Which rechargeable batteries and recharging unit do y'all recommend?  I want something to charge CR123, AAA and AA batteries from a small solar panel I have.

SkyRC MC-3000 is the current 'king of the hill', even more so than 'hobby chargers', but it's generally too sophisticated for what a person generally needs, who's not a hardcore battery geek.

The Opus BT-3100/3400 v. 2.2 and v. 3.1 are both great analyzing multi-chemistry chargers, as well as the Liitokala Lii 500 Engineer.  Both are about $30-$45 depending on who you buy from.

Japanese sourced low self discharge NiMH batteries such as Fujitsu and Panasonic Eneloops are fine, work well and don't cost a lot.  Anything from Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic, Samsung and/or LG are good li-ion 18650s.  For 16340 (CR123 size 3.7v cells), AW, Efest, AWT and Aspire are at the top of the heap, but they are a higher voltage than the 3.2v LiFePO4 cells of the same size.

Chris

I personally have been using the highly rated Nitecore charger/s for years now.

Their newest model Nitecore SC4 Superb Charger 4-Slot will do anything and everything you want to do. You can run the charger off 120v AC or 12v DC.

CHECK IT OUT

I would also highly recommend migrating stuff over the 18650 battery power, you'll be glad you did!!!!!

Couldn't have said it better. Same charger and I run 18650s when possible.

I have a maha something or other but I am a simple sort of person.

Recently bought some decent 18650s earlier this year cause some of the cheap junk ones that came with really cheap flashlights I got on clearance were just pitiful.

I only currently do aa and 18650 rechargable stuff.  Will get aaa eventually I guess.  I have enough cr123a to rotate I don't worry about using them up.

I'm using a compact, and small single charger, LittoKala "Lii 100".  It will charge just about everything up to an 18650 and is USB adaptable which would allow you to use it with a solar charger (you need a high output solar charger and plenty of sun to charge the larger batteries).  A compact and functional charger.

Instead of trying to bring my more expensive rechargeable batteries to Afghanistan, I opted for mostly AA and AAA Eneloop batteries.  I do have a small supply of regular CR123 batteries, but my illumination devices will also take AA (and one will also use AAA).  For a little more "power", I did bring a few 14500 batteries, but again, those devices will feed regular AA as a backup.

ROCK6

I have only one 18650 SolarForce light... the rest of my dedicated tropical storm appliances are older purchases, so when I decided to standardize batteries after the 2004/5 season (when we were over run) my internet search led me to choose AA Eneloops ... a 7w Goal Zero panel was obtained just to look into the solar charging world, and has an USB and 12v tubular receptacle compatible with the Nitecore chargers I now have... I know that there are higher output panels available, but after this 3 day outage with Irma, have decided to go with the inverter generator, and set up a power strip to control all my chargers, switching out the in use cells to be recharged once a day...the Goal Zero is back up

AA dedicated weather appliances
3xAA Black Diamond headlamp
2xAA Fenix E21
1xAA Solar Force Z2 task light, 1xAA Fenix E12 task light
1xAA Gerber Infinity bathroom light
(2) Coleman 3xAA High Tech lantern
Grundig FR200 radio
Reecom weather alert radio

Been sorting and organizing some stuff I had just "stuck away" here and there.

AA rechargables these days are all eneloops.  I had some energizer ones long ago but they were cheap and their charger sucked and they had a short lifespan.

Caused me to research stuff, the maha 9k or whatever battery charger I have was a good unit so I got it and it can charge all sorts of stuff.

I never have looked into cr123a rechargables, the 18650 compatible stuff gets 18650 batteries and I have enough lithium cr123a batteries around I don't care to branch into rechargables yet.

Most of my stuff other than some flashlights is aa or aaa.  I have a few surefire and similar lights that use the cr123a batteries.

can anyone recommend rechargeable D cell batteries, ive got Maglights and will be ordering streamlight siege lights and they run off of D cells, I had thought about buying more eneloop AA's and running adapters but that would be charging a lot of AA batteries

Tenergy Premiums, or Tenergy Centuras are the two that you want to focus on.

The Premiums have slightly more capacity, but are high(er) self discharge (HSD) and the Centuras have less capacity, but are lower self discharge.

Chris

But you can charge more AA batteries in the time it takes to charge a D battery. Cost wise AAs are going to be cheaper per mah than Ds.

Yeah, but he's probably going to run them in series, so he'll have about 25% the runtime with AAs in adapters than he will with true D NiMH batteries.  Plus, if he has a charger than can do 2A, like a Maha C9000 with D battery adapters, he can get that difference in charging time, down a bit.  It comes down to charging rate in time vs. runtime.

Chris

The new Nitecore SC4 is very nice, I love it.  I have another Nitcore that is the older model, that is nice as well, about the same just doesn't do D's and a few little things.  I needed one to do D's.

My first good charger was the Maha something, but it doesn't have the same control over the settings as the Nitcore and it made the batteries quite warm.  I don't need my batts asap so I like them to charger slower.

Batts are Eneloop except my D's, which are Tenergy Centuras.

Edit, CR123's are non-rechargeable because Surefire.  The 2x scoutlights and whatnot are 16650 rechargeables or whatever that fit the bodies.

Here's a thorough and in depth review of the NiteCore SC4 charger:

NiteCore SC4 multi-chem. charger reviewed...

Chris

Holy shit, that's  a long review, thank you!  It'll  be a good shitter read.

Henrik (HKJ) is the of the few preeminent testers of this stuff and gets sent most of it by the manufacturers/distributors themselves.  I don't buy something until he tests it out, if at all possible.

You should bookmark his website, if you're in any way interested in this stuff.

Chris