Those of us that like to go hiking knows that a good portion of the weight we lug around is from the batteries that we use.
We all like our gadgets, from cell phones to the PSP to keep the kids quiet (relatively speaking) while we travel. I recently spoke to a law enforcement officer that [...]

USB (Universal Serial Bus) provides a 5 volt power supply, which is how it powers your computer peripherals that you plug into your computer. With this power it is possible to take advantage and charge standard NiMH batteries. There are also USB chargers that will charge your cell phone, iPod, Bluetooth headset… etc.

What a fast chargers does, is to use the control circuitry in the battery in order to rapidly charge the battery without damaging the cells’ elements. Most of these chargers have a fan to help dissipate the heat and keep it under control. Most of these charges have the dual capability of overnight charging NiMH [...]

An intelligent charger isn’t going to play chess with you or anything, but what it does do is monitor the battery’s voltage, temperature, and/or time under the charge. The charger then adjusts the output current to give the optimum charge. For Ni-Cad and NiMH batteries, the chargers slowly increase the voltage during the charging process [...]

These are the cheapest chargers as they don’t have the advanced circuitry that the other styles of chargers require. They simply charge by using constant DC power and applying that to the battery. However you take a hit in the quality of the charge and you must be careful as you can easily over-charge your [...]

Over the years, the technology of battery chargers has increased dramatically. Due to the advent of very small & very economical computer chips, today’s modern chargers have the advantage of being “smart”. On older style chargers the biggest problem was overcharging the battery because the charger didn’t know when to stop. The early fix was [...]

I think of the function of a battery charger much like the gasoline pump and the battery as the gas tank. As I drive the gasoline is consumed by the engine and depending mainly how big the tank is will determine how far I can drive.
 
When you stop to refill the empty gas tank the hose from [...]