When you recharge your AAs and pop them in your transmitter, what voltage do you see?? I’m getting 5.4v… I’m sure it used to be more. Do you get similar?
I was on the verge of simply buying a large box of AA batteries from the super market and burning my way through them – throwing the old ones away, except it’s not allowed of course. I popped in a set of brand new Energiser AAs straight from Waitrose and the transmitter said 5.6v….
For a long while I’ve used the “smart charger” that came with my battery set from Amazon. I’ve got to thinking the charger is not “smart” at all. It just has a symbol that blinks and eventually stays lit when it claims the battery is full. Not very intelligent or smart. I suspect it also does not stop charging at that point…
I got to wondering what my favourite LIPO/LIFE charger manufacturer (SKYRC) would make of all this. I’m proper pleased with my LiFe/LiPo charger – a SkyRC T100. To my delight, they make a AA/AAA series of intelligent chargers. You can pay seriously mad money for units that will manage charging of 8 batteries and upwards… 8 at a time would be nice. However, I set a budget ceiling and went for a 4 cell unit.
It manages each battery independently, and you can adjust current, voltage target and a few other things. Critically when it reaches the voltage target, it goes into standby mode – I really wanted that (safety).
If you are inclined, you can manage it from your phone (app).
The only pain is that a PD power unit (whatever that might be) is extra – not sure why but that added another £17 on top.
The transmitter is up to 5.9v after one attempt.
It’ll also re-condition batteries and trickle charge if you want. Great.
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