The peak charger will monitor you battery as its being charged and shut off when its reached its peak charge. Using this will prolong the life of your batteries and ensure you are charged up all the way before removing it from the charger.
This peak monitor offers a low cost alternavative to charging you batteries once you cost the power supplies and the chargers. We have developed our own charger that does the same thing at more than 1/2 the price. It includes a LCD for monitoring the status of your battery.
The peak battery charger comes in an easy to assemble kit that requires soldering. There are no surface mount parts and everything is spaced out on at least 0.1" spacing. The heart of the charger is a PIC chip that we flash a program to. All you have to do is plug it into the board and it will tender your battery when charging. Follow this link for assembly and operation (450kb, updated 11/22/2004). The enclosure is about 3" x 3.75" x 1.5" high.
You need to purchase a transformer to go with this. The higher the mA, the faster the battery will charge. If you use too low of a voltage transformer, the battery won't fully charge. If you use too high of a voltage transformer, the battery or transformer will be damaged. The table below is a chart that can be used to safely and effectively select the right transformer to charge your batteries.
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| Assembled |
Assembled Circuit board and LCD |