Ansmann has launched the ACS110 light-weight switch-mode universal battery-pack charger. The charger is suitable for manufacturers of portable industrial equipment and instrumentation and for all equipment with battery packs. The charger provides maximum user flexibility, enabling a wide range of battery packs to be recharged with only one charger. It comes with eight changeable output plugs for connection to the battery pack with selection for centre positive or centre negative. The charger has an input voltage of 100 to 240V. It charges both NiCd (nickel-cadmium) and NiMH (nickel-metal-hydride) battery packs for capacities from 500 to 6700mAh. A user-selectable pre-discharge option minimises the battery-memory effect common with NiCd batteries by fully discharging the battery pack prior to automatically starting the charging process. The charger's charging process is governed by its custom negative delta peak microcontroller. It starts in test mode, automatically detecting the size of the connected battery pack in terms of the number of cells it contains, indicating whether any cells are faulty or if the battery pack is reverse-connected.
