La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger

La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger

I've beaten mine to death - and they're fantastic.

I keep forgetting how to use them, and they're ugly as hell, but MAN these things work. I have two Canon Speedlite 580EXII flashes, and they eat batteries like snacks during weddings and such. These chargers have recycled and reconditioned and saved a ton of my old AA's (and AAA's), and now I use them with Eneloop AA's which are equally amazing. I have used these a lot, and they are holding up great - even traveling with them in my camera kit, no failures. I just need to carry the instructions - just charging is a no-brainer. Want to accelerate the charge time? Recondition? Discharge and recharge? Um...it can't be THAT hard, but that's why I kept the instructions. The batteries that came with this charger are decent - not great, not bad, and for the price, average is pretty good. The kids' toys never stop running. The case is useful, and the little adapter thingies are pretty cool too. Strongly recommend these.

Best Charger in its Class

The La Crosse BC-900 is the best charger I've found yet for NiCAD and NiMH batteries. There too is its limitation. It can ONLY charge NiCAD and NiMH AA or AAA batteries. It would have been nice if it could handle rechargeable alkalines, but I have another charger for those and I can settle for using it, when needed. This is a very nice kit. It includes 4 AA NiMH & 4 AAA NiMH batteries. It includes 4 AA-C adapters and 4 adapters to adapt the C adapters to D. These C/D adapters ALMOST make up for the fact the BC-900 cannot recharge true C & D size cells. The usable life of the batteries in the C/D adapters are somewhat lower than true C & D cells. There is also a nice nylon carrying case for the entire kit included. Now that I've gotten the limitations out of the way, I can say for a AA/AAA charger, the BC-900 is truly tops. It is small and compact so it is easy to carry. It can charge one single battery or two, three or four at a time! That alone makes the BC-900 worth having. This is the first charger I've seen that will charge one alone (or three at a time.) Each battery can have its own individual settings or all can use the same settings. You can select the charge rate - up to 1000 maH for 4 batteries or up to 1800 maH for two. Of course using the lower charge rates is less taxing on the batteries, but if you are in a hurry, it is a great feature to be able to reduce the charge time for a "quick" charge. The BC-900 has four operating modes: Charge, discharge, refresh or check. The discharge is a real boon for NiCAD cells which suffer from "memory" effect. The refresh mode is very time consuming, up to a few days to continually discharge and recharge batteries to improve their capacity, but is a wonderful feature to give new life to your old batteries. The bottom line is, yes, you can get AA/AAA chargers cheaper, but you can't find a better one than the BC-900 for your AA/AAA charging needs.

Excellent Battery recharger

I bought the LaCrosse over the Maha based on the reviews I had read. I am totally satisfied with the LaCrosse. It does everything that I want it to. I haven't experienced any problems whatsoever with it. I like the versatility in it and the fact that I can put in the batteries and forget about them. If I need to re-charge batteries overnite. I can do it with confidence knowing that they'll be ready in the morning. And the trickle charge works to a charm.

Good battery charger with fatal flaw

This is a great charger with lots of options for those of us that love them and know/want to learn how to use them. I love this charger except for the one fact that it __won't charge very dead batteries, at all__. They just show up as "null" on the display, I have to pop them in my old charger first. Very very irritating. I would give 5 stars otherwise.

works well

I'm not in any way technical but I think this charger works really well. The discharge/charge mode has given new life to old rechargeables we had lying around so overall I'm very happy with this unit.