Batteries and chargers (Eneloop and BC-900)

cowasaki

cowasaki

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Well I bought an SB600 and SB800 when I bought my camera originally then bought a load of cheap 2750mAh batteries off Ebay. I had to carry 3 sets of batteries every time that I used my flash and after 20-30 shots it would slow right down and I would end up having to take the SB800 off the camera and use the onboard flash or change batteries.....

Well not any more :)

After reading quite a bit on here and elsewhere I decided to go out and buy some decent batteries and went to 7dayshop where I bought 3 sets of 4 x eneloop batteries plus 3 sets of 4 eneloop batteries with chargers. They seem to have the best price of all the places I found (that actually have stock).

4 x eneloop AA batteries £6.99 inc
4 x eneloop AA batteries with a charger £8.49 (£1.50 per charger!!)

oh and I bought a couple of battery testers too (much better than using a multimeter or relying on the charger as it tests the voltage whilst applying a load).

I also decided to buy a Technoline BC-900 (iCharger) battery charger, this is one serious battery charger costing £39.95 but rather sophisticated.

Well what have I found out..........

Eneloops

Eneloop batteries are REALLY good. Straight out of the packet they were fully charged and after sticking them into the flash guns they fired straight away and re-charged instantly. If they hold their charge as has been reported ie 85% after a year then they are ideal for photography as I can leave them in the flash and rely on the fact that it will actually work when I come to use it.

Eneloops only have 2000mAh capacity! Well the rubbish people sell on Ebay do not even have that despite what it actually says on them! 2000mAh is good for 300+ flashes allegedly so I am happy with that.

Technoline BC-900

Technoline BC-900, well the instructions are written in Japlish but it is not too difficult to work out how to use it.

It has several modes including

Charge (useful this one!) allowing batteries to be charged at various rates

Test which discharges the batteries and then recharges them giving you the ACTUAL CAPACITY!!

Discharge/Refresh which discharges and then recharges the battery over and over until it recovers it's full capacity.

Cheap batteries

No don't go there......

Ebay is a hot bed of rubbish batteries, I have found out that of the 32 batteries I started with 8 are totally dead and all the others have an actual capacity of between 243mAh and 720mAh despite saying 2750mAh on them.......

Well at least I no longer have to worry about rubbish batteries :)

Oh and Argos have Eneloop batteries at £3.99 for 4 but they are out of stock at every branch :)
 
What brands were the Ebay batteries you bought? I've not had any problems with the Fujicells, but if Argos in Glasgow happen to have the Eneloops at that price I'll be having some (y)
 
That's pretty much the same experience as I've had. The commonly available high capacity AA's just aren't anywhere near as high capacity as they're advertised. And the eneloops walk all over them even though they're *only* rated at 2000 mAh.

Getting a decent charger (I ended up with a techno line BL-700 really shows the true capacity of your batteries as well!
 
Flash In The Pan said:
What brands were the Ebay batteries you bought? I've not had any problems with the Fujicells, but if Argos in Glasgow happen to have the Eneloops at that price I'll be having some (y)
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They were the typical unbranded chinese/HK ones :(

I have been watching Argos for ages looking for some stock at £3.99 but not yet!
 
Bill Roberts said:
Getting a decent charger (I ended up with a techno line BL-700 really shows the true capacity of your batteries as well!
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I was going to buy the BL-700 but the deal I found on the BL-900 included 4 decent batteries and 4 battery adapters too so I paid the extra. I is definitely worth going for a decent charger though!
 
cowasaki said:
They were the typical unbranded chinese/HK ones :(
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Serves you right then :razz:

I have been watching Argos for ages looking for some stock at £3.99 but not yet!
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I'll try some of the branches round here, even if each branch only has one set I could get dozens :LOL:

You want me to get you any if they have them?
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Serves you right then :razz:



I'll try some of the branches round here, even if each branch only has one set I could get dozens :LOL:

You want me to get you any if they have them?
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Thanks a lot for the offer but I have just bought mine now :) Hopefully I should have enough.
 
Regular rechargeables are hopeless. I have four sets, all good brands, and every time I go to use them they're flat, even after a few days. I've had it with them.

I've been using ordinary non-rechargeables lately, and quite happily I must say - they're quite cheap in multipacks from Tescos - but I must get me some Eneloops as I keep hearing good things about them.

