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The Best AA Battery Charger 2020 – La Crosse Battery Charger Review

December 26, 2012

Best AA Battery Charger 2020

If you have devices that use AA batteries regularly, you should use rechargeable batteries, but that means you’ll also need the best AA battery charger in order to maximise your batteries’ capacity and lifespan. Four months ago when I got my AA battery-powered Bluetooth mouse, I didn’t know a thing about rechargeable batteries. That being the case, I went on eBay and got myself the cheapest combo pack – a charger with 8 AA batteries. What the heck I thought, the charger even had an auto-shut-off feature, so how bad could it be? Turns out I was very wrong.

Initially, the batteries lasted for a week, but it wasn’t even a month before my batteries started dying after a few days. Sometimes, it would even die 10 minutes after I put in the new set of batteries. That was really the last straw, and I went out to look for the best AA battery charger around.

Turns out that there were a few dominating the space, but I was drawn to the very popular La Crosse Technology battery chargers. The reason why I chose La Crosse was really because of the functions and size. The other recommended charger is the Maha C9000, but it’s HUGE. Look at the BC-1000 laid beside a normal ball-point pen. You can see that it’s very compact.

the best AA battery charger

The La Crosse Technology BC-1000 AlphaPower Battery Charger is the successor to the BC-900. It’s the top of the range La Crosse battery charger, and comes with a bunch of freebies, like 4 C-size and 4 D-size battery adaptors, 4 AA NiMH 1.2V 2600 mAh rechargeable batteries, 4 AAA NiMH 1.2V 1000 mAh rechargeable batteries, and a nylon travel bag.

The BC-1000 has four selectable operating modes: Charge, Discharge, Refresh, and Test. The batteries can be charged and operated individually as there’s a small screen for each battery.

the best AA battery charger

Here’s how the four modes work:

  • Charge Mode: When you place a battery in the BC-1000, the unit displays the voltage and the charge level of the battery. The BC-1000 then begins charging (at the factory-default 200mA) up to the maximum voltage and then switches to Trickle Charging when the battery is fully charged. As an alternative to automatic 200 mA charging in all four operating modes, you can manually select any of several higher charging currents, depending upon how many batteries are in the charger.
  • Discharge Mode: This can remove the memory effects of rechargeable batteries by discharging them and then recharging at lower current levels to their full capacity.
  • Refresh Mode: Recovers the optimum capacity of old rechargeable batteries by repeatedly discharging and charging them until it detects no further increase in the batteries’ capacities.
  • Test Mode: The batteries are first fully charged and then discharged to determine their capacities. Next, the batteries are charged again, and the capacity in mAh or Ah (milliamp-hours or amp-hours) is shown after the charging ends.

And not to worry if this is too overwhelming, the BC-1000 came with a manual (2 actually). They weren’t the fanciest manuals on earth, but they did have perfectly clear instructions.

the best AA battery charger

One other feature that the BC-1000 comes with is a Trickle Charging feature. A feature that the best AA battery charger should have, this feature automatically turns on when your batteries are fully charged, and keeps the batteries freshly charged until you need them. This is great for me because I leave my batteries in the charger while I use my current set, and with my old charger, they would start depleting themselves while still in the old charger. With the BC-1000, I could leave the same batteries in the charger for 2-3 days, and when I take them out, they’d be charged.

In any of its four operating modes, you can use the BC-1000’s automatic charging feature or manually select the charge current to accelerate the charging time. An informative LCD panel displays numeric and graphic data on the condition of your batteries.

I went to buy myself a pack of 8 Sanyo Eneloops AA rechargeable batteries – the absolute best in Low-Self Discharge (LSD) batteries around!

the best AA battery charger

The Best AA Battery Charger 2020

The La Crosse battery chargers are priced at around $55 (get it with free shipping, from Amazon). If you need C-size or D-size batteries, this is the package that you need to get, especially if you can use a few extra NiMH rechargeable batteries.

For people (like me) who are planning to get their own batteries (such as the Sanyo Eneloops that I got), and have no need for C-size or D-size adaptors, or a travel kit, then the choice is pretty clear: get a BC-1000 Charger. The freebies did seem really attractive to me. But I asked myself what I really needed them for and found that I didn’t have much use for them, so I decided that the BC-1000 was best for me.  

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