12 Volt Battery Charger

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Rapid AA Battery Charger on 12 Volts

This site you may have noticed is very photograph intensive. Some days we may take over 500 digital photos. At a rally this can exceed 1000! Keeping batteries up to the cameras can be a problem as we are generally well away from the 240 volt mains. The charger shown above is a new breed charger in that it only takes one hour to charge either two or four AA batteries. After the hour it reverts to trickle charge reducing the risk of over charging. OK so there are dozens of battery chargers out there, but NONE that we could find that will work off the 12 volt supply in your A'van. The lead below makes this all possible as it plugs straight into your A'van 12 volt socket.

It's called a Powerhaus Rapid Charger PC-81_2 and it also comes complete with a 240 volt plug pack and four good quality Nichol Metal Hydride AA batteries. It will also charge AAA batteries either NiCad or Hydride, but not mixed. Interestingly it does not get hot. Nichol metal hydride batteries are far superior to ordinary Ni-Cads (the original rechargeable batteries) as they are less prone to the "memory effect" of Ni-Cad. You can of course avoid this effect by trying to always fully discharge the batteries before recharging. You seem to only be able to get these from photographic shops. Ours came from Photo Continental in Brisbane (wonderful shop!) and cost $75.00 complete. This is far dearer than similar Ni-Cads but we are hoping we will get longer life and much better discharge characteristics. You can buy NHMD batteries from Dick Smith Electronics but prices vary widely.

Bob Eustace