Pilot_Guy

So I finished my Blackfoot Xtreme project minus painting and little stuff. Great build, but wished it lasted longer...Only took me about 7 hours from start to battery ready. All greased up, new fast eddy bearings all the way and shock dampening set, ride height set and alignment done. I have to paint it up and glue the beads together.

Anyways I have cycled my 5,000 mah NiMh battery 6 times by charging it fully then discharging it at the lake in my boat. I use a timer every run to see how long 5,000 mah will last. It's obviously resulting in better battery life the more you run the battery. I am up to 27 minutes of non-stop running of my boat with twin 380 motors pushing the heavy plastic hull through water. On storage of a NImH I find that basically you can store it charged or near discharged, but it does the battery good to run it dead and cycle it every month or so, if it's going to be down for a long time.
I also found out they don't have the memory effect to a point. It is said running them down dead and recharging soon after will help take care of any memory effect, if any.

So I concluded that NiMh really aren't that sensitive....they can be stored in any state, charged up from any state, but just cycle it once in a while to keep it fresh

IMO Lipo are better in every way though. Store them at half voltage, you can charge and recharge all day long and safety isn't an issue if you have a smart charger and keep an eye on them while charging.

Just thought I'd put that up here, from what I have found out, since it seems very difficult to get any straight answers about NiMh maintenance...even from the manufacturer.

darkbibble

do new nimh battery packs have to be trickle charged on their first charge?

Desertlakesflying

My Feedback: (28)

it is better to charge them lowly the first time around, and after that it doesn't matter much. NimH batteries are far more resilient than NicaD batteries.

1QwkSport2.5r

A slower charge will better keep the battery cooler and take a better charge than a faster charge. You can charge a NiMH battery at 1C (10% of the rated capacity), but it won't last quite as long as if you charged it at .5-.75C. I seem to have better results charging (for example) my 1600mAh NiMH receiver packs at 1A than 1.6A. In reality, as long as you don't go above 1C charge rate, it doesn't really matter. With new battery packs, it often takes a dozen charge/discharge cycles of more to get the pack to charge to capacity.

Gizmo-RCU

My Feedback: (27)

Used NIMH for years...switched to Life and never looked back. Much more user friendly IMO.

Pilot_Guy

I charge Two amps less than the capacity of the battery. For my 5000mah ill charge at 3 amps instead of 5 amps. Takes lo get, but I believe it gets a better charge at a slower rate.

Pilot_Guy

I wish battery manufacturers would include some very basic guidelines as for basic maintenance and charging. Things like charge current for the first few charges, storage voltage.....stuff like that. They don't include any basic instructions which I found strange. At least with LIPO yo ucan go online to get info about all of that. Very easy. However for NiMh it's hard to get any straight information. I find someone will say store empty and then someone else will say no! store them charged.

Just so you know...I emailed the company I bought my NiMh from(remain nameless for now) and have not recieved any reply. I simply asked for some basic instruction about storage and charging of a NiMh battery they sold me.