It may not be worth it to build one yourself.  If you go to your local
hobby shop you'll find a wide variety of NiMH and NiCd chargers for RC
car use.

The one I purchased has ten custom settings (for ten different packs),
will fast charge up to 6A, and handle packs up to 12V.  It uses a small
character LCD and three buttons to handle all settings.  It tells you
when it's done charging, how much current the pack accepted before
finishing, and the current voltage of the pack.  It also tells you if
the pack is shorted or reverse polarity.

I got it for ~$50, which isn't as cheaply as I could have made one, but
it certianly has more features than I would spend the time to put into
one, and the fact that I can define 10 different packs means I can
simply plug in any of my packs and start charging with a few button
presses, rather than re-configuring the thing.

There are cheaper ones available as well.

-Adam

Tim Box wrote:

>Hi All
>
>Can any body recommend a battery charger chip to charge 4 AA NmHi 2000ma
>batteries  (4.8v total)?
>
>I can feed it any voltage required 3 to 12 volts and if necessary it can be
>current limited (rather not though as no room for a heat sink).
>
>I would like it to have an output to indicate charging, full and top/up. It
>would be nice to also  have a signal if no or duff battery
>
>Lastly not to expensive and not to many ancillary components
>
>
>Many many thanks
>
>Tim
>
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