Maha MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer Review

Powerex Maha MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer Review

So many devices use AA and AAA batteries nowadays.  If you are using rechargeables for your home remote control, thermostat, or whatever, you can throw in any old ones and when the batteries are low, just recharge them.  But, when camping or roaming the backcountry, I want to know that I have good batteries.  I'm sure most people have put a set of freshly charged batteries in a device, only to have it crap out in an hour or so of use...  one of the batteries are bad and can't hold much of a charge anymore, and usually you can't tell which one is bad and which one is good.

There's quite a few things that would decrease a battery's capacity - overheating, quick charging, too many charges, getting damp, natural variation, age, among them.   Well then, how do you tell good batteries that have lots of capacity from bad ones?  I probably have 50+ batteries for all my random devices, and want to use the best ones that I know are good for my GPS and other devices, especially when a charger isn't exactly close at hand.  For the last couple years, I have been using the Powerex Maha MH-C9000 WizardOne Charger-Analyzer..  whew, that's a long name.  But this thing is the best charger period for AA and AAA.  It holds and charges up to 4 AA or 4AAA at a time on independent circuits and is larger than most 4AA chargers due to the LCD screen readout below the slots and is much more than your run of the mill charger with the light goes on when charging and off when it's finished charging.  It can analyze the power capacity of each battery, and the charging rate is variable.  It has five mode choice selections when you pop a new battery in - CHARGE, REFRESH/ANALYZE, BREAK IN, DISCHARGEand CYCLE.  

By default it's CHARGE, if you don't select a different one within a couple seconds, it starts charging automatically at a default charge rate of 1000ma.  If you select charge before the couple seconds are up, you can then change the charging current.  The lower the charge current, the longer it takes, but it is gentler on the battery, and will also charge to a higher capacity.  1000ma charge is the default and that is a standard charge rate, able to charge high capacity NiMH AAs in 2.5 hours from fully drained.  It keeps track of each battery slot and will tell you the amount (in maH) it charged the battery when you popped in has finished charging.  This is good info. but it won't tell you if a battery is bad, since the battery is likely to have had a partial charge when you popped it in so you won't know the full capacity...  REFRESH/ANALYZE is what you want for telling the capacity of the battery.

REFRESH/ANALYZE charges the battery from whatever state it was in until it is full, drains it completely, then charges it until full.  This way you can tell after the battery has completed cylcling,  the exact capacity of each battery.  It takes a while for this cycle to complete, but it's worth it to find out the exact capacity of the battery sometimes. You can also alter the default charge and drain rates from the default as well, to customize it for each battery.  I do this with my batteries a couple times a year and sort them by capacities.  I mainly use Duracell high capacity 2650maH AA batteries at the moment, so I sort them in three piles - anything over 2400 is great and I use them in my GPS and other backwoods and high drain devices(such as a camera flash).  2000-2400 are OK batteries and I save them for around the house use.  Lower capacities than that I usually recycle them.  I mark the batteries with different sharpie pen colors so I can tell which battery is which capacity, last I analyzed them.

BREAK IN mode is for brand new batteries.  Gives them a few full cycles to 'season' the battery and get it charged to it's maximum capacity before first use.  This one takes quite a while to complete.

DISCHARGE mode drains the battery - I don't use this one much.

CYCLE I use someties to try to revive batteries that are borderline.  I'll cycle them 5 times or so to see if the capacity increases.

Anyways, this is a great charger and a good tool to have, one of only a few that can tell you the exact capacity of each battery and will break new ones in to get the most out of your battery.  If you are going to have a charger, might as well have one that can tell you how good your batteries are, right?

Maha also offers other chargers - some will do up to 8 batteries, and some simpler car adapter travel chargers  don't have an LCD screen in addition.

Oh, and by the way, some more battery info - standard NiMH batteries such as the Duracell ones I am using self drain pretty quickly after charging so you have to charge them right before using them, which isn't always easy or quick to do.  There are new ones out recently that have low self-discharging rates, these will hold a 75% of their charge after a year.  I just ordered a pack of Sanyo Eneloop XX batteries.  These just came out a year ago and are the first high capacity low self-discharge batteries.  Quite expensive right now (about $20 for 4AA), but if I like them, I may start switching over to them...  I'll do a review on those when I use them a bit .  Another FYI - there's three different types of Eneloops - Eneloop lite (low capacity), regular Eneloops (medium capacity), and Eneloop XX (high capacity).

