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Charging your gumstick

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I have a couple of the Sony brand gumstick chargers and have used them to charge all of my gumstick batteries, I also always wondered why there is no indicator light. One thing I have noticed is that a charging battery will warm up to almost hot within three hours or so of beginning a charge and stay warm for a few hours then cool off. I suspect there is some sort of current sensing circuit as well as over temperature circuitry that stops the charging after some point.

I have never seen a schematic for one of the chargers so I am not sure. I have always been a bit leery of the heat the batteries generate while charging, don't want any fires, but no issues to date.

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  • 5 months later...

Dunno. The only like that which I purchased turned out to be a demonstrable fake, falling apart before I ever used it.

Hope this helps. Recommend the Gold Peak chargers as they have good indicators and seem to be at least 50% reliable (the first one I got died within a year, the second one is still going strong).

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I try to only use machines that use AA batteries because I know I will always be able to find them. Any experience I've had with gumstick batteries hasn't been good, just because they didn't last as long as I thought they should've. That's why all of my machines that take a gumstick battery also have a AA sidecar so all I need are AA's.

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  • 1 month later...

It does seem unusual that the Sony chargers mentioned in this thread have no indication of charging. I have not seen such a charger. The Sony gumstick charger I have, which I thought was the most common one, is the BC-9HP2 which has an led to let you know when it's charging and has been 100% reliable for 12 years or more.

There is one available on Ebay as I write this.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SONY-BATTERY-CHARGER-MODEL-BC-9HP2-for-NH-14WN-NH-9WN-NC-6WM-BATTERIES-/370976132316?pt=UK_Camera_Chargers_Docks&hash=item565fe68cdc

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Hey Jimma,

I have had two of the BC-7DC chargers for years and also have never had any issues with either one. This unit has no indicator light which would be nice to know when the charge has stopped.

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The chargers state they are for Ni-Cd although I use it for Ni-Mh.

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  • 1 year later...

The way I charge I am still into figuring out. 

 

I got a MZ-NF810 portable and it came with original Sony gumstick battery. Naturally being 12 years old it should not work well but any charge with the cradle or direct would be some 25 minutes. Then I can lift and insert then another go for that amount of time in a cycle. 

 

I got a replacement from Vapex but funny still the same 25 minute cycle. 

 

After some months I have gone back to be using the unit a little more serious and even going to hunt for some minidisc to record on. 

 

One thing I have not done is to use the AA compartment and neither did the former owner of 810 so the last couple of days I have had the original gumstick battery inside and a Duracell AA in the attached compartment.

 

So far the power still pretty full up on the bar but did some recordings today and after I was done with the one disc finally getting SP high quality not LP2 stereo the bar had gone to half in battery charge. 

 

The idea was to drain the 810 to see if would inflict on the general charge so I listen to the disc I just made and wonderful sound.

 

I left it for a few hours but took another listen and looked at the display. It has gone back up to full power! At the time of writing I am nearly done listening to that recording done earlier once more and it has gone back one bar. I think it would go to full again.

 

However it could also be the power supply. I got the original Sony one and I had to tape it up so the wire bend right before it would charge my 810. 

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Important update!

 

After having the AA compartment attached to the 810 for a week or so with a Duracell I finally when to the powersupply after recording 2 tracks in SP brought the power down to 1 bar rather quickly.

 

Now the manual say 2,5 hour for a full charge so I divided the 150 minutes with the 25 charge time and gave the 810 the 6 charges in a row. Now I do use the original Sony gumstick at all times. 

 

Lo and behold the next time I went with the cradle and powersupply it did charge for nearly 2 hours! 

 

I changed the Duracell to a fresh one (number 2 in total) and I have done quite a few recordings in SP the last few days and also some listning to the recordings. 

 

The power stays pretty much at full with the AA pushing it back up when I do not use the 810.

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Very nice. I think that this shows that under certain circumstances the sensing/sensed voltages by the charging circuit start to mess up. I had something similar with my smartphone recently - if it takes longer than usual to charge it is a very good sign, namely the battery is magically coming back to(wards) capacity.

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