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As I mentioned earlier, I need new batteries that could power the ring flash. The NiMH cells I did have simply couldn’t provide the sustained power required for continuous flash recycling.
Being short on time I bought more or less the first LSD Hybrid NiMH I could find, which turned out to be Varta’s Ready2Use (2100mAh). I don’t believe they’re the best hybrid cells but on the other hand they’re probably not the worst either.
Now, the question is where I can find more hybrid cells and which brand to settle for in the long run.
Also, I wonder if the current charger, some negative delta V cut-off capable Vanson unit (possible V-6000) needs replacing as well. There is no problem with the unit really, but it doesn’t give much feedback or options and it does feed a massive 2.0A to NiMH AA cells. That translates to about 60 minutes for 2000mAh or so AA cells which is great, but sometimes you’re not in a hurry and it would be great to be able to switch to 1.0A or whatever. That is still plenty of juice and will get the job done reasonably fast. And without shortening the life-span of the cells as much. Perhaps the batteries wont even sear the skin coming out of the charger. One can dream.
As anyone who has been looking into chargers well knows, the two top chargers at present are probably La Crosse BC-900 and Maha Powerex MH-C9000. Neither is really cheap, both are relatively complicated and each has its pros and cons. And unfortunately they are really hard to come by in Sweden. But they do provide more options for charging plus they can test for capacity and reveal damaged cells. It is fairly common for cells to be damaged out of the box and as such a proper charger would soon repay itself.
