Hi, I have a Hangar 9 sure cycle battary cycler. I put my battaries on discharge this morning and i noticed that my 9.6v transmitter battary only discharged to about 9v and my 4.8v reciever battary only discharged to about 4v. Is this normal? I thought that it would discharge all the way down.
Thanks, Gary.

Sounds like the charger is doing what it is supposed to. If you discharge a NiCd battery pack to below .9 volts per cell you risk the possibility that one of the cells will suddenly reverse polarity. If this happens then that cell is ruined and you would either have to replace the bad cell or the entire battery pack. [>:]

According to the manual the 4 cell RX pack should discharge down to 4.2 Volts and the 8 cell TX pack should discharge down to 8.4 Volts (1.05 Volts per cell). Keep checking each time you cycle the batteries to see what kind of variation you get in the results.

fatsky has it correct. As long as you never let any single cell become reverse biased or reverse charged (that will happen if one cell is completely discharged before the others) no harm will be done. The 0.9 to 1.0 volt limit is just a safety factor to prevent that from happening; plus, when the voltage falls to that value, very little energy is still stored in the cell.

I cycle my batteries down to .8 volts/cell.

4 Cell 4.8V pack down to 3.2V
5 Cell 6.0V pack down to 4.0V
8 Cell 9.6V pack down to 6.4V

I use to cycle down to .9V/cell, but my triton is defaulted on cycle mode to discharge down to .8V/cell. This is setup at the factory to discharge down to this value and can not be changed on the cycling mode, so I figured .8 must not be too bad if the Triton takes it down to that value. I would hesitate to go any lower. I have heard of some discharging down to .5V/cell, but that is too low for my taste.

Remember, if you discharge at a slower rate you will get a more accurate reading from the battery.

Guess I won't be buying a Triton Cycler. 0.8 volts is too low for me to be comfortable.
Dennis-

How low do you go for storage at the end of the season?

Well, here in Jackson, MS we fly year round. The winters are mild enough to be able to do that. So I have never stored a battery. Maybe too cold on one day, but not the next so we fly, but it seems like I read that one needs to be stored with a slight charge, how much? I'm not sure. I'm sure others will know more about storing.

Sorry, I couldn't help more.

I DON'T discharge my packs for the winter. I leave them just as they were after the last flight, then cycle them a couple of times during the winter.

There is NO reason to discharge a pack, except when cycling or flying!
Dennis-