charging battery?
 

Im charging up a 7.2v/350mAh, ni-cd battery using a 250 mA wall charger. The wires comming out of the wall charger are both black, but the wires comming from the battery are black and red. Does it matter how i connect it ? I dont know what one of the black wires from the wall charger is suspose to be the red and black.

RE: charging battery?
 

both the male and female connector has three pins or slots, but only two wires. Look and see what side the wires are on then match that up with the charge wires.

RE: charging battery?
 

i know what ur talking about, but i only have a 2 pin slot connector and only 2 pins

RE: charging battery?
 

Yes!! it matters a lot. The leads should be marked somehow. One of the two wires may have a white stripe, If so the label on the wallwart should give the polarity. check the label and make sure that the out put is DC, if it's AC, then it's not a charger at all, simply an adapter. If it is DC, and you have a digital voltmeter, hook it to the charger. If you have it backwards, the meter will read a negative value. When it reads right, mark the leads to match the meter leads. Red to red and black to black. Then you can use it to charge. Don't use it until you know. If you guess wrong, yuo WILL destroy your battery.

RE: charging battery?
 

Take crossman's advice then to be safe.

RE: charging battery?
 

Don't trust wallwarts. Buy a peak charger.

RE: charging battery?
 

i figured out the one with the light strip is the + but i was charging it the wrong way for about 10 minutes : x am i ok or how do i kno if i messed up the battery?

RE: charging battery?
 

You have most probably NOT harmed your battery. And yes, you can get by very well with just the wall wart as a charger, in fact your batteries will probably give you a longer life using it than you will get with a peak charger. As long as you are not in a rush to charge (takes about an overnight charge to fully charge with the wall wart) it is perfectly capable. More batteries are ruined with the use of fast chargers than were ever damaged using a wall wart.

RE: charging battery?
 

I totally agree!

And your batteries will have a longer life using a wall wart.

RE: charging battery?
 

Sorry for the confusion, but I said peak charger, not a fast chearger and yall are right. Charging too fast creates heat and heat kills batteries. A good peak charger had adjustable charge ratings for example on my Reedy Quasar Pro I charge my 600 mAh RX packs at 0.6 amps and it takes about an hour to charge. I discharge them at 1 amp when I cycle them which is usually once a month. If anything changes like shorter charge or discharge times, the pack becomes suspect.

With a wallwart you never know how much charge your packs have and if something went wrong with either the charger of the pack, you wont know it untill its too late.