16 Bay/Slot Smart Battery Charger for AA AAA NiCd NiHM Rechargeable Batteries

Summary:This review is targeted at the SunLabz Smart Rechargeable Battery Charger - 16 Bay/Slot itself.• It includes using a Opus BT-C2000 4Bay/Slot to jump start dead batteries among other uses during this time.• This was a great opportunity to check out both chargers features and abilities at the same time, because I literally just bought both of them, at the same time having no experience with either until last night.• All batteries used are NiMH.Experiment:Completely discharge then recharge a huge grab bag of mix and match batteries, with wildly different mAH ratings, AA + AAA sizes and manufacturers. It worked great, with caveats I expected after reading tons of reviews.Most of these batteries are at-least 3 to 5 years old, some much older. None of the batteries had ever been discharged or conditioned in any way. They'd simply been recharged, including using a FAST charger, over and over for years.During the years their cycle-life before depleted got to a point where some lasted a couple minutes while others a few seconds. Some wouldn't hold a charge at all. Everything just described was expected, especially due to their age plus the use of FAST chargers.So, every battery was in various but really terrible conditions. With the total number of now-usable rechargeable batteries I wound up with in the end, which was ALL of them, this pretty much paid for both chargers the first go. I consider this an awesome result.The sequence I used to successfully charge every battery, fully reconditioned to a point far, FAR superior to their state before buying the chargers is listed below. This includes bringing back several totally dead un-chargeable batteries using the Opus BT-C2000 4Bay/Slot to jump start them.1. Filled 16 bays looking for empty cell icons or missing cell icons.1.1. IIRC the ones the SunLabz couldn’t do anything with showed empty cell channel icon with no activity. Missing channel icons were because the battery wasn’t inserted fully for a solid long term connection.1.2. For AA size, put negative side in first then snap the positive in. If you don’t hear a good snap it’s not seated as well as it needs to be for the unit to recognize the battery for the entire process in that channel.1.3. Unfortunately I forgot to get shots of these steps. I was too focused on seeing if this thing would work on such a massive variety of ancient batteries in horrible condition.2. Extracted 5 or 6 dead ones it couldn’t do anything with, yet…3. Put those in the Opus BT-C2000 4Bay/Slot, Charge mode, Current at 600ma to jolt them awake.3.1. I let them charge until mAH reading was 30+ on each then extracted them.3.2. Due to the C2000 being an incredible unit with selectable current it didn’t take long at all to get from 0 to 30+ mAH. I could have used 800ma or 1000ma but there wasn’t a need.4. Put them back in the SunLabz with it unplugged, plugged it in. I gave it 30 seconds (defaults to charge) to make sure it saw all batteries. It did.5. Changed mode to Discharge and let it alone for several hours.6. After they were all discharged I either left it because it had automatically changed to recharge, or pushed the button changing to Charge mode. I can’t recall which it was.7. I left it alone to Charge the lot. I took a few pictures near the end of this period.8. When it finished, the LEDs were dark and all channels showed all batteries charged.8.1. The SunLabz LEDs stays lit the entire time it’s doing something. At the point of every channel being completed the LEDs turn off their backlight.8.2. Took picture.The pictures show:• All but 3 completed charging.• All but 2 completed charging.• All completed with LEDs dark.• Opus BT-C2000 4Bay/Slot showing 3 of 4 fully charged with 1 still going, and how much mA it’s applying to that channel at the time.o The C2000 has awesome features. One just described is the ability to show how much Current is being applied per channel. This value decreases as the battery nears its fully charged state, until it reaches trickle state pumping just a few mA keeping it ready to rock.o Since I have more than 16 batteries I used the C2000 for the excess batteries after the bulk were filling the SunLabz.Overall impressions:These chargers are outstanding for their intended purpose and work together beautifully in situations where it’s needed. In my case being able to bring back some dead batteries allowing the SunLabz to see and work them was a major goal and was totally successful.Heat:Not surprising, some of the batteries became quite hot to touch after several hours as they recharged in the SunLabz. I simply put the unit on the floor, pointed a floor blower down at the surface and all batteries became cool to touch, continuing their recharge without issue until completed.• I believe the differences in heat level related to newer batteries not becoming as hot as more ancient batteries. Other factors may be part, or all of the reason I’m not certain.• Regardless, expect batteries, especially ancient and abused ones to become pretty hot. Pointing a fan at the unit isn’t a big deal to me at all. I’ll be curious to see down the road if this still happens. I’m expecting it won’t (not to this degree) because of their reconditioned state.Conclusion:This SunLabz unit works extremely well but lacks custom Current selection. If they added that this unit would probably become THE defacto 16 bay charger for most people. It would allow it to zap back dead batteries to the point it could then be set to a lower Current and charge even ancient dead batteries without needing a 2nd method to wake those up first.I definitely recommend the unit as of now. Over time if this unit fails in some way I’ll update this review to reflect it.Final thoughts:I examined SO many large bay count chargers available at Amazon. I settled on this unit because the aggregate data in reviews about it surpassed the others. Things included dealing with batteries other units couldn’t no matter what they tried, max bay count, “good enough” LEDs to know what it’s doing, several reviews indicated it –does- trickle charge even though I didn’t see this in description. So it’s still TBD if this SunLabz really does trickle or not.

