Me and a couple of my buddies discovered today that if we cool our batteries while charging them we can instantly run after the charge. I was using NiCd's and they were using NiMh's. We put our batteries on a 12" house fan while charging them and they never got warm. We ran them immediately and saw no adverse affects. I'm assuming what we're doing is probably ideal, but I may be wrong. If this is the best thing to do let me know, if not, likewise. Also, I'm getting LiPo's in the next week or two, will this work for them?

As for the Lipos, as long as they are in good shape and are being charged properly, they should never get hot while charging. So it isn't really an issue.

I believe running immediately after a charge is common practice with NIMH especially seeing as they self-discharge rather quickly. I think that racers peak their NIMH packs just before racing. I have no idea whether cooling them is a good or bad practice, though.

Heat is the enemy of any battery. By buddy charges his on a small fan from a computer. NiMH will drop voltage when they are fully charged and they also get hot as a result of the energy is no longer going into the battery as storage, but is being dissipated as heat. I don't know if the fan will affect that.

Joe

yes this is the way to go, my mate races electric boats and he has made up what he calls the Battery Tube, this tube is 4 inch dia plastic down pipe and one end is fitted with an electric ducted fan, he plugs the batteries into the charger and sits them in the tube with the fan reving.