Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Ubercharger Lacks Only Diamond-Encrustedness

Full disclosure: We are practically battery fetishists here at Strobist.

And the La Crosse Technology BC-900 Alpha Battery Charger makes our Wally-Mart Ni-MH chargers look like pieces of crap. This thing will charge your flash batts at user-selectable rates, condition them, measure their voltages and capacity.

You want to be nice to your batts and slow-charge them all night long. No prob.

Need them charged fast and rough for a job this afternoon? Okeydokey.

Wanna know if your batts are up to spec, maH-wise? Your BC-900 will tell you.

(More info and links after the jump.)

It comes in full kit mode for $79.95. (UPDATE FROM THE COMMENTS: Only $53.94 $39.99 at Amazon, w/free shipping.) But that includes 8 AA's, 4 AAA's and adapters to convert the AA's to C's or D's. Nice touch. But frankly, it's the charger I am interested in. I could use this baby in rotation with my El Cheapo-Martos and have a decent idea of my batteries' general health as I rotate various sets through the Ubercharger.

See what all of the fancy displays tell you here. And for $79.95, the Ubercharger comes with it's own demo video. (But of course.)

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• Product page, w/full info: BC-900 Alpha Battery Charger
• Cheaper, on Amazon (with very informative review)

(UPDATE #2: Amazon set comes with 4 AA's, instead of 8, but includes 4 each of the "D" and "C" adapters.)

(Thanks to Tony for the initial heads-up, and commenters for better pricing info.)
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Meanwhile, Up in the Cheap Seats

Costco apparent has a similar package with the slow-discharge Eneloops, sans the Ubercharger part. They call it the "Power Pack," and you can find them on the end-caps (which, granted, in a Costco can mean a 1/4-mile walk.)

Here's what you get according to Curtis, who tipped me off:

1 battery charger
8 AA batteries (2000 mAh)
4 AAA batteries
2 C adapters
2 D adapters
1 Nifty Blue Carry Case for it all

Total price: $26.

Sweet. These things are getting cheaperer and betterer.

-30-

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