It is so convenient having a charger with this many bays and a wallet saver for a parent. The batteries click in easily and securely whether AA or AAA. I’ve been using this charger regularly for 3 years now. The only frustration is the testing cycle needs to be longer. The charger tests anything you put in it to be sure it is a battery and that it will take a charge. Unfortunately, if you run a battery down too far, it will fail the test and the charger won’t charge it. The work around is to keep a energizer (or other less picky) wall charger handy and charge the dead battery in there for a few minutes before re-inserting the batteries in this charger and it will then pass the test. This should be an easy fix for the manufacturer to reprogram. I run batteries in light timers which do run them down leading to facing this often. Electronics generally won’t give you this problem as they’ll shut down before discharging a battery below this testing threshold. I will generally have too many batteries for my wall charger at a time, so have to cycle the dead ones through the wall charger to this charger. It’s cumbersome, but reliable. Knocked a star off for the testing flaw. Is allowing another minute of charging before failing a battery test really a big deal?

I purchased this battery charger, along with a package of SunLabz 1000 mAh 1.2 v NiCd AA rechargeable batteries. I have two preschool aged children and we were flying through batteries for their toys. It took me a very long time to be able to write this review because I wanted to have several sets of batteries to charge first. A lot of battery reviews that I had read prior to purchasing these products stated that the batteries died very quickly. I found the opposite to be true. I tested two sets of two batteries in my Roku remote, as we use it every single day for our TV. While it did show on the screen that the battery for each set was running low after only a few days to a couple of weeks, the actual batteries ran just fine for up to a month +! Because of this, it took much longer than I was anticipating to be able to write this review and I am thankful for that! The batteries actually last and they charge perfectly in this charger! The charger comes with a cord that can be unplugged from the actual charger, making it easy to store when not in use. The charger itself is about 1 and 1/4 inches high and about a foot long. It can charge up to 16 batteries at a time and the screen on the top shows you how full each individual battery is and when it is fully charged. An average time based on type of battery is included with the charger. This list shows that the type of battery I purchased typically takes around 3.5-4 hours to fully charge. I found the following:Battery #1: Fully charged in 3 hours and 45 minutesBattery #2: Fully charged in 2.5 hoursBattery #3: Fully charged in 2 hours and 45 minutesBattery #4: Fully charged in 3 hoursAs you can see, even though all of the batteries were fully dead, the charging time for each individual battery varied quite a bit. Because of this, I will only use this charger when I home so that I can take out each battery as it becomes fully charged. All charged batteries worked perfectly after charging. I really like this charger and am grateful not to have to waste money on battery after battery. This is a great value for the price!