Don, Several companies make battery cyclers. I think a very good one is the Accu-Cycle by Hobbyco; however, it has multiple capibilities and if you arn't interested in several of the capibilities it has, maybe a cheaper cycler would be a better choice. I personally have athe Hanger 9 Sure Cycle. This unit is set-up to charge/discharge TX and RX packs only. It cost around $50.00 and does the job fairly well. I basically use it for cycling RX battery packs. It will do TX packs, if removed form the TX and the pack does not have a discharge protection diode installed. Like you said, TXs have a bvoltmeter built in, so you know how they are doing.

While charging, the unit can be toggled through the amount of hours charging and battery voltage. When switched to discharge, it shows battery voltage and mAH drawn from the pack. When it gets to a predetermined point of discharge (I think by reading voltage) it automatically switches to charge and keeps the information on mAH in memory, so you can see what the final mAH amount was. When charging a new battery pack, this unit will tell you the values your getting from the pack Ie, an 800 mAH pack should produce close to 800mAH; 1500 mAH should produce close to 1500 mAH, etc... It may take several cycles to get the capacity the pack should have and if it never gets close, something is wrong with the pack.

Generally, NiCAD and NiMH are the two types of batteries supplied with R/C equipment. The memory thing has all but been eliminated from NiCADs. My guess is you might find you have NiMH batteries, which are suseptable to damage by over charging. I feel NiCADs are more robust and will attempt to use them if I have a choice. Here are two websites were everything you need to know about batteries as we use in R/C can be found. A description on how to charge NiMH batteries will be found at The Battery Clinic by Red Scholefield: 1). The Battery Clinic: www.rcbatteryclinic.com . 2). NoBSBatteries: www.hangtimes.com .

I'm no battery expert, all I have learned is from concern over loosing an airplane from lack of battery power. Using an Expanded Scale Voltmeter as previously suggested is also a very good idea.