That Argos price is too good to miss. Thanks for the heads up :)
 
I have to agree a good write up here thanks , now i have a question , I have been using Panasonic Ni-Mh Rechargeable - ACCU 2600 mAh for some time now , they do suffer from the loss of power over time thing but when charged they are so fast at recycling the flash , so my question is can i use Panasonic Infinium Ni-Mh Rechargeable with a standard charger or do i need to buy another charger , thanks
 
Gary Wood said:
so my question is can i use Panasonic Infinium Ni-Mh Rechargeable with a standard charger or do i need to buy another charger , thanks
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Would have thought that you can just use them with any charger so long as it states that it charges Ni-Mh batteries.
 
Well a bit of an update:

It has taken this long because it can take 2 days to run the discharge/recharge to max cycle.

I had 30 odd chinese 2500mAh batteries which when run through the TEST cycle returned values of 200-600mAh which is basically rubbish and explains why I was getting 50 pictures or less from a set of rechargeable batteries. Having run them through the full rejuvenate cycle twice their power increased by maybe 20% giving me 250-700ish.

The BC-900 came with a set of 2750 batteries. They were NEW so the seller said they would only get to full power after a few charges. I ran the TEST cycle and they returned 1300-1500mAh. I then ran the rejuvenate cycle and they came back with a result of 2680-2720 all very well matched and very close to the advertised amount which tends to prove that the device's calibration is OK.

Next came the first set of eneloops..... Well I hadn't charged any of the eneloops because they come charged and the charger was busy so I just inserted them. I took 120ish shots and the battery tester said they were FULL still so no idea what they would have taken. Anyway inserted them into the BC-900 and stuck them on the rejuvenate cycle.......

It is still running 24 hours later but they are all so well matched that they are changing state within minutes of each other even 24 hours on. The first cycle returned values of 1300+-50 for all the batteries and we are now on the 2nd cycle (this is automatic and continues till there is no increase between cycles). The 2nd cycle is now showing 2.09Ah, 2.07Ah, 2.08Ah and 2.09Ah..... Already ABOVE the advertised amount and the charger will carry on till there is no increase.

What does this show?

Unbranded batteries - No comment!!

Eneloops - Better than advertised, work out of the packet, get better and better over the first 3-4 uses.

I will give a final update when it finally finishes, these results have been using a recharge power of 500mA. It would take about 5-6 days using 200mA but this is a rejuvenate cycle, designed to get the batteries up to full power. Once at this state you should be able to recharge them with a normal charger (or in normal mode) and just return them to the special mode every few months....


I am actually going to try them in the mouse and keyboard too now. Normally not very good with rechargeable batteries but got to be worth a try with the Eneloops.
 
A very good thread.

I get pretty much the same findings, but with a Powerex MAHA 9000 charger/analyser and Eneloops and the ratings I get are within 1% of each other..

Flash recycle times for a rechargeable battery are amazing :)
 
Another good word in for eneloops / panasonic infiniums (same thing, different brand) - awesome batteries for flashes or whatever, and dirt cheap on 7dayshop... anything else is just false economy tbh.

You get great recycle times, and they do last forever...I can be shooting all day on 1 set of batteries per flash.
 
I've always had very good luck with 2700mAH Fujicells.

They used to be very cheap on Ebay (8 for a fiver etc), hold charge well, and charge quickly (depending on the charger)
 
Right last update,

I have now charged 4 sets of the eneloops and they are nearly all charging to about 2.09-2.1mAh or even 2.2mAh none have charged to less than 2.06mAh

so there we have it, Sanyo could list them as 2100mAh rather than 2Ah and would probably get away with it but they are all charging nicely over their rated amount and hold the charge.

Having taken a set of 5 out in the SB800 to a christening I got 400+ shots and they were STILL recharging almost instantly !!! Looks like I bought more of these than I need but that means I can now use them in my Apple keyboard and mouse too.
 
what do you keep all your batteriers in, i have mine loose in a pocket but not sure its the best way to store themw hen out and about.

I used Duracell Rechargables and don't seem to have many problems, but at £5 a set for the eneloops might be worth it but argos site doesn't bring them up in a search anymore.
 
you can buy little plastic boxes that hold four batteries from eBay, 7 day shop or most other places. They were about 80p each.
 
kiteninja said:
what do you keep all your batteriers in, i have mine loose in a pocket but not sure its the best way to store themw hen out and about.

