TechnoLine BC-700 Battery Charger Review, or My Experience Recovering Ni-MH Batteries

    Experience recovering Ni-MH batteries, or review the Techno Line BC700 charger

    It so happened that after two years of active passion for photography, I was a little bit submerged in this whole thing. And now, a year later, about 3 weeks ago, I was "struck" in the photo. He took out a camera, batteries, ran for joy to take pictures. I took 2 photos, received a message: "Replace the batteries . " “Whoever doesn’t happen, I grabbed a randomly discharged kit,” I thought. I put another set - one or two pictures and the camera asks for new batteries. So with all my four pairs of batteries. Not having entered the situation, he went, stuck them in the charge while reading the habr at night, noticed that five minutes had not passed from the moment of installation on charging, and the LED of the charger already indicates a full charge. From that moment the story began. Welcome to cat!


    Ansmann PhotoCam III
    Along with the camera, as I said, 8 AA- type Ni-MH batteries with a capacity of 2850mAh from Ansmann brand were used . Charged them with what they were equipped with - Ansmann PhotoCam III charger (left).
    I would not say that a bad charger until I ran into this problem. Googling, I found out that the problem is that my batteries lay charged for a very long time, from which they lost their capacity very much. Honestly, I was pretty upset. A few more hours on Google, and I was faced with the choice: to buy new batteries and not steamed, or spend money on a smart charger that could restore the battery capacity. New batteries are, of course, quickly and without torment, but with the usual inexpensive charging and my sudden inattention, they can quickly go for already damaged ones. What happened next? Money down the drain again? It is worth noting that the price of 8 such batteries is equal to the price of a smart charger. Without thinking twice, I ordered the delivery of charging from the online store and went to bed.

    TechnoLine BC-700 in the hands

    TechnoLine BC-700TechnoLine BC-700can be safely attributed to the class of advanced, smart chargers. With it, you can charge AA and AAA batteries (finger and mini-boys). You can charge nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) rechargeable batteries with a capacity of up to 3000mAh with currents of 200, 500 or 700mA. One of the main advantages is working with each battery individually (in absolutely all respects), while unpretentious memories can only charge pairs of batteries. Another interesting feature is the overheating sensor, which suspends the charging process until the temperature drops. The device has 4 operating modes: charging, discharging, battery recovery and testing. In addition, during the operation of the memory, you can view information about the charging / discharging current, the voltage of each battery,

    Equipment

    box TechnoLine BC-700
    It is delivered in a usual cardboard box, inside:
    • charger itself;
    • Power Supply;
    • plug;
    • manual
    • warranty card

    Power SupplyThe package, as you see, is a little meager. Personally, I do not have enough cover or handbag for transportation. The charger itself looks very cool. Rough plastic, strong enough (drop from the table withstood without damage). The terminals are made with high quality, they hold the batteries very tight even after two weeks of use. Dimensions TechnoLine BC-700 are quite ordinary - 130x75x40 mm. The legs, unfortunately, are made of plastic sliding on the table. The power supply is made with a very unusual trifle - a detachable plug. This is done, it seems, for ease of transportation.
    manuals

    As already mentioned, the charger works with each battery separately. To implement the functionality on the front panel, we see 4 buttons for selecting the active slot, a four-section LCD display, a button for setting the charging current (Current), a button for changing the displayed information (current, voltage, elapsed time, charged capacity) and a button for changing the operating mode. That's about the modes of operation now and talk.

