La Crosse RS 900

The La Crosse RS 900 is an excellent and well priced intelligent battery charger. Rechargeable batteries are not cheap but if cared for last for years. Well this charger will look after them. Even if you are not a heavy user of rechargeable batteries, it is worth getting. Instruction booklet is good but could do with more explanation for newcomers. However, it's not the best on the market. If you really want the best for the Ansmann Energy Pro 8 inc tester - twice the price but worth it for hardcore users!!

Very good at riving old batteries and matching batteries into sets of equal/similar useful capacities. Excellent for identifying failing batteries which will bring a whole set down if you don't know which battery is at fault.

The La Crosse RS 900 battery charger is a very neat charger if you want to be in control of your batteries. This charger does more than just charge the batteries, it also has a handy discharge function, and a refresh function which is proving to be very good at reviving 'confused' batteries. I managed to get a UK version from www.batterylogic.co.uk/technoline/technoline-i-charger.asp

The La Crosse RS 900 battery charger has an LCD display on each compartment : charge, discharge, current, terminal voltage, accumulated voltage, and time elapsed, can all be displayed. Four charging functions: Charge Mode, Discharge, Refresh, and Test modes.

An on-board thermal sensor shuts the charger off if the battery temperature reaches 53 C. The charger remains off until the batteries have cooled down, and this feature extends the life of the rechargeable batteries.

There are also short circuit and overload sensors to protect the internal circuitry from damage. The RS-900 shuts off when each separate battery has reached full capacity, and continuous trickle charge begins.

It comes with 4 AAA and 4 AA rechargeable batteries, a carry bag, 4 size C adaptors, and 4 size D adaptors.

My verdict is this charger will be hard to beat for the price and functionality.