Youshiko YC4000 (official uk 2026 version) intelligent aa aaa professional standard battery charger with 1000mA charge current + usb port

Really happy with this. The functions are good though refresh often seems to go on for many days. I love the chance to choose charging/discharging current, the granular control of each battery, and the general ease of use. 20 months after buying it, it's still working like new and it's been used regularly. Only one improvement I can think of I'd like to see: occasionally a battery will discharge so deeply that it won't charge it at all in this charger. I send the battery to a friend who has a charger that allows him to brute force charge it and then it's often fine. I wish I could do that with this charger.

Just great. This is an almost identical but improved version of the well regarded Technoline BL/BC-700 (or Lacrosse BC900) - improved by the addition of an extra 1000ma charge setting for very fast charging and a 5V/1A usb output for phone/tablet charging. Note that it is not recommended to do fast charging often as it apparently reduces the life of the battery, the charger defaults to the minimum 200ma charge rate,which is very safe, you can also select 500ma and 700ma (the corresponding discharge rates are always half of the charge rate. This is one of the best chargers you can buy, see these two youtube reviews (of the virtually identical BC700) to see why it might be a better choice than an even more sophisticated model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3SBjrhANSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JslHWoXpnEw Be warned that it is not a simple device, and the instruction manual is very concise, but once you get used to the controls it is brilliant. You can select individual batteries at any time and change the charge/discharge current or mode (charge, discharge, refresh or test) - to do this you press 1,2,3 or 4 to select a battery and then you MUST press the mode button, even if you are just changing the current (in which case you have to cycle through the modes to get back to the original mode - a little design fault there). Alternatively you can remove the individual battery and reinsert - then you have 8 seconds to select the new current/mode. It displays, for each battery individually, charge/discharge rate (in mA), the battery voltage (which should be 1.4v - 1.5v for a fully charged battery), amount of power (in mAh) charged or discharged in the current cycle (this resets to 0 mAh if you change mode or current) - and the time each battery has been charging/discharging in the current cycle (which resets to 0:00 (h:mm) if you change the mode or current). You can even change the display setting individually for each battery. Test mode is genius, it first fully charges the battery, then completely discharges to measure the capacity, and finally fully recharges again! The final display shows the voltage of each battery, the measured capacity during the discharge AND the time taken for the full discharge (this was confusing at first as I thought it would show the time taken for the last charge cycle) - which is great info - you can put the batteries in at night time, set to test mode with 500mA current, and the next day you have fully charged batteries and precise info on their capacity. Note that the capacity will display "---" until the full discharge cycle completes, and if the capacity is greater than 1999mAh the display switches to Ah units (eg 2.50Ah = 2500mAh). Refresh mode repeats this discharge/recharge cycle until no improvement is detected in the discharge capacity (up to a maximum of 20 cycles) - beware that this can take several days for large capacity batteries on a low current charge. Some small cons 1. It failed to detect that one battery was fully charged and started to overheat - it stops charging once temperature gets to 55ºC - but it's a little bit annoying to see a battery stuck at 1.46v for over an hour (it should switch to trickle charge once full). This may be a dud battery, it's an old high capacity 2700mAh one that now only holds half that charge. 2. Batteries are almost (but not quite) touching, so some heat does pass to neighbouring batteries. 3. There is no simple discharge cycle - the mode named discharge - does discharge the battery but then fully charges it (to remove memory effect in NiCD batteries) - you have to keep an eye on the LCD display and remove the battery if you want to store it discharged (even the test mode, which fully charges and discharges to test the capacity, does a final full charge cycle) 4. No backlight on the lcd screen so cannot adjust settings in a dark room (UPDATE: you can plug a usb light in the usb port!) 5. No cover or case to keep dust out of the charger. But, these are minor issues - the individual voltage and current measurements and settings are great for a device at this price. At first I was a bit worried because it looked a bit cheap and was confusing to use - but after playing with it for a few days and charging a few sets of batteries I'm really happy - my simple uniross fast charger was really not fully charging my batteries - now I have full control NB as an above reviewer wrote, insert the batteries properly - push back on the negative contact and then push down the postive end of the battery to fit it firmly in the slot. edit: One more plus point - uses a standard 12v power connector, so can be operated from solar power easily (if that's an option) edit: you can use the superior manual for the Lacrosse bc700, which is a bit easier to read, also tells you that when the capacity exceeds 1999mAh the display changes to Ah, so that 2500mAh will read as 2.50 Ah on the display. http://www.lacrossetechnology.com/bc700/manual.pdf [UPDATE 8/4/2015: The charger is working well and I am very happy but just want to mention that on the lowest current setting of 200mA it sometimes fails to detect a delta-V drop in voltage at full charge and stop charging. I have only noticed this with uniross hybrios and only at 200mA, it may be a characteristic of that particular battery model. It happens less than 10% of the time and I mostly use the 500ma current in any case, so it's not a big issue for me. EDIT 23/4/2015: Apparently I just to need to be patient and wait a lttle longer, about one and a half times the rated charge may need to be supplied sometimes - it DOES eventually reach full charge - my mistake]

I purchased this unit as a replacement for my failed BL700. That one never worked properly with regard to the buttons but thankfully this charger by Youshiko has worked flawlessly so far. It has all the functions of the BL700 and although it has slight differences regarding the styling and feel of the buttons it works just as well. You can discharge, test and exercise the batteries as well as charge them of course and all independently in their own channels. You can charge AA in one channel and a AAA in the next of course. You can discharge another whilst also charging the next. All combinations are supported. I have already gone through my entire stock of 20+ batteries and given this unit a thorough test and I am happy to report no weird issues or bugs. All batteries were charged up without a fuss. You can really ramp up the charging current but this can heat up the batteries somewhat. I used a cooling fan to aid bringing the temps down when charging at the full 1000 mA rate. I did read a review where someone had tested this unit for high over temp cut off and it didn't work but I have not replicated this due to not wanting to cook my batteries. They did get very hot so I would not want to leave this unattended for any length of time without checking how hot each cell gets. Other than that, I have noticed a small mark on the LCD which is a shame. The mark is under the plastic display on the actual LCD panel so would have been damaged during manufacture. It loses a star for this. Thankfully everything else works ok and overall I do like the unit for charging and conditioning my batteries.

Pour charger des batteries au Royaume Uni, ce doit être parfait car l'unique chargeur est à la norme britannique. Mais pour la France et la Belgique c'est impossible car il n'y a pas d'adaptateur de prise prévu.