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[glowworm]

i have recently bought a century x6 pro charger from my local model shop (no name mentioned) for £60. about a week later on its second use - an nimh battery on discharge/charge setting which had been working quite happily for about a half hour, (i then fell asleep with charger about 6 inches from my head) then decided to wake me by pouring out thick black toxic smoke. if i had not woke i could have been killed or my house burnt down. after slight "argy bargy" with the shopkeeper i have now been refunded my money. i would advise people not to buy from century uk from kent with the attitude they took towards me. also, i have since seen various styles and colours of this same charger on ebay from £25 -- £60. I SAY -- BUY AT YOUR PERIL.

[Martin (Admin)]

Thanks for the warning, hope you were just unlucky. 

[sheerline]

It's lucky you awoke when you did and discovered the problem going on right next to you. The failure of this unit may not neccessarily indicate that it is  dangerous however. As with all electrical apparatus, it is liable to fail at any time be it new or old, it is the nature of the beast as it were. As you are aware with any electrical equipment ie, tv radio and anything containing electronics, it can fail simply by failing to operate or in the opposite extreme, even catching fire. Charging and discharging batteries is an area where I would strongly advise a monitoring schedule as it is an arduous process for both cargers and batteries under certain conditions and as there is a high degree of current available, the propensity for catastrophic failure of one or the other is higher than that of say ,your transistor radio which will simply fail to work.
So the advice is, regardless of quality, fused lines, size of batteries etc etc, one should always keep a weather eye on batteries and chargers whilst charging or cycling is in progress. I have seen a number of failures occurr on the best of equipment over the years.

The fact that you had problems with the supplier is however, a different story, having a problem with the gear is one thing, but the measure of a good company is not how quickly they supply you with stuff, but rather how effectivly you are dealt with when you have problems.

[cbr900]

Mine is identical to look at but with different name
I have had it for two years now and it is brilliant,
maybe you just happened to get a Friday one....

Roy

[sheerline]

Don't you mean 'FRY-DAY' one CBR??

[portside II]

What i want to know is who takes their charger to bed , its not exactly a teddy  .
daz

[wideawake]

What i want to know is who takes their charger to bed , its not exactly a teddy  .
daz

Or falls asleep in the workshop with their head on the bench 

Guy

[maninthestreet]

The charger appears to be CE marked, if that's relevant.

[Max Power]

Charging and discharging batteries is an area where I would strongly advise a monitoring schedule as it is an arduous process for both cargers and batteries under certain conditions and as there is a high degree of current available, the propensity for catastrophic failure of one or the other is higher than that of say ,your transistor radio which will simply fail to work.
So the advice is, regardless of quality, fused lines, size of batteries etc etc, one should always keep a weather eye on batteries and chargers whilst charging or cycling is in progress. I have seen a number of failures occurr on the best of equipment over the years.

I cannot disagree with anything said. However it makes one ponder the usefulness of chargers which can be set to cycle nicad or nimh packs for several cycles. I have on many occasions left battery packs cycling overnight with my charger (Robbe Power Peak Infinity). I do have a smoke alarm and would not normally leave the charger in use with no one in the house. It is certainly food for thought!

[sheerline]

As a point of interest, although beneficial and neccessary to cycle ni-cads, the manufacturers and suppliers state that cycling  Nimh packs is unneccessary. It is a fact that NiMh batteries will suffer as a consequence of being completely discharged. I never cycle my NiMh batteries and they have been in use for the past two and a half years.They also suffer badly if left in a discharged state for prolonged periods, it can actually damage them permanently. These packs should simply be left in a charged state and they will remain like that for ages before you need give them a small boost.

[red181]

My charger looks identical to that one, its an Imax B5, currently charging a 3 cell lipo next to me, lipos are NOT to be charged unsupervised! I think you have just been unlucky there. I have to agree with the comments regarding cycling nimh's, they do not suffer from "memory effect" like nicads, so do not require discharging and recharging, as nicads do, just a point

What power source where you using? Maybe that was the fault? was it a dc/ac converter from the mains, or a 12v battery source? That might have been the problem?