I have been evaluating getting a good universal battery charger that also does refreshing and analysing. The reason is that if rechargeable batteries are well serviced they are good for 1,000 recharges (Eneloops for 2,100) and this is very economical if you consider they cost only about 3x the price of single use alkalines.
I was very close to buying the Powerex C9000 which would have done all I needed, but I noticed this SKYRC that had the addition of firmware upgrades (future proof), Bluetooth, and a PC link. It was double the price but I did not want to upgrade again a year later, so I bit the bullet.
After two days I can say I'm quite impressed and the charger does all it said it would do apart from a few minor quirks:
1. I don't see the on-device diagram drawing view at all (but I can get better than that off the PC app).
2. PC works fine with Windows but the USB port is just not visible on Linux or Virtualbox Windows (more time on this and I may get it to work as I see there is a 3rd party DataExport app that works on three OSs indicating this should work).
3. By default, a battery refresh cuts off after 2 hours (not long enough) or at the stated capacity you have set. So you at least want to disable the time cut-out otherwise the refresh won't complete and you'll need to restart.
4. At one point my phone would not connect via Bluetooth but the fault was with the phone - it worked after I rebooted the phone. Bluetooth LED stays off, and lights up only when phone connects to it. Bluetooth does not work if the PC link is active.
You can view all the photos with comments at
https://photos.gadgeteer.co.za/index.php?/category/skyrcbatterycharger
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batterychargerMy Technology and Gadgets / SKYRC MC3000 Battery Charger and Analyser
