Charging batteries

[justo316]

How do you guys work out how to charge your batteries? I'm a bit puzzled as to what amperage I should be charging at for all my different batteries. I've got some NiCd 600mAh TX batts, NiMH 1650mAh TX batts, 2400mAh NiCd race packs....?

[Matt]

i dont know about the transmitter packs, but for the nicad 2400 race pack use 6amp.

[justo316]

6! That's not too high isn't it? I heard the higher you charge at, the quicker you stuff up your batts, but you get more power. If you charge slower, you get longer life as well as runtimes, but slightly less power....?

[Matt]

kind of.

charging at a higher amp might give you 2 and a half years battery life instead of 3. but for those 2 and a half years she's going to run a whole lot better with more punch.

its like driving a turbo car without using boost because, after all, boost does put more strain on the motor.

up to you.

[BALISTC]

To get max life out of your batteries, dont charge at an amperage thats higher than the mah rating of your packs IE if you have a 3300mah pack, dont charge at more than 3.3 amps, 1.5 amps for a 1500mah pack, etc.

For a punchier pack, you can peak the pack, as long as they dont get too hot. Warm to the touch is as warm as they should get. If they feel hot or burning to the touch, shut it down straight away, because this can destroy the cells. NiCDs can be murdered all day long at 8 amps, burning hot, and they'll keep coming back for more...as long as you fully discharge them before you charge them!!

I always give any battery, NiCD or NiMH, time to cool down after a discharge before I charge.

Make sure you dont store any batteries in a completely flat state. Its always good to have some residual charge before storage.

[justo316]

Cheers for the info guys.

My charger only goes up to 5A. Worse still, I think it only goes up to 3A when running off AC. Doesn't matter, cos I guess I won't really need to go over 3A once I get some NiMHs.

[Matt]

To get max life out of your batteries, dont charge at an amperage thats higher than the mah rating of your packs IE if you have a 3300mah pack, dont charge at more than 3.3 amps, 1.5 amps for a 1500mah pack, etc.




check this one dude, the info isnt correct. batterys are to be charged at higher amp rating and im 101% sure of it. i have a "recommended settings" guide that has come with my charger listing battery types and the recommended AMP to charge them with. i'll scan it and post it here :)

[BALISTC]

Taken from RC Car Action article on batteries...

"As with all rechargeable batteries, higher charge rates work the cells harder. The higher rates don't appear to have any positive effect on performance, so stick to the lower rates;"

[justo316]

and my mom says there's a lot of black people in Africa....

I read that when charging a 3000mAh NiMH (for example), you use a maximum of 3A. For a 600mAh NiMH, you use 0.6A.

For NiCd, you use 3x the NiMH rate, so for 2000mAh NiCd, you could use 6A.

Nice rule of thumb, not sure how true it is. It was on the net, it MUST be true!

[James]

I charge everything at 4A ! hahaha.. at this stage I dont care. as long as it charges, and the batteries aren't too hot to touch. one day I'll have some pro stuff and be worried about charging, like when i move to LiPo batteries ;)