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Reviews For: Maha MH-C777PLUS

Category: Batteries & Chargers for Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : Maha MH-C777PLUS
Reviews: 28MSRP: 89.95
Description:
A charger that will charge, condition, analyze, and digitally display capacity, voltage, and time for almost any Lithium Ion, NiMH, and NiCD battery packs. Based on the invaluable inputs of thousands of Maha product users and engineers, the MH-C777 PLUS is designed with you in mind. From its universal charging capability for almost any shape Lithium Ion, NiMH, and NiCD battery packs to its digital voltage and capacity display, the MH-C777 PLUS is a true winner. Best of all, with all of these advanced features the charger is available at a affordable consumer cost.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mahaenergy.com/products/radios/amateur/chargers/mhc777plus.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00282.2
K8TN Rating: 2001-11-19
Works fine for me Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased the C777PLUS about a month ago and it has worked flawlessly. Every HT battery I've reconditioned has worked better than expected judging by the age of some of them. As mentioned in a previous review, you need to recycle (charge/discharge) the older batteries a few times to delete the memory of the NiCads. I've charged 8 AA NiMH batteries at one time, and the batt temp got up there. Good thing for the magnetic temp probe.

You would think for the price, it would come with AA, AAA, C and D holders also, but they can be had at any radio shack store.

It would also be nice to be able to turn down the tone alert on the unit; it will get your attention!

All in all, it is performing to my expectations and should give me full benefit of the life of my NiC/Nim and Li batteries.
KB5TBB Rating: 2001-10-18
Could be a little better for the money! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Overall, I am glad I purchased the MH-777Plus. I had the previous model and I consider the new one an improvement, beyond the fact it has a display. I like how the newer model allows you to select between lithium-ion and nickel-metal-hydride batteries. I think the price is a little high ($99) and should be more like ($69) considering the cheap plastic design. There couldn't be too many internal components that would cause the cost to be so high. The unit has no internal fusing and I think the fact that there is no on/off switch is a pain in the butt. Every time I power on the unit I see sparks flying, whether a battery is on it or not. The previous version of the charger didn't do that. One more gripe -- there should be a way to turn the beeping off/on. In a small apartment, it's annoying when you are charging a battery overnight and the darn thing starts screaming at you.
W4UXJ Rating: 2001-10-17
OK but watch it carefully Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Seems like this unit would be a lot better charger if you could vary the charge rate. It fast charges your batteries and gets them so hot that the thermo detector stops the charging. If it charged at a 400 ma rate rather than 800 ma rate it would be far superior. I wonder if there isn't a resistor inside the unit that could be changed to drop the charge rate?
KC2IGY Rating: 2001-10-17
Update: Just received a replacement Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Well, a month after sending Maha my charger fro repair, I received a replacement. I plugged it in, took out an older pack to charge ( I wasn't taking any chances after it cooked one of my new ones), and not to too much surpise, something was wrong with it. The polarity switch didn't work. Shaking my head, I call Maha. After to speaking to someone that didn't seem interested in my problems, he said someone would call me back. Of course that never happened. I took matters into my own hands, opened the charger myself, and fixed the switch. I've since charged two packs, and they seemed to have been safely charged. Even so, the quality of this thing seems so poor, I still don't trust it with my "good" batteries.

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Earlier 1-star review posted by KC2IGY on 2001-08-15

With its list of features, I was expecting a lot. I am am very disappointed. It ruined a set of NiMH batteries. It keeps restarting it's charging cycle on several packs (no diodes) that I have.
I'm afraid it will ruin them too. It tends to also read full after it has only partially charged the pack. It's digital display seems to terribly inaccurate. Maybe I have a defective unit. I don't know. All I know is it doesn't work very well.
ACORNTREE Rating: 2001-10-15
good 1st impression Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Only problem I have w/ this unit is the cost
and lack of a feature that remembers the
discharge mAH reading.

Otherwise, if properly used, its a great unit.
Guages and charges the batteries I've listed
below accurately and fully (w/o any hassle.)
Used on my Maha AA, AAA NiMH batteries 8 of each.
Used on my Samsung 3500 1AH (standard) Li Batt.
w/ and w/o phone attached.
Used on my Kodak DC4800 Klic3000 1.1AH Li Batt.

It took me two trial and errors before I got
comfortable setting up the unit for charging
Li batteries. After that I only "crash" the
unit on rare occassions. (crash as in, the
unit beeps and the lcd blinks on and off.)
To fix this problem, I usually switch the unit
over to Ni mode, wait a minute, and switch it
back. The manual suggests that you unplug
and plug the powersupply. Never happens while in
Ni mode.

Note: I'm not sure if this is why some other
owner of the c777+ ruined their batteries, but
i think its common sense, to reset the unit,
when its "crashed."

Warning: Powerup the unit 1st before attaching
to batteries! Otherwise, a big spark will
fly out when attaching the unit to the power
supply.
KG4LKO Rating: 2001-09-03
not much for the money Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Keeps restarting charge. I have ruined two batteries with this unit.I have placed it in storage where it won't hurt anyone else. Poor performance for the dollars spent.
VA2ZAC Rating: 2001-08-28
A dream come true! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
When my kenwood TH-D7A charger died, I called up Radio World (www.radioworld.ca) in Toronto and said I needed a new Kenwood charger. For $20 more, I got myself the aha 777 plus and I'm VERY happy I did. So far, I've been able to charge my TH-D7A, a cell phone who's charger is dead, a Fluke CAT5 cable tester, my Motorola MT2000 and more to come! I'm very satisfied and happy..

The only thing that I don't like but it's probably normal is when you plug in the power adapter into the unit you get big sparks that fly out of it. Other than that, it's very very good!
W4RK Rating: 2001-07-10
Misses the Mark Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought mine at the Dayton Hamvention with great expectations due to the display features. However, there are a couple of "gotchas" only apparent from reading the manual.
(1) The discharge capacity gets erased after the short time window between discharge and charge. This means you have to baby-sit the charger if you hope to learn what the discharge capacity was. To me, this is a great inconvenience, especially for higher capacity cells which take hours to discharge.
(2) Serious limitation on number of cells in a pack that can be charged from a car electrical system. A problem for me in recharging packs for my QRP rig in the field.
My disposition has not been improved by a recent failure which has my charger on the way back to Maha for repair. The Maha folks were pleasant on the phone in getting the Return Authorization. On their suggestion to check for a broken wire internally, I found that my unit appears to be a prototype with a small PC board hot-glued to the main board and several wire patches. Not very confidence-inspiring. Maha's handling of the repair will be critical in my final evaluation.
Admittedly, the features for the price are excellent. I just wish that I had done a better job of research on the front end. Dayton fever clouded my normally conservative nature. My fault, not Maha's.