Philip

A while ago I was hunting around for a cheap battery recharger to consider handling my AA battery consumption for various electrical devices hanging around the house and switching to NiMH rechargeable AA’s. While perusing a sale at the local Mac shop I came across the Rezap Battery Doctor which apparently handles your standard NiMH or NiCd batteries, but interestingly it also recharges those disposable Alkaline [Titanium] AA’s up to 25 times - these generally blow up/leak if recharged in anything else. After plunking down a $2 coin for a brand new Rezap (yes, that was the sale price… RRP is $80 AUD) I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a go.

Essentially Rezap can handle 4x AAAA to D and 1x 9V batteries via the 4 charging points which are handled individually. Charging takes a few hours to many hours depending on battery condition. I’ve been using it with some old batteries that were lying around and they were able to bring them back to 1.3 - 1.4 V, adequate for what I require. Apparently, getting them at about 0.9 V before they’re completely dead helps a lot, similar to the rechargeable batteries - you can’t let them over discharge. Recently I’ve been using Duracell Ultra’s, however I think the newer power output and handling isn’t as good as the standard Duracell or Titanium batteries, so I’ll probably switch to more mainstream ones since they were causing issues and tend not to charge to maximum capacity in the Rezap as compared to standard Alkalines. Even they recommend using standard (even OEM type) Alkalines, but I’ll try and get milage from my existing AA’s first.

Anyhow, have a look for yourself at the Rezap website here, I’m all in for Aussie inventions that keep things out of landfills! Definitely made my money back already, but even worth it if you use a lot of batteries, you can get them for $30 or less on eBay if you’re keen.