Hi all,

I own both, so I can give you an unbiased opinion of them.

Just to address a couple of points raised by other people. First off, the Graupner unit is a relabelled Schulze, not the other way around. Graupner doesn't actually make many electronic bits in-house, they farm that work out to other companies.

Second, memory effect is a ancient, largely unproven pheomenon. It's only ever been observed in satellite batteries, which have the exact same charging cycle every day due to the solar pannel chargers being exposed to the same amount of light each day. Eventually, the batteries "learn" the duty cycle that is expected of them, and become reluctant to push past this limit. It's never been duplicated in a lab on Earth, last I'd heard.

The "phenomenon" that usually causes batteries to lose capacity is simply abuse, whether from hard use or (primarily) through overcharging. Cells that are charged too hard or too fast, or those that are discharged too quickly, or those that are overcharged, will tend to lose electrolyte. This loss results in a loss of measurable capacity, but it isn't "memory". This isn't to be confused with cells that have been improperly stored, which may take a few cycles to come back up to capacity (like most 1st/2nd gen Ni-Mh).

I believe that reflex or pulse charging isn't meant to eliminate "memory", but rather to help balance the cells in a pack. Delta peak chargers look for a dip in the peak voltage of a pack, which can be prematurely set-off by a weak or overcharged cell in a pack. Reflex and pulse chargers use some other way of measuring a pack's peak, though I have no idea about the exact mechanism's involved.

So, enough rambling, down to a direct comparison between chargers.

The Schuzle is a fabulous unit from both a quality and performance perspective. It will handle a number of exotic cell chemistries that the Robbe won't, and has even been used around here to charge the new Li Poly cells. It's user friendly, and comes with a decent manual. It's charging algorithm is absolutely phenonemal for Ni-Cad's, and just as good as the Robbe for Ni-MH's. I don't use the second output on either charger, so I can't comment on their usefulness. The lack of a cooling fan on the Schulze limits it to a max 1A discharge, vs the 5A discharge ability of the Robbe.

The Robbe charger is also very good, but has a number of quality control issues (hardware-wise). The buttons have a tendancy to become sticky, and twice have stopped working on mine (requiring replacement). I also had to take my first one apart to reinstall the cooling fan, since it was blocked from moving at the factory (QC!!!). That said, it's a more adjustable unit than the Schulze, with current limits from 1-5A by 0.1A (vs stepwise changes on the Schulze, 0.1-0.25-0.5-0.6-1-1.5 etc). It will also discharge to an adjustable voltage cutoff, and will cycle cells up to 99 times (only once or three times on the Schulze). The thing that really makes mine lovable is the fact that it will discharge one or two cells, which is very useful for adding cells to a pack or for cycling cells before making them into packs (good for choosing cells for competition packs).

Basically, I use my Schulze for Ni-cads, and my Robbe for Ni-Mh's (it's on my desk here at work, merrily charging away).

Both chargers work fine off of my regulated 12A power supply.

I've easily charged my motor pack of 12 x GP3300's on both chargers, and my radio pack of 6 of the above cells is fine as well.

Hope that helps!
Adam