I used Duracell Rechargables and don't seem to have many problems, but at £5 a set for the eneloops might be worth it but argos site doesn't bring them up in a search anymore.
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I just put a rubber band round them, or one of those hair 'bobble' things, and drop them in the bag. You could use different colours for charged/flat I suppose.
 
I use the little plastic boxes and keep all the batteries pointing in the same direction. If they are flat I just swap a couple of the batteries round. I can then tell which boxes contain flat batteries very easily.
 
I have the Maha C9000 which is an incredible piece of kit - I've revived a number of otherwise dead rechargeables with it.

I'd also recommend Sony Cyber Energy (got mine at Tesco) and Uniross Hybro (Wilkinsons IIRC) LSD NiMH cells as well as the Eneloop. I believe that although the cells are marketed under many different brand names they are only made by 4 or 5 companies.
 
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just got the Technoline BC-900 .


Looks ok but a bit difficult to understand the manual. The user interface looks like the custom function of my canon flash. Not very intuitive or maybe I'm missing somthing. Anyway what I'm trying to look for when doing a discharge/recharge cycle is an indication of what is currently happening. Is it currently discharging or discharging? Looking at the powerex link just above my post, there is an indication of what is currently happening (it says current progress)...

Can Mr. Cowasaki shed some light on this please.
 
strobemonkey said:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just got the Technoline BC-900 .


Looks ok but a bit difficult to understand the manual. The user interface looks like the custom function of my canon flash. Not very intuitive or maybe I'm missing somthing. Anyway what I'm trying to look for when doing a discharge/recharge cycle is an indication of what is currently happening. Is it currently discharging or discharging? Looking at the powerex link just above my post, there is an indication of what is currently happening (it says current progress)...

Can Mr. Cowasaki shed some light on this please.
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You can change the display to show how much time is left if you are on a normal charge cycle. I would run a full charge/discharge cycle every so often and on this it cannot tell you how long because it charges then discharges over and over again until it finds the most charge!

My ebay batteries that were labelled at 2700Mah ended up being 298-450 Mah !!! The 2000Mah Eneloops ended up ALL being on or around 2100 :)

MODES -

Charge-test = This is the one that loops charge and recharge cycles to find out what the battery is capable of.

Charge = This is the normal mode

To select the mode just hold the right hand button down for a couple of seconds till the mode changes (this is the word(s) displayed on the top of the battery in the display). Once this has changed once just tap the same button again and again until the mode changes to what you want.

In Charge mode press the middle button to change between "time left", "charge current" etc. This is where you would select TIME LEFT

You can also use the charge to discharge a battery although there is no point as the only time you would want to do this is as a cycle which it automates anyway.
 
Big thanks for the quick reply... very helpful!!!
 
I was wondering if anyone had experience of the uni-ross version of these slow discharge batteries.
I saw a set here that looks like very good value if they are of the same sort of quality.

I would happily get some eneloops from amazon (£7 for 4) but i cant find a charger that seems suitable, and a prefer to buy from amazon or play rather than one of the third parties that sell on their sites, so that limits my choice a little.
If someone knows of a suitable charger for a reasonable price that would be great (i would need to have an auto turn off feature in case i forget)
 
Blue Eagle said:
I was wondering if anyone had experience of the uni-ross version of these slow discharge batteries.
I saw a set here that looks like very good value if they are of the same sort of quality.

I would happily get some eneloops from amazon (£7 for 4) but i cant find a charger that seems suitable, and a prefer to buy from amazon or play rather than one of the third parties that sell on their sites, so that limits my choice a little.
If someone knows of a suitable charger for a reasonable price that would be great (i would need to have an auto turn off feature in case i forget)
Click to expand...

I did loads of research and found 7 day shop cheapest for Eneloops and they also do a deal with a charger too.
 
Guys,
Not sure what the other charger mentioned is like but I use this...

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=217900

Charges 8 batteries of any size.
1 hr charge is too quick for AA's but the soft charge does them in 2 hours a treat.

Agree on the Eneloops, I have loads of them too.
 
When I bought them it was £6.99 for 4 Eneloop AAs or £8.49 with a 4 battery charger so £1.50 for the charger !!
 
Oh look, they are still doing it !!!


BUY HERE

And £6.75 for 4 Eneloops when you buy 2 or 3 packets.
 
I posted this thread within another forum. Eneloops are great, but I found GP Recyko's to be slightly more powerful and also cheaper. I own lots of both.
 
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