The NeoAir Balloon

 

Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Review

When I first started backpacking, I remember lugging around an enormous egg crate foam mattress with a green plastic sheet backer about a third the size of me, when I was a wee one.  It was huge and not super comfortable, to boot, not to mention other issues with it, but things have changed.
A couple Boeing engineers happened came up with the original Thermarest self-inflating mattress sometime in the 70s - two nylon sheets sealed, with a piece of foam between them.  These started becoming very popular in the 80s and 90s.  They were great, much smaller than the eggcrate style foamy, but a bit heavy.  I found them a bit of a pain to pack, kneeling on them and squeezing out the air.
So, when Therm-a-rest came out with their next generation pad - the NeoAir, I was excited.  They branded this thing as a new style air mattress.  It has no foam in it, and as a result, can fold up to a size about 2/3 of a pint glass.  This is so small, I have lost it in the stern of my kayak because it had gone all the way to the tip and got lodged way back there due to it's small size. Sweet, not to mention it is super light.  After getting my first NeoAir a couple years ago I was excited, it seemed to be everything I wanted in a mattress - small, lightweight, comfortable.  It even has a silver rubberized side to prevent it from sliding around in the tent, and was a warm three season mattress to boot, thanks to the reflective liner.  It is expensive though, coming in at about $140CAD at MEC.  It is kind of a ripoff that they make you buy a stuffsack for it separately for another $12.50CAD for a small nylon sack, instead of including it with the mattress.  This brings it up to a hefty 152.50 for just a small air mattress.  Some comments I read online say it is a little noisy, but I only found that is the case when it isn't blown up very firm.  These are more difficult to inflate than the standard old school thermarest, since you have to blow it entirely up, but on the other hand it is much easier to pack and deflate.  I can roll it up just holding it in my hands - no need for kneeling on it any more.
I was completely happy with this mattress, except for when I was in Massasauga a year and a half ago, during the middle of the night, I heard some loud popping sounds coming from my mattress only to find out the internal baffles had blown in the mattress. The baffles inside the mattress that keeps it's shape seem to separate from the sidewalls if you blow it up a bit too much and parts of it start turning into a balloon while you are lying on it, rendering the mattress useless from the rather uncomfortable odd shape it now is.  Once one baffle starts going, others go quickly, leaving you with this weird shaped inflatable that can't be used for sleeping on.  This certainly can be a pain if you are in the backcountry and have many days left to go on your trip.  So, when I got back I sent it back and got a new one through warranty, no questions asked.

Only problem is, now this new one has done the same thing after about 15 sleeps - the baffles are blown and I just sent it back to Cascade Designs for warranty service.  While they send me a new one no questions asked, it still is a pain - I am out of a mattress for a few weeks and it cost me 15 bucks to send it back to the states.  Both seemed to happen after about 15 days of use.
 I suspect this happens with the baffles because I like mine firm and blow it up rather firm, even if only with my mouth. There certainly isn't any warning in the literature that says it can do this if blown up too much.  It is unfortunate that this happens, because I love this mattress until the baffles fall apart.  I wish they would spend the time to figure out how to make the internal construction stronger and it shouldn't self destruct like this, no matter how hard my lungs blow it up.  Even if I don't blow it up firm, I would suspect it would give out rather quickly as it seems to be designed a bit too close to the edge of structural integrity.
I can't really recommend this mattress because losing your mattress from a structural flaw just shouldn't happen, but this seems to do it consistently if you blow this up a bit too much.

High Costs of Camping in Ontario Provincial Parks

Camping used to be a low cost vacation option.   However, it is a bit of a sore point with me that it certainly isn’t anywhere near being cheap any more in Ontario, and it’s getting more expensive every year even inflation adjusted.   I will mention park fees were frozen from 2010-2011, but there was a rather hefty increase in 2010, and Ontario still stands head and shoulders above all other province/states in it's comparatively soaring user fees for camping.  As well, with the introduction of the HST instantly added 8% more to everyone's camping user fee bill.

