Review on Rechargeable Batteries Intelligent Discharging Protection by Jason Nelsen

They say if something is wrong send it back. Spring. I really liked the characteristics of this charger, I didn't want to suffer, so I fixed it myself. I know that last sentence filled Mike Tyson's words with an uppercut about Charger quality, but wait, let me tell you what happened. This charger/discharger does a great job and has breathed new life into my Energizer batteries that I have owned for over 3 years. I started by opening the box and loading all of my old Energizer 12 "AA" batteries into the charger. Of course, after plugging the device into the wall, charging started, but there is a button on the side of the charger that says "CHARGE”. Years of work in the electronics industry has taught me that Ni-MH / and Ni-CD batteries need to be "conditioned", which means that to avoid battery memory (a condition where these types of batteries become heavily acclimated to charge and strangely they start to produce less and less mAh). So, back to the DISCHARGE button, this button is for KILLING your batteries! Holy Christmas why? Well, it's good to fully discharge these battery types to avoid battery storage. I filled 12 slots with my oldest batteries and hit the drain and in a painful 12 hour session that left the unit flickering and VERY HOT to an unusual degree. The charger breathed new life into those old ole batteries, they were again giving 2200mah like they were new as they used to be under 1000mah and should be replaced soon and we all know how expensive it is to replace brand name batteries . Now I'm complaining about the next set of batteries I tried to discharge/charge, only some of the slots worked and marginally at best. Well, right here, I know what most of you are saying, man, just send it back, no fuss or noise. But since I was stuck at home I wanted a project and I'm an electronics engineer so I wanted to get to the bottom of this issue, it's a charger not a PC/MAC. So I opened it up and found some very soldered connections that I figured would definitely fail under high temperature conditions. Even if I were in the quality control department, I would NEVER stamp this board. I got to work with my soldering iron, flux and solder to fix the poor workmanship, resealed the box and. it doesn't take forever to drain and recharge batteries +++++++++ I know I might have a DOA charger. I give it 3 stars because I like fixing things and seeing if it works right it gets 5 stars.