…cheap but half decent – where from..?

Boots. Usually have a ‘buy two get one free’ offer on. They’re cheap anyway, compared to the branded ones, and just as good.

What are you using them for? There are different types. For cameras etc, I’d go for 2200mAh or higher.

Wilkinson’s had an Energizer kit for £9 IIRC the other day

My memory fails me http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/batteries/energizer-accu-recharge-intelligent-battery-recharger-with-batteries-aa-x-4/invt/0298407/?htxt=%2B6ECUhx6jxiPv5ysFCICdg6fehwm9tQ1EMo5p9cQYPFQ8pILsivPm2XP5pLo1mHRYyEv09D26a%2BfGs6hs%2FuQkg%3D%3D

7 day shop have good deals. 7 day shop

I ordered one of these recently. I’ll be touring later his year so the ability to plug this into my dynamo and charge via usb slot aswell as the option of using it as an emergency power backup for my phone with the usb power out. Pretty cheap too.

I got my charged from lidl does most batteries and I get the batteries form 7dayshop when they do the silly offers.

There’s only one answer to this question. Anything else is a pale imitation.

Batteries

Charger

(ok, two answers)

30 quid for a charger? Why pay more than 10?

7

DAY

SHOP

/thread

+1 @ Cougar

Have the very same charger and it put life back in to my old rechargable batteries that had been killed through poor use pattern and cheap non-intelligent charger.

A mate got one and it has paid for iteslf through batteries he gets from the recycle bin at work that people throw away due to not holding enough charge. Just put them throughh a couple of conditioning cycles.

Batteries seem last longer in both senses, longer overall life and longer lasting on each charge.

+1 for the bl 700
IME gp recyco are at least as good as other branded LSD batteries like the Sanyo ones

I’ve got a rapid 1 hour charger from Maplins and it’s pretty good. It also has a discharge and re charge option which is much slower but batteries put through that cycle last about twice as long in my camera.

You asked for half decent. If you’d asked for crap, I’d have linked to a ten quid charger. I’ve got one of those; I’ve just thrown it in the bin after it failed to cut out after charging and ruined four batteries.

Most recarbs will start to discharge as soon as you unplug them. After a week in the drawer, your nice 2000mAH cells will probably be holding about half that. The Eneloops I linked to don’t do that. Also, they’re pretty colours; aesthetics aside, that means you can make sure that the same batteries stay together in the same device and are subjected to the same loads.

The charger juices each battery individually, so if you’ve got one that’s dead and one that’s half full, they’ll both charge correctly. Also, it’s got a refresh mode which can revive batteries that no longer hold their charge. Of the aforementioned four batteries I had, three of them now work correctly again (the fourth still won’t hold more than about 400mAH – but at least I now know this and can toss it out rather than chucking all four).

Cougar is right. I’ve got the BC900 which is pretty much the same and has now been replaced with the BC1000 (http://www.batterylogic.co.uk/technoline/technoline-i-charger.asp) It’s definitely worth the money. Also Sanyo Eneloop batteries perform much better than normal high capacity batteries and are also the best low self discharge batteries, I don’t use anything else and with a house full of kids toys I have a lot!

I have one of the BL700 jobbies too

Does a cracking job and I can’t really fault it
but, I find myself often using a cheap one I have as the BL700 takes ages to go though all the discharge, conditioning, recharge etc.
Pretty sure you can change the settings but the manual bored me 🙂 and I gave up and left it as default

Pretty sure the default mode is ‘charge’?

Pretty sure the default mode is ‘charge’?

is it?

Takes bloody ages with the 2100mah Hybrios I use

It’s probably trickle-charging. You can change that.

It’s probably trickle-charging. You can change that.

Yeah, probably, I’ll look at it one day 🙂

I have that charger as well – you can now get the eneloops with 2400mah capacity – look for the X factor branded ones…