battery charging

Barter

Not sure if this is the right board - is it 'techie' enough - but hope someone can advise:-

i've dug out a really old battery charger; it's a 'Memorex Super charger' & is for 1-4 AA size. It says 'nickel-cadmium battery only'. It is small, not much bigger than a plug, & so ideal for away from home.

My digital camera has NiMH AA batteries;I usually recharge them at home with a multi-system charger but this is a large heavy unit.

So, does anyone know if I could safely recharge the NiMH batteries in the old unit? I'm going away tomorrow so a quick decision as to which to pack is needed!

Many thanks, B.

shrek101

Nope it would charge them up is it states Nicad only. NiMH are totally different properties and don't have the memory effect like Nicad do.

NiMH charger are pretty cheap less than a tenner with 4 batteries

Barter

Thanks for the prompt reply.

The big one does both NiMH & Ni-Cad, so I just wondered if maybe the Memorex one was pre-NiMH days & it would have said OK if they'd been around!

bbb_uk

It is likely that your old one is pre-NiMH days but I wouldn't recommend using it to charge batteries that are not Ni-Cd. It is possible that trying to charge Ni-MH batteries in a Ni-Cd charger could lead to overheating and/or risk of fire.

Rave

NiCd batteries don't have memory effect either shrek, that's a myth:

http://www.dansdata.com/gz011.htm

Barter, I reckon it'll work o.k., but you use it at your own risk. The only way it could cause overheating is if it's some sort of ultrafast charger with no overcharge detection; if it's small and doesn't make any obvious speed claims it's unlikely to be. You could just supervise the first charge to make sure the batteries (and charger) don't get too hot. If it's just a standard, old style trickle charger, the only problem will be that it'll probably take a long time to fully charge up the batteries. NiMH batteries don't tolerate overcharging as well as NiCads, so don't leave them on indefinitely. If you don't want to risk it, and can afford to cough up a tenner to avoid packing the larger one, then you could grab one of these if you pass a Jessops on the way to the airport:

http://www.jessops.com/search/viewproduct.cfm?PRODUCT=JESBCK&BRAND=JES&CONTINUE=false&FEATS=&FIRSTPRICE=0&KEYWORD=&LEVEL=&MODELNUMBER=&NEWQUERY=True&NODE=246&ORD=ASC&ORDERBY=&QUANTITY=10&RECENT=0&REFINE=&SEARCH_FOR=&SEARCHNODE=0&SEARCHURL=dointellisearch.cfm&SECONDPRICE=50&SHOWCASEID=&STARTROW=1&SUBS=&WORD_SEARCH=N&