I charged my NIMH battery last night for 3 hours. Went to bed, got up in the morning to fly the plane and the battery has no charge?

Is there like a 5 minute span you have to use the batteries? Seriously, nothing would work. Here i am charging it again for another 3 hours. This can't be right?

Thought i'd ask here. Want to know the truth before i go and get frustrated and its normal.

I mean, i use rechargable battereies for my RC cars and can use/run them for days. this makes no sense.

From looking at your previous post you said that the battery is only 800 Mah. That's a prettty small battery for an airplane. 5 minutes would sound just about right for a battery of that size.

Ken

i would see if you could feel a loose wire in the pack or see if someone at your field can try to cycle the pack if not your out of luck

i charged it for 3 hours. let it sit overnight. i plugged it in initally last night and the propeller spun. i disconnected it, and went to bed. woke up and bam, battery dead. does the batteries drain from no use? and not weeks, but just 10 hours of no use?

What kind of charger and charge rate did you use? IF this were a new NiCad and on a Wall-Wart charger this would be all that I would expect. If you used a fast charger that COULD be a different story. And YES, I did read that you are using NiMH, I was just doing a comparison. Unless using a fast charger, you are NOT going to fully charge a battery in 3 hours from a discharged condition.

One more thing to check is to see if one of the cells "vented". I built a 2000mah pack for my transmitter and cycled it twice prior to flying the first time. It almost cost me a plane as the voltage dropped form 10.8 down to 8.8 in a maner of minutes, less than five. I my instructor hadn't been with me, it would have been a dead plane because I can't hear the beeper frequency on the transmitter.

Inspect the pack closely and maybe carefully cut the shrink wrap off to get a better look. Look for gunk around th positive end of the batterys and also look for bad spot weld joints on the tabs.

Don

Which charger and battery pack would you recommend?

I think you need to use what you already have but charge longer. Also make sure the batteries are OK condition. Also, from here, it's hard to tell what kind of plane you have which makes further recomendations hard.

It is possible that you just plane got a junk battery.
I am sorry but I will be blunt. You bought a cheap throw away airplane. One thing in common with these are inconsistant quality.
I was in the same boat as you with one I bought when I first started out. The battery lasted all of one charge.
Try charging it again but you may end up contacting the company for a replacement.
UMM one last thing, are you sure it is the battery? The ESC on alot of electrics won't arm unless your throttle stick AND trim switch are both all the way to their lowest setting when you plug the battery in (safety feature)

thanks for replies. this time around, the battery actually warmed to the touch, before it had never done that. perhaps finally breaking it in? not sure. anyway, in another post, i post a pic. i did get it off the ground. hit a fence.

I am not sure that is what "Breaking it In" really means

does 30 seconds in the air = solo

just messing.

learning, hurting, learning some more.

Exactly what type of battery/charger are we talking about here?

If you have a standard 600 or 800mah Rx pack it would take about 16 hours to charge with the charger that came with your radio

Minn - this is the plane
http://www.rctoys4us.com/product/AR-NN-TD-RTC2016
and these are the battery/charger specs
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=6463949

Oh

Thanks Mike, I needed a laugh!!!

Ken

Gilda and Minn look alike ya know?

Yea, but only since she died

I've seen Mike after 9 pm. Trust me, it's hard to tell that he's alive too!!!!

Ken

LOL, That hurt........