What is the best (i.e. most energy efficient (has the least energy loss)) way to reduce 120 VAC to various DC charging levels for simultaneously smart charging: a 12V deep-cycle/starting battery, an 18V tool battery, 7 3.7V Li-ion cells, & up to 8 AA/AAA nimh cells that all charge independently of each other?
Note: I'd prefer to have/make one bench charging station that allows me to simply connect one or more batteries/cells to it, rather than having a power strip & a mess of AC adapters/converters.
Best Answer
Although multi-chemistry charge solutions exist (typical device linked), they each have their own charge sequence requirements and charge power.
Some useful links:
Charging Lithium Ion, Charging NiMH, Charging Lead-Acid.
There are numerous articles available on each type. My point here is to support the other answer that each charge type should have its own port as you can usually only use the charge controller in one chemistry mode for a given design as it is nigh on impossible to detect precisely what you have just attached.
Note that multi-cell stacks may need cell balancing for many reasons, including safety.
HTH