Recently, for 8 days of a mix of backcountry camping and car camping in Algonquin Park,  it cost an exorbitant total of $660 dollars for camping user fees for two people, after reservation fees and HST were tacked on.  Extend that to a month’s length and you get an absurd cost of $2400 a month.  In any city (well, maybe not Toronto) for that amount you can rent a large house or very well appointed multi room luxury condo for a month…  and all I get for camping is the privilege to use a patch of dirt to pitch my tent,  sometimes water supplies and garbage disposal for a few items, possibly a shower.  I don’t know what others seem to think about this, but I think it’s somewhat of a travesty.    Ontario has one of, if not the highest user fees for camping in North America.

The Ministry of Natural Resources claims 80% is paid by the user and 20% is funded by the government.  I dunno, maybe there’s some serious management issues, since I seriously still don’t know why it costs so much to run these parks – maybe it’s time to look at the ledger books and trim some fat, or get the logging companies that exploit the parks to pay more.   I don’t see the need to build and fund mega-interpretive centers such as the new ones in Algonquin Park and the French River for the drive through tourists, or maybe the bus tourists who go to these centers should pay user fees to visit them.   I also would prefer to lower the base camping fee and charge people per use for the showers as is done at many parks outside the province.  Many times I am just using a park for a stopover for continuing driving all day or launching point for backcountry trip and I am only there overnight, 12 hours max., using no amenities except for the toilet.

Furthermore, it is the "'Friends of {insert park name here}" groups that produce the value-added  amenities that you pay for while purchasing documents: producing maps and interpretive guides for trails, not the Parks themselves.

After some research, I found that 80% of user fee recovery is much more than other provinces (some 20% or less).  Or perhaps Dalton McGuinty can spend some of the mega profits (a.k.a. taxes)  the province reaps from the LCBO for some park funding, huh?

I don’t mind paying fair camping fees for the upkeep and staff, but in my humble opinion they are beyond fair right now.  I think people should pay no fees for backcountry as in Manitoba, not $10-$20(plus HST) each person per night, for something that requires essentially no upkeep.  I would gladly volunteer to construct a backcountry camp site, including building a thunderbox out of my own pocket in exchange for a lifetime free backcountry pass.

The reservation fees for Ontario Parks are out of hand, and they use these to unfairly pump up their revenue as well.  Even if you reserve sites for multiple places at the same time, they will charge a reservation fee for each time you move location, which is common in places such as Algonquin Park which have multiple locations.  We went from Achray-backcountry-Achray-Kearney Lake-backcountry-Mew Lake last trip in 8 days.  For the reservation, they thought it was fair to charge 5 x $8.50=42.50 (+HST) alone in reservation fees for this (they did us the favor of  waiving one out of 6 of the fees after complaining about multiple fees).

Another way to get gouged while camping is to get charged for parking fees when car camping or using put-ins for backcountry sites..  $13.50 per night for parking is charged at Chickanishing creek in Killarney to use the crown land backcountry sites on Georgian Bay (which they can’t charge site fees for, so they make up with elevated parking fees).  A second vehicle at any car camping campsite is good for an $8.00-$11.00/day gouging fee by the park.  Other places such as in French River, at the privately run Hartley Bay, the marina which is the only option in the area, takes advantage by charging $10.00/day vehicle parking fees plus another $10.00  ‘launch fee’ for each boat to use their dock to walk your canoe or kayak out and put it in the water.  I don't see how anyone can justify with dignity charging $8-$13.50/day so I can park my car on a 6 x 10 foot patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere.

In addition to this, the Ontario Parks charge $7.50 for a bag of firewood nowadays, most of the time substandard wood at that.  The majority of the time I buy wood at a Park now, it’s wet, if not totally soaked and doesn’t even light without some accelerant in one form or another.

The list is quite long for the user fees you get charged while camping in Ontario Parks, but each 8 or 12 dollar fee adds up quickly.  The fees charged are spread out like that so it's not such a sticker shock until you see the final bill.  Bottom line is we got charged $660 for 8 days of camping for two people with a tent, and that's even before the money I spent on ice and firewood at the park stores, and the canoe rental fees I spent in addition.   I guess camping is for the rich now.

