IMax B6 Digital LCD Lipo NiMh battery Balance Charger for Lion LiFe Pb NiCd NiMH & 6-cells LiPo batteries IMax B6 Digital LCD Lipo NiMh battery Balance Charger for Lion LiFe Pb NiCd NiMH & 6-cells LiPo batteries

Pros: Charges almost any battery, almost anywhere, anytime.
Good build quality.
Easy to use.
Safe.
Inexpensive.

Cons: No ac/dc adapter

Other Thoughts: This is a GREAT battery charger. This kind of thing used to be 4x the price and 10x harder to use. It seems a bit confusing at first, but there are "how to" guides on the Internet and for the most part, it is plug-and-play. You attach the power supply (not provided and NOT as easy to find as one would hope) or connect to your car battery (I have done this and it works great), attach your battery, confirm the detected battery type (it always gets it right in my experience) bump up the charge rate a little bit if your battery supports it (but no need to go too high - don't be in a hurry, why charge at over 1a?). Works, is fast and is really very high quality all metal, nice buttons, etc.

Pros: Great bargain

Smart

Highly programmable

All sort of connectors that suits your need

Standard input output plugs, great for DIY people

Cons: Document recommended using thermal sensor, but not included

Document omitted some key information and steps:

1. NIMH & NiCd in auto/manual mode requires you to get charge current limit value to blink, then press up/down button simultaneously to toggle between auto/manual charge mode

2. Cutoff timer applies to both charge and discharge mode, you need to disable this protect feature for high voltage and high capacity battery during discharge and cycle mode

Reason for issue with cutoff timer is that the device limits you to 5W discharge power, with high voltage and high capacity battery, the device will allow you to discharge up to 0.3A with 18V batteries. If you were to run charge/discharge cycle in fast charge mode. you need to either set the cutoff timer to very high value or disable it, otherwise there will not be time to fully discharge, altering the timer value to accommodate full discharge defeats the timer protect feature during charging

Other Thoughts: The DC power input jack is a standard 2.5mm plug

The output is the standard 4mm banana plug such as those you find in multimeter and speaker banana plug

I bought this awhile back to charge the 18V 3.0AH NIMH battery for the Black & Decker grasshog trimmer, and just bought the 2nd one for $28 when I stumble across it from Newegg.

I originally use the B&D 1hr dual bay rapid charger, but it never quite juice up the battery, and the battery gets really hot when it reached full charge. With the IMAX B6, the battery barely gets warm at 1.5A charge rate. I usually recharge the battery after the yard work, then recharge it again just before I start the lawn mower on the next yard work, and fully topped off for grass trimming by the time the lawn is mowed.