(Real) Intelligent NiMH Chargers?

Anti_Climax asks: "I, like many Slashdot readers, have a lot of battery powered devices. With the large number of cells that are in use at a given time, I have taken to using NiMH rechargeables (Ten 2.0Ah Cells for $10 at the local Fry's Electronics). My current charger is a timed unit that was made when 1.3Ah was the norm. I have accepted the fact that if I want my cells charged properly and quickly, I will need to invest in an intelligent charger. With the dozens of manufacturers in the market right now, the Google results are promising but far too broad. What have been your personal experiences in this area? How many of the supposed Smart Chargers are anything but? Who's offering the best deal for my dollar? While I don't need my cells to charge in 15 minutes, I would like to find an inexpensive Intelligent charger that can charge 4 or more high capacity cells (in pairs or individually) in an hour or less."

Why not more popular?

[Veramocor]

Why arent rechargable NiMH batteries more popular? These things should be flying off the shelf. The only application that they are not good for are products such as fire detectors where the NiMH self discharge would cause reliability problems.

Anyway they pay for themselves in less than 5 recharges (assuming 50 cents for non rechargable and 2.00 for a rechargable). Then you have at least another 100 charges left after that(they claim 500-1000). 100 charges * 50 cents = 50 bucks saved.

Charging time is not a factor anymore both druacell and energizer offer 1 hour and 30 min chargers. There is also a 15 min charger out there by Raynovac but you need to buy rayovac batteries (they include a chip).

The only barrier I see is high intial cost. I guess people only look at the short term.

Re:they'll never be advertised

[Splork]

rechargables aren't popular because the "big battery" companies (duracell and energizer) will *never* advertise them. why tell consumers to buy something once that they can reuse over and over again for 5-10 years when you could tell them to buy something cheaper that they'll have to keep coming back and buying more of every couple months?

this is the same reason the name brand rechargables are worthless low-power shit. they *want* rechargable batteries to seem bad. i -always- see people at the rechargable rack in the store pick and buy the name brands first, despite the power output being advertised. consumers are clueless. hell, they allowed bush to steal an election and fuck up the world; you think they'll bother to learn about batteries?

Why not recharge your alkalines as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.rezap.com.au/

This Australian microcontroller-based charger will do conventional non-rechargeable alkalines, titanium, nicad, nimh, and rechargeable alkaline-manganese cells, in all sizes. I'm not associated with the company, but I do own one, and it really does work (apparently safely - despite the dire warnings on the side of non-rechargeable alkalines about charging).

You can supposedly get up to 15 cycles from a normal alkaline, 25 from a rechargeable one. It's quite slow at nimh and nicad, but alkalines recharge fairly fast and don't have self-discharge issues.

These guys are working on exporting these things to the US.