La Crosse Technology BC700 Alpha Power Battery Charger

List Price: $49.95 Discount Price: $40.52

Features:

• Battery charger for NiCad and NiMH AA and AAA rechargeable batteries
• Features 4 modes: charge, discharge, recharge and test
• Charges both AA & AAA rechargeable batteries simultaneously
• 4 separate LCD displays for simultaneous readouts
• Overheat-detection to prevent over-charging

Customer Reviews:

Not an expert in the field, but great product. [Posted on 2008-09-23]
I have bought this product early September, and I started to use it right away. The product is fine, the instructions are clear, and I'm looking forward to using it more as I root for renewable energy. Great product for great price, I'd say.

works well [Posted on 2008-09-30]
Plenty of options to do just about anything with the batteries. I don't miss the higher currents that BC900 has, because I would never stress my batteries that much anyway. I try to have enough spares and charge them as slowly as possible (200mA).

NOT truly independent compartments - Terrible customer service [Posted on 2008-09-30]
ONCE the novelty wore off with these seemingly marvelous little chargers & after making many careful observations, a lot of things began to stand out as well as do more than merely irritate. Sure, for most folks the BC-700 will be a big step up from the common, less expensive battery chargers they are familiar with... but there are some serious limitations that, had we known about, we would have never purchased them in the first place.

Have purchased & received 4 of these chargers now. We need 4 chargers, but these have left us quite disappointed overall. There is no doubt that they will charge better than most simple chargers, giving one a vast amount of greater control over the charging process as well as offering great various charging/discharging modes... but there ARE problems: problems with quality control, problems with operations & terrible problems with customer service (as has been noted by other reviewers).

QUALITY CONTROL:
* 1 of 4 chargers have the compartment buttons quite uneven in their seating, curving & dipping this way & that.
* 2 of the 4 have a most annoying piece of dust under the view plate right where the readings are taken in one compartment.
* 1 of the 4 requires the Current/Display/Mode buttons to be mashed hard to get them to perform their function.
* 3 of the 4 are absolutely difficult to get AA batteries into as well as out of the compartments (the negative charging tabs stick out way too far).

OPERATIONS:
* One compartment will nearly always charge batteries a good bit more than the others for some strange reason, using evenly-matched batteries that have just been charged 10 days beforehand (subsequent testing mode). This is usually, but not always, compartment #4.
* Have had our older NiCADs commonly hit over 1.7 volts & a few reach well over 1.8 volts while charging... on just a 200 mA charge, no less!
* There is a most annoying, consistent anomaly concerning the final trickle charging: as the first cell (we use a small army of Sanyo eneloop AA & AAA batteries) reaches "Full" it is then trickled @ 17-18 mA UNTIL the next battery goes "Full", then the first charged cell settles into a 12 mA trickle charge & the last cell to read "Full" then receives an 18 mA trickle. Same with the 3rd, same with the 4th... & even if one leaves the trickle charging go for 24 hours or more the first 3 to charge up will continue to show 12 mA trickle charging & the last to charge will still show 17-18 mA! Now, this may be just a tad bad for the AA batteries over a period of many hours... but it is simply UNACCEPTABLE for the AAA cells to receive an additional slight overcharge over the course of a day or more, as we have to do sometimes when we are away from home.
* The AAA cells make a harsh grinding as they are inserted into the compartments due to the grooves in the positive charging tabs. The AA batteries don't do this, just the AAAs. It is a significant scraping.
* When carefully observing the current displays of the batteries as they are inserted OR when they finalize their charging OR are removed while others are still charging, there is a significant "bump" upwards in the charging current for the remaining cells that takes over a minute & a half to settle back down to where they were. This indicates no true independence of charging compartments, as does the final trickle charging anomaly imo.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:
* "The lack of" would be more appropriate. After well over 2 weeks of phone calls (just TRY & leave a message on their customer support line & see what happens) as well as numerous emails, we finally received a phone call from someone (likely a salesman, not a technical person) at La Crosse who didn't know what he was talking about, even arguing with me that the BC-900 is the newer model than the BC-700, which it is not (no answer in over a week to my subsequent emailed proof that, indeed, the 700 is the newer charger model).
* He also said that the trickle charging inconsistency "won't hurt anything". We beg to differ... especially with the AAAs over a period of many hours. We simply no longer have enough faith to leave the chargers operating while we are gone a day or two & have overcharged batteries waiting for us when we return.
* Though the BC-900 has been out for quite some time now & the BC-700 for a fair amount of time, there is not so much as one item presently listed in their FAQ for either model of charger (La Crosse product models of many various types & functions are individually selected once one is in their website's FAQ section).

It is very tempting to be heavy handed in giving this product only 2 stars, but am giving it 3 stars instead because it apparently DOES perform well except for the aberrations noted. One star off for quality control & operations & one star off for (the lack of) customer support.

The various charging modes of the BC-700 are a real plus, it looks great overall & may perform well for years to come... but we simply do not have the chargers we need for the large investment we've made in dozens & dozens of top-shelf Sanyo eneloop AA & AAA NiMH batteries. We are planning on returning all of the BC-700 chargers for the problems listed here in this review as well as for the lack of any real customer support. We'll be ordering the Maha Powerex MH-C9000 chargers that we should have purchased in the first place for our requirement of truly independent charging compartments, as the La Crosse chargers are not so after all.

[Edit 19 hours later]- After 3 weeks of waiting for any real customer support we received an email from La Crosse this a.m. Is this what it takes to get support from them? Having an honest product review posted @ Amazon.com? No, thank you. They've had plenty of chances over the series of multiple emails & phone calls from us to address our concerns.

An AA and AAA charger that should fill most of your needs [Posted on 2008-10-03]
Over the years I have owned many different digital cameras and each seemed to have it's own unique battery as well as charger. As I upgraded from one camera to the next I had to buy a different battery and thus a different battery charger. I have a pile of good digital camera batteries and chargers, but are all outdated. So, if it is possible, I'm going to purchase only digital cameras that utilize AA batteries, and therefore I won't have to buy new batteries or battery chargers when I move from one camera to the next. Thus, I bought the La Crosse Model BC-700. This is a full maintenance battery charger for both AA and AAA rechargeable batteries (NiCd and NiMH). It will charge batteries with capacities from 300 to 3000mAh. It has a (1) Charging mode at 200mA, 500mA and 700mA (2) Has a Discharge mode for reducing memory effect by completely discharging then recharge in one cycle (3) Has a re-vitalize mode for older batteries by discharging and recharging a battery 20 times to refresh to maximum capaciity and (4) A test mode to measure a batterys max mAh by completely charging the battery, then a complete discharge and finally a complete recharge.

This charger takes TIME to perform each of the above function (except for the quick charge). The revitalization of old batteries could take DAYS. The charger is fairly compact, but does require its own plug-in transformer. If you are looking for a compact travel charger, this is not the one for you, but I must say it is not too bulky. Be sure to read all the instructions before using, as this charger is much more than the quick chargers that don't require much thought at all. You can go to www.lacrossetechnology.com/bc700 where you can view the operating instructions. In all, this is a fine charger for the full maintenance of AA and AAA rechargeable batteries.

Excellent battery charger [Posted on 2008-10-04]
This charger works great and charges batteries slowly so your batteries can withstand more charges throughout their lifetime. Lots of features, numbers, and stats to look at with this charger.

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