Tenergy TN160 12-Bay Smart Battery Charger for AA/AAA NiMH/NiCd Rechargeable Batteries with Refresh Function

Note: Charger was used with AmazonBasics AA NiMH Precharged Rechargeable Batteries-8-Pack, 2000 mAhI purchased this product because my battery costs were out of control in supplying 4 Nikon Speedlights with AA battery power, easily exceeding $30 a month. After much research, I narrowed my selection down to this product and the 16 Slot Titanium AAAAA Fast Battery Charger with LCD Display. However, the latter was out of stock when I went to purchase and thus defaulted to my #2 selection, the Tenergy.The charger comes packaged in a blister pack that has to be cut away. That is the only fault I can find with this charger. The charger is very well built with decent weight to it. Both build quality and materials are very good. Instructions are a little on the light side, but no big deal. The design is simple, which is a major selling point to me. Being able to charge 12 batteries makes my life easier (the Titanium charger can do 16). The charger can easily be transported onsite and will fit in most camera bags and easily into luggage. Despite the 12 battery design, it does not take up much space.I immediately loaded up the charger with 12 AmazonBasics AA NiMH Precharged Rechargeable Batteries-8-Pack, 2000 mAh. The charger took about 3 seconds to read each battery and display current state status. It then began charging them simultaneously, taking about 4 hours to bring them all up to full charge. Batteries that were in process of being charged became a little warm (in no way hot) during charge cycle. Once fully charged, I could not detect any heat and the charged batteries were cold to the touch even though they continued to receive a trickle charge to maintain the charged state. The display continuously displays battery status. The digital display is very bright (blue), but easy to read.Charge time rates from package:700mAh AAA 1.8 hours900mAh AAA 2.3 hours1500mAh AA 3.9 hours1600mAh AA 4.2 hours1800mAh AA 4.6 hours2000mAh AA 5.2 hours2300mAh AA 6.0 hoursIn summation, I am very impressed with this product, especially at the price. I was prepared to spend twice the amount. Apparently, I did not need to. As a side note, I ordered another charger.TIP: I recommend you number or letter your batteries in groups if using them in pairs, especially for photographers using flash. This will allow better battery management and pairing. Also, the batteries should arrive at end of life cycle more or less at the same time- avoiding mixing new batteries and old.

First, I purchased this charger almost a year ago, which came with 12 AA Tenergy batteries. I added 12 AAA Tenergy batteries. I've been very pleased with how it works. The batteries charge reasonably fast, even if you are charging all 12 at the same time. I was a little surprised that the directions recommend taking out the batteries after they are finished charging. So, this charger does not do a trickle charge like some other, much more expensive chargers, do. I use the batteries in a lot of items around the house and I feel their longevity in those items is very good! I do like having a refresh button, although this function takes quite awhile to discharge and then recharge the batteries.I recently found that one of the islots was defective. I contacted Tenergy and after being asked some questions for clarification of the defect, Tenergy's customer service sent me a replacement charger priority mail without hesitation.I can definitely recommend the charger and their batteries. I would like to see a charger available from Tenergy that also has a slot for recharging at least one 9 volt battery, which they do sell, and I have used in the past in my sprinkler system control box (which provides a trickle charge).

Is good item. Charging the battery fast and no problem until right now.

This is a technically remarkable item, but with a few slight annoyances.As some other reviewers have noted, the cell bays are somewhat close together, making extraction of finished cells somewhat difficult. All you really need though is a small flat screwdriver (or similar), or I suppose a long enough fingernail, to pry on the positive end of cell being extracted.The display is compact, probably to save money; it would be more convenient to have the indicators directly above the bay it represents. Instead, there are numbers on the display and on one end of each bay. Because the numbers are only molded into the (white) plastic, there is very little contrast to be able to read them. It's easy to rectify by oneself; take a marker and carefully blacken the tops of the molded numbers.I would also prefer to add more segments to the display to make reading it easier, but again, it was probably designed this way to make it less expensive. While a cell is charging, segments (three per bay) are darkened in succession. They're supposed to represent charging 1/3, 2/3, and 3/3 complete. All the 1/3's in all active bays are darkened simultaneously, as are the 2/3, then 3/3, cluminating with the charge being complete with all thirds remaining dark. When a cell is 1/3 done, the 1/3 segment stays dark, when 2/3 done, both the 1/3 and 2/3 segments stay dark. So in order to assess the completeness of charge, for anything which is not complete, you cannot glance at the display, you must pay attention to it for a few seconds, because you could have looked at it with all segments dark, but you won't know if it's done until you see if the animation starts. I would prefer the thirds to stay dark to indicate completeness and have some other set of segments animate to show "charging" on that bay.This is also complicated on cell insertion because the microprocessor for some reason takes some time to assess current state of charge. It will start the animation as if it's discharged below 1/3, but then several seconds later, it will keep the segments dark depending on initial charge.The 3-D geometry makes inserting AA cells slightly challenging because of the AAA bay right beneath it. Sometimes when pressing on the positive end, the cell will catch on the edge of the AAA bay, which is tactilely somewhat difficult to distinguish from pressing against the firm springiness of the AA negative terminal.As far as I know, it's not possible to be draining some cells (for the "refresh" function) while charging others. All bays do the same thing (drain or charge) simultaneously.It seems a little "authoritarian" to refuse to charge some cells. I know this indicates the microcontroller thinks the cell is weak, but generally, as many suggest to try, if one puts that cell in another, not-so-smart charger for some period of time, then puts it in this charger, it will charge the cell. Hopefully there would be some other way to indicate the cell is weak, but still attempt to charge it instead of giving up so easily. It seems like taking away my choice whether or not to continue to use marginal cells.After charging in this charger, anecdotally, the cells seem to have a longer run time by maybe 10% comared to being charged in other chargers, so its algorithm would appear to be better than average. (I honestly don't have the patience to do rigorous tests.)I also like that the cells will continue to be trickle charged once they're done.