage, Capacity, time to charge/discharge, the charging/discharging current for the individual batteries.
Also comes with 4 AA, 4 AAA (NiMH - Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries, a bag and a set of adapters to convert AA to C and D types.

"This charger knows batteries" and has definitely taught me a couple of things about batteries.

I considered a few chargers before settling on this one. But none boasted the flexibility or the feature set that this one has. There are some chargers out there that claim to be able to recharge alkaline batteries (tempting)- Renu-it, Re-Zap. But, I don't have that many alkaline batteries. More over why attempt to charge something that was not meant to be recharged, unless ofcourse you already own loads of them. That could make for a compelling reason. But not the case here.

Available from:
Amazon - $52.19

1 comment:

Harsh Thakur said...

I want one of these too. I wonder why you didn't present it to me on my B'Day which was just a couple of days ago.