I've got about 30-50 AA nimh 1800-2000 batts that I've been using for my radios and as of late it seems they are not lasting as long as they used to (usually show 1500 capacity or so and are kept in sets)

Anyways , I want to test them each and write the capacity on the cell so I can arrange them into sets again. I have a lot of charger/cyclers/dischargers and a CBA, but without spending hours and hour cycling batts what is best way?

I'm hinking of chargeing them all up in series to full and then pulling 1000 mah from the whole set and then individually dischargeing each cell to get the balance of the capacity (add to 1000 and write number on cell)

What do you think? is there a faster way? I can use maybe 1-2 amps Discharge or even less on the individual pulls.

sounds to me like you've got a pretty good idea with taking the 1000mAh out of the whole pack all together. While it is discharging you might do an individual cell voltage while it is under a load to help you find the cells that are weaker and not gona hold as many mAh or something. That definately sounds like a big task you've got there =)

Yea series it man!!!...C/10 for 20 hours....all warm....
I agree as discharge you could sort by Voltage drop then capacity at the very end at say 1.1 V to pair up.
Great experiment let us know how it comes out or if you go nuts at start tossen..
Rich

I'm going to try it this way (unless I change my other mind [&:])

I'll c/10 them for long time and then discharge the whole batch at a high current for exactly 1000 mah because I know they are all over 1000 and then I'll discharge individuals at the same rate as my radio pulls.