When does this charger come out in the US? This looks very promising for daily use and for emergencies (able to recharge a smartphone).
I just picked up a Costco pack that had 8 AA, 4 AAA and the BQ-CC55 charger for $20.
It had an instant $10 rebate, so this may not be the same for all Costco stores and Costco online is still $30.
I've never had an eneloop get that warm when charging, but I can say this charger does get them warm. Of course it's charging over twice as fast as the CC17 ones I own. I think it's the main reason I bought the pack.
I have also seen the CC55 on eBay for about $12-$14
I would be concerned about them getting warm, but it's inky warm and nothing like the old royavac 15 minuite fast chargers. Those would be so hot it would burn your hand if you didn't let them cool down first.
The good news is not only does it check the starting voltage, it is doing 750mA per each cell when it has 4 AA, and I was able to confirm and measure 3.033A when I was testing it. It seems to put out full power if you dead short a bay. So we know it can do 3A and it's a true 750mA each. Now it says it will charge 4AA in 3 hours, and 2AA in 1.5. So it might be putting out 1.5A per cell when it only has 2AA charging? I'm sure then two will get even hotter. But I quick tear down reveled it has two thermistors measuring the temperature. One between bay 1 and 2, and another between bay 3 and 4. I don't know if it will shut down once it reaches a dangerous temp or ifs it's doing an active charging method my monitoring the temperature and decreasing the current on the bays that are getting over a certain temperature?
It has a lot more active circuitry on the board, bigger caps, and of course a bigger transformer. But I didn't take the time yet to identify each chip or even partially reverse engineer it.
I was glad to see the temperature monitoring, something the old one was missing.
It also has great separation in between the AC and DC side with a plastic blast shield and a high voltage cutout in the PCB. It looks nicely designed and thought out.
The highest temp I measured so far on the charger with the case on it was 40C, the hottest battery was 44C and thus is from a set I bought over a year ago, maybe abut 14 months ago? The temp measurement were taken with my FLIR. The newer ones seem to be cooler despite either set seeing much full drain and recharges. No wear near 2000 cycles yet. But now that I can charge them faster I think they will start getting more use. Well that and I'm finally almost out of the industrial alkaline pack I bought so standard stuff will start unsung the eneloop S also like TV remotes.
I hope some of this helped,
Scott