These high fees leave me with a sour taste in mine and many other campers mouths and are pushing people away from camping and enjoying the outdoors and I find it unfortunate.  For me, it won’t stop me from my journeys as there is little alternative, other than using crown land for backcountry trips, but it is a thorn in my side to be felt like I am being taken advantage of each time I go camping. I am sure less and less people will chose to go camping for a vacation if the fees are raised any more than they already are, in this already depressed and fragile economy.

The unsettling thing is, despite the already high fees, Ontario Parks has been sending out surveys to people who have gone camping recently.  The survey starts out asking how you liked the service, but then starts asking your thoughts on potentially paying more for camping, trying to get a feel for what the response would be if they hiked fees even more than they currently are.  I'm sure most people will answer with a resounding NO.
Here's the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2011CampgroundSurveyEnglish

Here’s a quick comparative cost table I threw together:

Note:  Some areas there is a range of costs from park to park, and wherever possible a typical cost is used.  And please add HST to your Ontario bill.

Also Some Related Links:

Ontario provincial park userfees highest in North America

A comparison Between Ontario and British Columbia provincial parks management models 
Canoe camping in provincial parks with a large family is darn expensive!  
Countylive.ca - Price gouging in Ontario's provincial parks 
Kingston WhigStandard - Ontario Park Pass Too Expensive

If you have issues with the high costs of Ontario Provincial Park Fees as I do, I would encourage you to let these people know:  Minister of Natural Resource Linda Jeffrey, ljeffrey.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org,  Premier Dalton McGuinty, dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org, or your local MPP.


Updated Links to User Change Increases:

OutdoorJay – 2014 Ontario Provincial Parks User Fee Changes

OutdoorJay - 2012 Fee Increase

 

Ontario Parks website – 2014 Fees

Ontario Parks website – 2013 Fees

Ontario Parks – Poor Quality Firewood

 

 

Saw vs. Axe

I'm not exactly an environut - leave-no-trace at all costs type of guy in the backcountry.
I am sort of middle of the road - huge respect the environment, but I won't go to all ends to leave no trace.  I like to  have campfires when I am in the woods.  In fact I would count my skills as a wood gatherer in the backcountry rather highly.  When I first started backcountry camping, I started fires, but didn't even use any tools to gather firewood.  Anyone that has successfully started fires in the backcountry by gathering wood knows that the only wood that burns is dry wood, dead branches that are still on trees, or dead trees themselves, still standing.  Anything lying on the ground is almost guaranteed to have way too much water to burn efficiently.  So I used to break lower branches off of pine trees to burn then snap them by stomping on them.   This, to say the least isn't the easiest way to go about it, not to mention it kills your hands with the vibration of snapping branches, and getting hit with the ugly stick in your face when you stomp the branches isn't fun either...  A tool makes gathering wood much more efficient.
So, what's better, a saw or an axe?  I'm sure many people have their preferences, but to me this almost isn't even a question.  Just like a game of paper scissors rock, saw beats axe any day.  A hand saw can slice even quite thick branches off trees, fell small to medium sized dead trees, and cut longer pieces into a manageable size for the fire.  Quickly.  Efficiently.  The only thing a saw doesn't quite excel at is cutting finger sized branches off of a larger limb or tree.
An axe on the other hand, at least in my opinion is next to useless.  It takes much more effort and time to cut even a medium diameter piece of wood than a saw, and good luck lopping off any decent sized branch or trunk.  Any axe big enough to be useful is much, much heavier than folding saws to boot.  Hatchets are just useless.  The only thing an axe is better at than a saw is to fray or sometime split wood for kindling and chopping off those small branches.  Might as well leave the thing at the car camping as far as I am concerned if all you want a tool for is to collect wood.  I'd challenge anyone with an axe vs. my saw to collect firewood for a night's campfire and beat them to a larger pile of wood much quicker any day.
I have a Trail Blazer brand Sawvivor takedown saw (same as pictured above).  I love this thing.  It's ultra lightweight aluminum tube, light enough for me to take backpacking.  The saw stores in the longer tube when folded, and takes only seconds to set up.  It makes short work of anything less than 6 inches in diameter.  Highly recommended.