Fameart PC14 Charger with 4 x AA Sanyo Eneloop Batteries - £8.99 @ 7DayShop

I assume these are 2000mAh capacity....... and anyone know how long this charger would take to charge these ??
The discription is a bit vague at 5 to 20 hours.

I just googled this charger and according to another site the charging times are...

AA 1800mAh 15 Hrs
AA 2300mAh 19.5 Hrs

This is a ridiculously long charge time so cold from me.

As these hold their charge just charge em up and keep them for when you need them, does not matter how long it takes.

I have to admit, since my faster charger went west about a year ago, I have been charging at nearly this rate, and have no problems - with the new Technology batteries, I am never in a rush to get them charged, as I always have others ready in the drawer, so 15 hours/overnight/next day isn't quite the problem it would have been when I only had the standard type! Although I do readily admit I am thinking of getting the Lidl charger later in the week (local store had no old pack ones at the weekend!)

As a spare charger it is not a lot more expensive than a set of Eneloop batteries on their own, it isn't as if that is a lot to pay.

The faster you charge any NiMH battery, the faster the cells will break down and reduce it's life. The truth is that you are much better off charging these batteries slowly (for over 5 hours). It will not cost any more charging them for 1hour, 5hours or 24hours because once they are full they will not accepts any more juice.

Ideally you want a charger that will provide between 200 and 500mA of charging current. The supplied charger (although cheap) seems to be within this range.
*Charging at 200mA will take approx 15hours
*Charging at 500mA will take approx 6hours
*Some fast chargers supply 1800mA so will take approx 1hour 40mins but will shorten the battery life considerably,

Figures are based on the battery requiring 1.5x input rated current (2000mAH) to fully charge from empty.

can't understand why this deal did not get hotter

Re charge rates etc. see link about charging NiMh - very interesting reading: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-11.htm

To quote: "Nickel-metal-hydride should be rapid charged rather than slow charged." and "It is difficult, if not impossible, to slow-charge a nickel-metal-hydride."

Because people read 2000mAh and think they are low powered compared 2700 or 2800mAh non-lsd batteries. The truth is that these will outlive any other rechargeable AA on the market.

Thats not quite true.. NiMH SHOULD be recharged at 0.1C ideally.. so for these 2000mAh cells it should be 200ma for 16 hours ish.. These Fameart chargers are actually not too bad.. (the reasons for charging at higher current are because the charger should detect a drop in voltage when the battery is full.. the batteries way of telling the charger its full.. this doesnt always happen at low rates.. but the only cells ive had problems with this on are cheap nasty ones..)

Any good charger will do this.. Fast chargers are rubbish and will kill your batteries. Whilst there was an excuse for using a fast charger with normal NiMH cells (the fact you cant keep them charged so might need to charge them in a hurry) there is no reason too with these eneloops or any other new technology NiMH batteries. (GP Recyko's, eneloops, hybrios etc..)

A normal (good quality) NiMH 2300/2500/2700 will outperform these cells no problem at all if they have both just been charged (properly).. however after a month of being in a cupboard charged the eneloops will have held so much more charge that they are the better battery.

You really need a mixture of both types and a decent charger that can fast or slow charge (MAHA Powerex MH-C9000 I'd reccomend) then you can have the eneloops charged for suprise use and take the time to properly charge some high capacity NiMH standards if you have eneough notice of needing them. (energizer, powerex, panasonic and duracell supremes are all very good from my testing)


Has anyone ordered from 7day recently? I tried to buy some batteries on saturday from them and noticed they were having some security problems with the homepage.

Thanks for the post been looking for some Eneloops and with a charger makes it a better deal!

www.CandlePowerForums.com is a great resource for battery information. There is no other battery rated as highly as these for mixed device usage. From remote controls to kids toys, torches and DSLR flashguns these just do the job.

Duracell and Uniross amongst others buy these off of Sanyo and re-brand them for their top of the range LSD batteries.

Have just ordered with no problems on their security page, or atleast I didn't notice a problem

Most of saturday (when i was trying to order this and some panasonic batteries) they had a black front page after some hack attempt or somethign like that on there.. made me wonder how secure it is.. more details here apparently: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...php?p=59038317

I have used 7dayshop dozens of times without any issue. Credit Card payments are securely handled, although their frontpage appears to have been hacked at the weekend.