Features:

  • Battery charger for 4 rechargeable NiMH and NiCad AA and AAA batteries; with 4 modes: charge, discharge, refresh, and test
  • With individual compartment for each battery with own LCD display and mode selection for multitasking
  • Operates on 100-240-volt AC input for international use; 3 charging rate options of 200 mA, 500 mA, and 700 mA
  • Detects overheating for safety; not for use with any other batteries other than those specified
  • Measures 5 inches long by 3 inches wide by 1-1/2 inches high; limited 1-year warranty
Bringing Old Rechargeables Back to Life

Absolutely amazing charger. I am not an engineer, in fact, I read through a lot of reviews here to understand what I should be looking for. After going through a lot of the technical details it made understanding this charger so much easier. Clearly there is a lot to know when it comes to Ni-MH batteries and the various nuances associated with them. Luckily, all you other reviewers help make up for my lack of experience in this field. I purchased a set of SunLabz AAA NiMH 1000mAh Rechargeable Batteries (Pack of 8) along with the charger. Based on some reviews, I was fairly confident that the batteries would not be fully charged upon arrival. Therefore, I slapped them in the charger, changed the mode over to "Test" and let'er rip. It worked flawlessly, charging my batteries to full capacity, then discharging and recharging to full. All of them ended up above their rated mAh. I also had a very old set of Sony CycleEnergy 1000 mAh AA Ni-MH rechargeable batteries that I wanted to charge through the refresh cycle. I had to use the dummy charger to get things going seeing as how the battery had been sitting practically dead for almost what I swear feels like 2 years. After a full refresh cycle (which took nearly two days) the cycle was done and my mAh rating was at 988. I was amazed it was able to charge up so much for being so old. I can't believe I have been doing it wrong all this time, definitely worth the purchase, especially to restore old rechargeable batteries. It was so much fun watching them go through the refresh cycle that I wish I had more old batteries to bring back from the dead. Overall, extremely satisfied with this charger. I'm sure there is so much more I can do with it, but as long as it raises the dead batteries in my collection, I'm golden!

Single battery charging with options for Charge/Discharge/Refresh

We have been using the standard charger that came with our rechargeable batteries, and we had some batteries that were dying. I did some research and didn’t realize that those chargers charge batteries in a set of two batteries. Which means that when one battery is fully charged it stops charging, leaving your batteries not at full capacity. This charger charges each battery separately which gives your batteries a full charge. It also has a refresh setting so that you can try to bring back batteries that are no longer holding a charge. I brought back to life some batteries I had that were 10 years old. They are not as good as some newer sets, but they now hold a charge again and are useable. Be warned, the refresh option can take a few days. The charger completely discharges the battery and charges it, and then it discharges it again. The charger will keep discharging the battery and recharging it until it can not gain any extra capacity in the battery. It took 3 days for my older batteries to refresh. They kept gaining more capacity, so the charger kept discharging and recharging for 3 days.

