Charger capasity

[DanAa]

I addtion to the default charger for my Nikon bodies (D700, D750 and D800), I purchased a hähnel Ultima Plus as travel charger that can handle the two diffent battery types used. I was not aware of that the hähnel had a charge output of 900mA while the original Nikon (D750) charger gave 1,2A (1200mA). I this a significant diference whick causes a longer carging time when using the hähnel charger?

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Count on longer charging times.

Some chargers never seem able to fully charge a battery. The form factor might fit but the communication to the battery might  be impaired. This in fact applies also to Nikon chargers and one sees they tend to be marked "a" or similar when an upgrade has been conducted.

[Jan Anne]

Charging times will be roughly 25% longer in the first stage, around 80% fill the charging amps will drop anyway so the difference will be less.

As long as the output voltage of the Hahnel charger is 8.4V there should not be any real issues.

There are many ways to charge li-ion batteries and I haven't seen evidence that Nikon uses better protocols than third party chargers but it's safe to assume that Nikon makes sure their chargers give their batteries the best treatment possible to prevent issues. With 18650 li-ion chargers though there's a lot of difference between the cheaper vs the more expensive models, the latter will use clever protocols for optimum charging for the different charging stages, won't overcharge (so 8.4V is exactly 8.4V), won't overheat the batteries (deadly for performance), etc.

So, no problem using third party chargers for occasional use but for regular charging I would stick with a genuine charger