Wait a minute! It's good, but...
"LED lights indicate charging.<br />There are three LED lights on the charger that indicate batteries have been correctly loaded and charging current is being delivered. The LEDs will shut off when charging is complete. Current will stop flowing to batteries at this time."<br /><br />--------------------------------------<br /><br />Above is an exerpt of the product description provided by Rayovac. It is somewhat misleading since two major gaffs are being made:<br />1. Only the LED for the channels that have batteries connected will light up. There are three separate channels.<br />2. Charging automatically stops after eight hours, and not before eight hours of charging has occured.<br /><br />The model number of the charger I received is PS20A and a pdf with the same instructions I received with the charger appears when doing a google search for this charger. There is some discrepancy since the above comments from Rayovac might have you believing that once the batteries have a full charge the three LEDs on the charger will go out, and charging stops when a full charge is achieved prior to eight hours of charging.<br /><br />Unfortunately, there is nothing stated in the directions that support that. Nor was any of that found to be true during actual use of the charger.<br /><br />As such, I ran the charger for 8 hours on new batteries I received with the charger. It is stated on the packaging that rechargeable batteries will retain at least 80% of the full charge they were sent out with for 6 months. In actual use the charger went the full eight hours before the LEDs went out, only supporting the statement in the instructions that charging will automatically stop after eight hours.<br /><br />Judging from the statements in the Rayovac ad, Rayovac would have us believing that charging should have stopped within just a few hours and the LEDs should have gone out at that time. Well, it doesn't happen that way.<br /><br />The main gripe with all the other chargers is that there is no indication of how much charge the batteries actually have without purchasing additional testing equipment just for that purpose. So it looks like Rayovac is trying to convince buyers that their charger does more than the others when in actually, the full extent of its additional abilities is merely to shut itself off after eight hours of operation.<br /><br />As in all the others, this charger will recharge the batteries, but there is no positive indication if the batteries have received a full charge within those eight hours while the charger remains in operation. That is a big difference from implying that charging will automatically stop when the batteries are fully charged. There is no indication this charger is capable of doing that.<br /><br />Plug it in when you want to recharge your batteries, and in eight hours it will automatically shut iteself off. That's probably sufficient assurance for most that the batteries will be fully charged and there will be less possibility of burning out the charger or the batteries. However, in contrast to Rayovac's misleading statement, the possibilities of burnout still exist, so it's probably best to deplete the batteries as much as possible before connecting them for a boost in energy again.<br /><br />Now, aren't you glad to know that!
Rating: 5 stars