Best charger at this price point

So about a decade ago, I got very interested in flashlights. Cree LED was just getting popular. I was very impressed and really wanted one for night walks out in the woods. I did a little research and saw that the pro's were using batteries that I really could not afford, so I settled with the overpriced stuff sold in the store. As the years went on, my batteries held less charge. I bought more batteries which seemed to be higher quality but they didn't seem to fully charge or hold as good of a charge after a year or two. At this point, i was still using the charger that came with my Energizers (big mistake, no thermal protection). I did a little more research after being so frustrated and learned that NiMH have a memory effect, but it can be fixed. Also, getting a charger with individual-battery charging was highly recommended. I needed to have 4 batteries inserted for my first charger to work. The next charger needed sets of 2, which still wasn't good enough. So, I saw some people on the flashlight forums mention this charger and ended up picking it in 2015, almost 5 years ago. By this time, my earliest set of batteries was 6-7 years old and I had acquired a few other random sets from people at work who brought their personal collection in to recycle. There was a handful of batteries i figured were toast, but threw them on a refresh cycle anyway. Guess what? They were useable again! Now, they weren't great, but I could pop them in a set of gaming controllers for a month or longer and they would be fine. Now onto some other batteries that didn't seem to last long...Some early Rayovac 4.0 NiMH. Got 8 for roughly $12 back in 2009--It was a steal. They worked great, initially. But I kept having to charge them, nearly once a week for gaming controller use. After I ran them through a refresh cycle, they were like brand new! I still use them to this day, nearly 9 years later. They last between 1-2 months in my Xbox 360 controller. I highly recommend this if you have NiMH and want them to last. It can be a bit tedious initially if you have a lot of batteries to refresh, but you really don't have to do it too often. I might do it once a year, just for fun. It's also a great way to check voltage and see what your actual capacity is (mAh) vs the advertised capacity and early on, before I even knew of this charger, I learned that most manufacturers are lying. 1600-1900 is what you should reasonably expect from AA NiMH. Anything over that is not likely. Is it possible? Yes, but expect it to be 25%-50% less (varies by brand and quality). Also, if you leave the batteries plugged into the charger and the charger is unplugged, it will drain the batteries completely. Made this mistake recently when I moved. No biggie, just recharged them.

Better than expected!

I read up on this unit before buying it but I didn't fully realize how technically sophisticated it is or how well thought out it is. As far as I can see it has every known high end feature I have ever seen on other units and even includes a Refresh feature that can resore otherwise ea batteries. The only possiblity of a missing feature would be that while it offers faster charging rates I have seen other models with a much faster charging feature than this unit offers. However I would never consider charging a battery at anything like the rate that some of these chargers have. One, I worry about the damage that level of charging does to your batteries and two that kind of charging has to increase the chances of meltdown from the charger itself. The other thing that impresses me about this unit is how small it is and how well it seems to be built. It looks and feels much better in person than it. it looks in the online ads for this unit. It's only slightly larger all the way run than a pack of cigarettes. I wish I coul give this 4 1/2 stars rather than 5 for one reason. It needs a much brighter display. This one is very weak and hard to read. Other than that it's 5 stars all the way 'round.

Surprisingly, it works. And it's cost effective. And you should probably have one.

No question about it: La Crosse makes (or at least "sells", under their label) some absolutely horrible electronics (don't get me started on their clocks, most of which are an abomination of terrible design and engineering). This, however, is not one of those horrible La Crosse Technology products. (Different manufacturer, perhaps?) It actually works exactly as intended and is a cost-effective way of knowing which of your pile of rechargeable batteries have seen better days and should be heading for the battery-recycling bucket. It charges, cycles, and tests up to 4 AA or AAA batteries (in any combination) completely independently. Snap in a battery, hit the button under that battery and you can set the charge/discharge current and mode for that battery. In the default "charge" mode, the display tells you the battery's voltage, charge current, and total power (mAH) added to the battery. In a testing mode it'll charge the battery fully up, discharge it while measuring the output, and then charge back up and report the capacity. That's an eye opener: I found that, of my dozens of identical AA's, there were a few "bad apples" in the bunch; there's no other way to identify them.

Awesome.

Overall this is an awesome smart charger. There are already a few hundred positive reviews but I wanted to add addition information for prospective buyers. One of the problems encountered with this charger is that it will say "null" when the battery voltage is too low. Many people have suggested first charging the battery with a "dumb" trickle charger. However, that is unnecessary with this charger. Even though the screen says "null" the battery is actually being trickle charged by the charger. Just leave the null battery in and it will eventually register a voltage and charge as normal. I've used this charger for 3 years and I would absolutely buy it again.

