Powerex MH-C9000 battery charger / analyzer
By Donald Melanson 
posted November 7th 2006 11:41PM
posted November 7th 2006 11:41PM
For a battery charger to get our attention, it usually has to employ a unique means of charging the batteries -- like USB or windmill power -- but sometimes plain old overkill is enough to get us interested. Case in point: the Powerex MH-C9000 -- or as Powerex calls it "the charger-analyzer from the future!" -- which'll give you more control over the battery charging process than most of us want to have. For eighty bucks and a bit of patience, it'll let you charge, condition, analyze, cycle, form and discharge four AA or AAA batteries, with each batt in the charger able to be tweaked independently to eke out as much juice as possible, displaying the process on the charger's spacious 3.5-inch by 1.5-inch backlit LCD. Of course, the MH-C9000 also has a basic mode, which'll automatically charge the batteries with no button pressing necessary, which we somehow suspect will end up seeing the heaviest use. Look for this one to ship sometime in December, with a 12V car adapter also available as an option. [Warning: PDF link]
This would be an excellent charger for the guy who wants to know why his batteries are crappy after a couple of charges using a normal charger.
Pretty usefull if you have lots of batts that need charging and monitoring. Doesnt say if it has a refresh feature like the LaCrosse Technology BC-900. For me this is still the stellar device to have.
http://www.crosse-technology.com/lacrbc900.html
Um wow.. that lacrosse one is MUCH better than the Powerex from what I can tell, and for half the price? Plus it comes with the cool battery adapters for when you just need to get a C or D device up and running and don't want to waste money on big batteries that you'll never use much.
I'm a pro-photographer and MAHA batteries are all I use. this charger looks cool, but I've already bought 4-5 chargers from them and I think I've spent enough. I have the one below this that does 8 batteries. I think from now on, I'm going to use my green to get their newest batteries. To the walmart coment above, I've tried like 10 different batteries and if you are using a flash, no other battery out there stands up to MAHA. trust me. I can shoot an entire concert off one set of batteries.
who the hell uses C/D batteris? are they for your vibrator? or your phallic maglight?
While this charger is similar to the LaCrosse BC-900 this charger is going to be much better. First it is from Maha one of the most respected names in batteries and chargers. Second it has all of the features it does have a refresh feature but it also has several features the BC-900 does not. It can do a forming charge and a cycle mode where it chargers and discharges a set number of times and at the end you can cycle through the capacity readings from each cycle. Also its not half the price the BC-900 is $49.99 and the MH-C9000 is $69.99.
The BC-900 is badly designed and LaCrosse has done nothing about it. Go onto battery and other related forums such as the Candle Power forums and go and do a search for the BC-900 you will find story after story about problems. I have read about peoples chargers melting from the heat generated. I even had one which I used for a little over a year until it stopped working.
Well I've had my BC-900 for over a year and it works great. I don't use the fast charging modes though (so maybe that's why mine hasn't melted.) I like being able to get a capacity reading on the individual cells so that I can match capacities in a set and also to eliminate those that don't retain enough charge.
I purchased about 30 powerex AA NiMH last year and a good 25% of them have ruptured (leaving a corrosive goo on a lot of my stuff). Never again!
"For eighty bucks and a bit of patience [...]"
I believe the PDF says it's "$69.95", eh?