Unipal Plus Charger

[Shannow]

Gave my daughter my Olympus camera, as she's getting into doing things well with phorotgraphy (never really my schtick, Canon Powershot is more my speed), and naturally, she left the cord next to her bed when we went to NZ after New Year.

Came across the above device for universally charging removable camera batteries, and bought it for not much more than the proper lead for the Oly.

Just thought I'd share, as it's one of the more useful things that I've purchased in ages, doing away with the need to carry multiple leads/chargers for multiple devices.


My wife's Galaxy S3 battery has recently been going from empty to full, and back to empty ridiculously quickly, hours instead of days as it was previously. Let it go flat, then charged in on this device (squeaky, only just fits), and it's back in service.

It's really a 10/10 IMO.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Some people are what I refer to as "battery panic syndrome" types; they put the device or battery on the charger when there is still significant residual charge remaining. Fastest, surest way to kill your batteries known. Let them drain down to 20% or less before you charge. If you have a camera, the FIRST thing you do when you buy it is to buy a second battery.

I had a charger similar to yours, it worked well right up until the point where someone stole it.

 

[Timo325]

YUP! Many people don't know it's a good idea to exercise the battery.

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
Some people are what I refer to as "battery panic syndrome" types; they put the device or battery on the charger when there is still significant residual charge remaining. Fastest, surest way to kill your batteries known. Let them drain down to 20% or less before you charge. If you have a camera, the FIRST thing you do when you buy it is to buy a second battery.

I had a charger similar to yours, it worked well right up until the point where someone stole it.


That is simply not true for lithium ion batteries.
It is good to occassionally drain them down but that is mainly just to calibrate the battery gauge.. not because of any "memory effect" -->that ni-cad batteries have.

Originally Posted By: Timo325
YUP! Many people don't know it's a good idea to exercise the battery.


Many people don't know much about batteries period.

 

[RazorsEdge]

Thanks for posting,I'll be picking one of these up in the near future.

 

[EdwardC]

Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
Some people are what I refer to as "battery panic syndrome" types; they put the device or battery on the charger when there is still significant residual charge remaining. Fastest, surest way to kill your batteries known. Let them drain down to 20% or less before you charge. If you have a camera, the FIRST thing you do when you buy it is to buy a second battery.

I had a charger similar to yours, it worked well right up until the point where someone stole it.


That is simply not true for lithium ion batteries.
It is good to occassionally drain them down but that is mainly just to calibrate the battery gauge.. not because of any "memory effect" -->that ni-cad batteries have.

Originally Posted By: Timo325
YUP! Many people don't know it's a good idea to exercise the battery.


Many people don't know much about batteries period.


Rand,

That's my understanding as well, the lithium chemistry battery is very different than older Nickel Cadmium chemistry. My work laptop is a ThinkPad where I can set at which point to charge the battery to. I set it to 85% and set it to 100% when I know I'll be away from my desk. After about 3 years, my laptop indicates that at full charge, it'll hold 90.5% capacity vs the designed original capacity. Not too bad!


This is where I read about the behavior of lithium ion batteries: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries