420Speedster

I purchased a digital peak charger and just assumed it had a discharge function. It doesnt. How can dicharge my batteries?(other than running the car till their dead)
When I was a kid (20+ years ago) I raced an RC10 and everybody used a light bulb soldered to a battery lead, then you just plug in the battery till the bulb is about to go out, then we would ice our batteries. Now I have nicad and nimh. Does anybody know what size bulb I need to do this properly? Is this ok for nimh? Do I need different size bulbs for nimh/nicad? Is their a better way?
Thanks

guver

My Feedback: (325)

for 1/10 scale stuff you can use 1157 bulbs and maybe between 1-12 of them. The easiest/cheapest way is to use the bulbs and monitor with a voltmeter. The better way is to use a charger/discharger/cycler to do it.

420Speedster

The venerable 1157 huh, thanks for the tip. Can I install them in series like 3 wired together?
Is there a cheap discharger that I could buy that would be easier? Keep in mind I just spent $50 on a digital peak charger.[>:]

Rodney

The only reason for ever discharging your battery is to measure it's capacity. Just doing it any other time is just using up one more of the available charge/discharge cycles i.e. wearing out your battery. If you are worrying about the so called memory of NiCads, you are only kidding yourself as, the way they are used in RC such thing does not happen. Now, if you are using LiPos and want to dispose of one, yes, then you do discharge it to zero with a load prior to discarding it. On NiMh or NiCad, discharge is never necessary.

guver

My Feedback: (325)

I'd agree with what Rodney says above. If you do make one then the bulbs should all be wired together in parallel.

Hook all + up to red wire, hook all - up to black wire.

420Speedster

Hey thanks guys. All I know is when I used to race RC10's (22 years ago) everybody discharged their batteries, iced them and then peak charged them before the race. So why is this not necessary now?

Rodney

Check out www.rcbatteryclinic.com and/or www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-33htm for some good info on battery care and useage, especially the first one.

420Speedster

Rodney thanks, I read the first link, the second link is dead.
Its seems as if they are saying that fully disharging your battery is bad for it. Hmm....totally backwards from what we used to do in the old days. I also learned to keep my nicads in the fridge instead of my hot back porch.
Now I need to do some reading on nimh care. Thanks again.