    Operating modes

    Charging
    So, the main mode of operation is charging. The mode allows you to charge your battery with currents of 200mA, 500mA or 700mA. When the battery is installed in the compartment, the “charging” mode and a current of 200mA are automatically selected. On the screen for 4 seconds, the current voltage on the battery is displayed, then for another 4 seconds we see the charging current. If during these 8 seconds no additional tinctures are produced, the process will begin with just such parameters. If to produce - the process will begin 4 seconds after the last button press. Incidentally, it is best to charge with low current. The end of charging is determined by -ΔV. Below is the table “Battery Charging Time with Different Currents” from the manual.
    Battery typeCapacityCharging current (mA)Estimated Charging Time
    AA2700mAh700~ 3 hours 45 minutes
    500~ 5 hours
    200~ 13 hours
    AAA1000mAh700~ 1 hour
    500~ 1 hour 25 minutes
    200~ 3 hours 30 minutes
    Discharge
    The second mode of operation of the BC-700 is to discharge. This mode must be used if you plan on long-term (more than 2 weeks) storage of batteries. Discharged batteries are stored practically without losing capacity. (I, unfortunately, found out about this very late.) Also, the mode is good for bringing fresh batteries to their rated capacity. In this mode, the batteries are initially discharged to 0.9V, and then charged to determine -ΔV. A partial drawback of the implementation of this mode in the BC-700 is the execution of charging after the battery is completely discharged. But, on the other hand, this is a convenient trifle for training your batteries. To keep the batteries discharged, you need to catch the moment of transition to charging mode and remove the battery. Discharge currents make up 50% of the charging current. Respectively, when starting the “discharge” operating mode, it must be taken into account that by choosing a discharge current of 350mA, our batteries will be charged with a current of 700mA, 250mA → 500mA, 100mA → 200mA, respectively. After the discharge / charge cycle is complete, the message Full will be displayed.

    Recovery (This is the mode that saved my batteries. But we'll talk about the recovery procedure later. For now - a purely review.)
    The mode is used to restore the capacity of old batteries that have not been used for a long time and hold their charge weakly, not in the way they should. The process consists of many discharge / charge cycles, which are designed to squeeze all possible power out of old batteries. The cycles will be repeated until the battery capacity stops increasing. Charging / discharging currents correspond to those described in the "discharge" paragraph and are valid for the "recovery" mode. Immediately make a reservation that this mode restored my batteries for 5 days. Long but effective.

    Testing
    The mode is used to obtain information about the actual battery capacity. First, a complete discharge occurs, then charging. This completes the function, and we get the actual value of the battery capacity. The choice of currents is similar to the previous two points and is valid in the "Testing" mode.

    My experience


    imageNow I will tell you about my experience using this device. As mentioned at the beginning of the topic, there are 8 dead batteries, charging and a patience car. After reading the manual, I realized that putting into testing mode does not make much sense, because I will see the capacity of my “shrunken” batteries even after the first discharge / charge cycle in recovery mode. Putting the first 4 batteries (the time was about one in the afternoon), I went on business. He returned to the clock by 7 pm, ran to look at the screen of the device. The second half of the first cycle was already taking place - charging, and after another 2 hours I saw that the second cycle had begun. Then I did not think to write this topic, but I made the photo just for myself (therefore, some photos of dull quality), in order to later evaluate the effect of this mode. As you can see in the photo, the capacity of all four batteries is approximately 200mAh, which is negligible and is approximately fourteenth of the nominal battery capacity. I was surprised at how much the batteries were draining ...

    Days passed, I glanced at the screen, contemplating the apparent restoration of the battery capacity.

    image5 days after starting on the BC-700, I saw the joyful “Full”. When the current capacity was displayed on the screen, to be honest, I was surprised, happy and cheerful at the same time. For 5 days, the TechnoLine BC-700 managed to increase (or, more precisely, restore) the battery capacity by 12 times, namely from ~ 200mAh to ~ 2400mAh. I think this is an amazing result. I am very pleased with the result of the device, as well as with the whole device. Not a bit sorry that I forked at him, because come in handy more than a dozen times. By the way, ~ 250 photos were taken on the kit that first went through the BC-700 the next day. After another 5 days, 4 more of my batteries were restored. Charging restored their capacity also about 12 times.

             imageimageimage

    Conclusion


    imageA pleasant and interesting design
    imagequality terminals, clamping the battery
    imagework with each battery individually
    imageOverheat protection
    imageDetachable plug on the power unit (easy to transport)
    imageDetermination of -ΔV charging is complete,
    imagereally restores batteries that have long been used
    imagereasonable price (~ $ 50)
    imagePlastic feet
    imagelack of cover / handbags for transportation

    TechnoLine BC-700 is an excellent charger that can charge your batteries wisely, maintain them in working condition, and restore already seemingly completely hopeless batteries. If you are faced with the same choice as me: to buy new batteries, or this is a charger, then I advise you to stop buying a TechnoLine BC-700 charger, especially considering that the cost of this charger is approximately equal to the cost of 8 batteries 2850mAh capacity of a more or less well-known brand.

    Update 1: On Amazon, you can order an absolutely identical device manufactured by La Crosse for $ 35.9. With us it costs about $ 50. Just do not forget that the plug will most likely not be for our outlets.

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