RESTORES 10 YEAR OLD NiMH AAA AND AA

Over 15 years I collected about 40 NiMH batteries sizes AAA and AA that had gone “bad”. They took many less recharges than claimed by manufacturers. Chargers that came with batteries overheated them. “That can’t be good”, I thought. In the 2010’s I discovered a “Smart charger” that would not overheat batteries. Batteries lasted longer before becoming useless, but still too few recharges. In 2019 I searched for a charger that would restore batteries. I found LaCrosse BC-700. LaCrosse BC-700 restored 40 out of 44 batteries. Recharge percent varied. Here are average examples. 15 year old “Energizer recharge” 2200 mAh recharged 80%. 10 year old “RayOVac Hybrid”rated 2100 mA. recharged 80%. 5 year old “TENERGY CENTURA LOW SELF-DISCHARGE” rated 2000 recharged 90%. 3 year old “EBL” rated 2300 recharged 90%. Just to let you know. Restore” function charges, discharges, and re-charges for days before millAmpHours quit changing and it shows “Full”. I do wish that the readout letters were font 18 instead of font 9. It’s good that the readout numbers are about font 24. The instruction sheet is also about font 9. I use glasses and a headband LED light to read the instructions and the readout. To be fair, it seems that the entire LED readout industry and everyone’s instruction sheets have teensy tiny small font. I am just glad that this BC-700 really does make many batteries work well again.

Great charger!

I have had this charger for four years and love it. I have primarily used it to charge AA and AAA Sanyo (now Panasonic) Eneloop batteries. It continues to work perfectly. Recently I started taking apart failed power packs for cordless drills and screwdrivers. If the cells haven't leaked I have found the refresh cycle is often able to recover them. I have an electric razor with two 2/3 sub C NiCd cells that became unusable. After running them through the refresh cycle their measured capacity increased from 310mAH to 610mAH of the rated 650mAH. The measured capacity is dependent on the charge rate selected, so it is anyone's guess how close they are to original condition. The batteries are about 6 to 8 years old and have been used daily. I made adapters to fit into the battery bays so I could attach clip leads to the batteries. I recently learned a bit more about how the charger works. The manual states that the charge rate selected for the first battery placed into the leftmost bay is the largest charge rate that can be selected for the other bays. The reason for this is that the charger sets a current limit significantly greater than the selected charge rate, and then charges the battery in pulses that equates to the selected charge rate. This allows the charger to operate more efficiently, and also is less degrading to the battery. The charger is extremely easy to use if one only wants to charge batteries and not use any of the advanced features. Just plug it in, install batteries in the bay, and wait for the display to indicate full. The more advanced features of the charger require you understand what the features do, and the key sequences used to enable them. I have found it a great tool and good value for the money.

Great warranty service

This is a review of the La Crosse warranty service and not the charger itself, which is thoroughly addressed here by others. After a few months of use, I observed that my charger was reporting battery capacity values in slot 3 that were about 20% lower than the battery capacity reported in slots 1, 2, and 4 for the exact same battery. Slots 1, 2, and 4 reported battery capacities that were within 1-2% of each other. Otherwise, the charger was functioning normally. I called La Crosse and they agreed that I should return the unit. They sent me a prepaid UPS shipping label via email. I returned the charger and about a week later received a new replacement charger, which did not have the slot 3 defect. Note that the La Crosse warranty states that the customer is responsible for the cost of returning a unit to La Crosse. However, La Crosse paid for shipping both ways. I am not happy that the charger developed a defect. However, given that it did, I could not have expected any better service from La Crosse. I give them 5 stars for warranty service.

Word of warning

This is probably the best battery charger I've used. It's easy to use with an intuitive interface. I picked up this one to replace my older version, the BC9009. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the BC700 and the BC9009 aside from color scheme and the bonus accessories (the BC9009 included a storage bag, battery adapters, and a set of AA and AAA rechargeable batteries). Functionally, it's the same. Word of warning: Do not use any other AC power adapter than the one provided with the unit. I broke my old one by using a different AC adapter. The unit powered up for a bit, then quickly died. After realizing my mistake, I tried the original power supply—yup, it's dead. An internal fuse likely blew and now my old unit no longer works.

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