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So on the sad note, the Canada Post delivery notice I received was not the contact lenses I’ve been waiting for (for two weeks) but on a happy note it’s a geeky new toy, in the La Crosse Technology BC-900 battery charger.

First impressions:

This thing looks cheap.. but it has lots of information on display so its forgiveable.. and it comes with batteries and a bag.. and some adapters so you can use AA batteries in your C and D cell equipment (didn’t know you could do that!).

Anyhow, last night I plopped in 4 of my oldest NiMH batteries (rated 2300mAH) and set it to Test mode. It fills up the batteries to full, then drains them, then fills them up again and reports the capacity.

If I had placed these batteries into my old charger.. it would have charged until one battery was full then stopped for all of them or done something like that. Little did I know that the four batteries started at pretty varied voltages. I set it to charge at 500mAH (5hrs to fill 2300mAH) and then discharge at 250mAH (10 hrs to empty). Two of the batteries were filled in about 3 hours.. but the other two took another 2-3 hours. (basically empty). They finished at varying voltages, from 1.46v to 1.51v.. and then they started to discharge at 250mAH.

When I woke this morning.. 3 were done.. and as I was writing down their reported capacities.. the 4th (batt#4, the one which hit the highest voltage during the initial charge) finished. The results I got were pretty surprising.. but fairly in line with what the initial charging peak voltages implied.

Two of the batteries (which finished charging with relatively low voltages last night) only reported 1470mAH and 1480mAH as max capacity! Batt#1 reported 1550mAH and batt#4 topped out at about 1880mAH. Talk about a difference! Anyway.. currently all 4 batteries are going through a discharge/charge cycle at 350mAH/700mAH. I’ll report on the capacities tonight, and then set them to “refresh” mode and see if these batteries are too old to increase their capacity again.

Seeing as we know electronics only function until the weakest battery dies.. that would mean I could have been putting 1470mAH batteries into a flash. yikes. And that would be assuming I could even get them fully charged.

Is it time to start the Flickr photostream? I’m thinking that it’s time that I started to make use of the sites out there (such as Flickr) and not just wait for my own vaporware site to appear which will have some super awesome super duper gallery (as pictured in my head)

Anyone else using Flickr or experience with? My brother was pretty amazed I didn’t actively use Flickr.

I guess this goes here? So I just had a meeting.. and I just got the heads up on a new project I’m on.. and it’s probably one of the biggest projects I’ve gotten so far.. one of those portfolio building ones.

I actually get to design the student recruitment portal for a university. Time to start working.. hard. It’s always hard to see how “good you have it” when you’re in “it”. If I want to go into design.. I probably couldn’t have a better position than where I am now.. having gotten into this company through web programming.. but now maneuvered myself into the design department and pretty much designing on a consistent basis.. I suppose its the other spam-junk which really weighs me down.

Thinking about it.. makes me feel so ungrateful.. I have my cake and I’m eating it too, getting paid as a programmer (more than a starting design job for sure) and getting to design stuff with fairly minimal programming. Maybe full-time school isn’t such a good idea. It would probably be better to do part time while continuing to work.. a large part of the appeal of full-time school is the fun of it I think.

So yesterday there was a deal on RFD for a Energizer 15 minute charger from Dell.ca for $29 with free ship. Great! Since my charger is very.. unreliable.. it always says its fully charged after 30 minutes when it’s supposed to take 3 hours to charge 1800mah batteries. Then when I go to church and use supposedly charged batteries.. my BR dies shortly.

So.. after reading through the thread.. I learned that the 15 minute chargers charge at the expense of shortening the overall battery life (due to excessive heat during charigng).. so.. of course someone posted a link to another forum.. of flashlight fanatics.. who just.. like.. flashlights.. They have.. light.. get togethers.. where they admire the strength of each other’s flashlights ???. Anyway, since they use a lot of batteries.. they have lots to say about NiMH and chargers etc. etc. Anyhow.. I came across this entry-levelish smart battery charger. Which actually has an LCD for each battery slot which can tell you the current charge in mah, it can discharge and recharge your battery at different rates.. and it can “recycle” your batteries to maximize capacity. $39US + ship etc.

Review

So.. highly-anticipated-but-nothing-big-yet-great-enough-that-it-won’t-be-revealed-until-it’s-on-the-camera camera accessory that YFA picked up at the photoshow.. is up in the air.

Any guesses as to what it is? Circular polarizer? tripod? flash? maybe something more obscure like a neutral density filter or..

One of those protector-doors which attaches to the back of the camera that opens up to reveal the LCD.. thats going to be my obscure guess.. seems to suit YFA. If not, then my vote is on a battery grip.