ORIGINAL: apalsson

I have a temp probe on my charger but never used them. I have a habit of touching all batteries I charge though to se if they get hot and don't recall ever noticing a change when I charge at 1A
I'm not familiar with John's charger at all though. Modern day chargers are so cheap ($25 - $50) that I tend to retire the old ones and get the ones with more features. I also notice that when I charge my batteries with 1A as a max current, the charger spends a lot of the charge time at lower rates.
I agree, if a battery gets hot while charging, it's not a good sign. The Eneloops have a rated 1,500 charge lifespan (obviously at normal rates) so even if there is a slight reduction in life span, they give you a pretty good value

ORIGINAL: Tired Old Man

For those that don't want to buy a bunch of extra equipment to charge an Eneloop. Plug it into the receiver side of your wall wart radio charger. Low output, designed for charging 400 to 600 mA batteries at about 1/10C.

ORIGINAL: Lifer

What is a ''dodgy'' pilot?

ORIGINAL: captinjohn

I have a Sirrus Smart charger. It is about 10 years old. Do you think it would be ok to use it on the ''Sanyo'' ''Eneloop'' 1900MA pack I have? It has a 3 position switch for charging. 250, 500. and 1000. Do these numbers represent the pac size to be charged or the rate of charge? Got find the directions for it! Capt,n

ORIGINAL: captinjohn

Well I read all the replies so far. I never really noticed that my Sirrus Pro charger did any better at all than the common ordinary charger you get with your TX system. in fact I use it only as a field charger for about 10 min when I do use it. So I will do like Tom & others say...just use a standard low rate charger for the Eneloop battery packs. I think the low rate may be best....a gut feeling. Best Regards, Capt,n

ORIGINAL: apalsson


Sorry Tim but with the utmost respect, that is nonsense. Where does this keep coming from?

1. An Rcexl ignition places very little load on the battery (200 - 400mAh) where the rated discharge current of NiMh (Eneloop) cells is in excess of 10C
2. It has been established more times than I care to remember, a 4-cell NiMh (Eneloop) battery is probably an optimum power source for these ignitions. They typically have a capacity of 2,000 - 2,300mAh which easily gives you 4 - 5 hours run time at wide open throttle
3. Running at 6V only increases the power consumption of the ignition (therefore heat dissipation) but doesn't give any better spark (these are digital devices)
4. I fail to see how it can be of an advantage to use a battery with nominal cell voltage above the safe operating voltage of the ignition and then use a semiconductor to drop the same voltage down to a save (yet marginal) level

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen this have to be explained, I'd be better off than I'm now

ORIGINAL: Truckracer


When used on correct sized batteries, the Sirrus is a very good charger. Also, I would certainly use it for a quick top off charge at the field. Just keep track of the time it is on and don't walk away and forget it. Its only real fault is that there are better chargers available today. All their info, specs and manuals are available for viewing at their website.

ORIGINAL: av8tor1977

Man, I have had a ton of problems with Nimh batteries and are disgusted with them. I've had numerous packs fail over the past few years, and they were "quality" batteries maintained by a very good charger. I'm done with them.

Buy up some good old fashioned nicads before the supply dries up. That's what I did. (They are doing away with them...)

AV8TOR

ORIGINAL: Tired Old Man

For those that don't want to buy a bunch of extra equipment to charge an Eneloop. Plug it into the receiver side of your wall wart radio charger. Low output, designed for charging 400 to 600 mA batteries at about 1/10C.

ORIGINAL: TimBle


Nicads good, NiMH bad.

I've disposed of tens of the rechargable types for my cameras too and other electronics. Nothing but problems with them.

ORIGINAL: Jezmo

You guys can trash talk NiMH batteries all you want. That's fine but I still have the first Eneloop pack that I built over 5 years ago and it still kicks butt. I use ONLY GENUINE ''Sanyo'' Eneloops (yes there are cheap knockoffs made in that wonderful country that copies everything these days) and I have never, and I repeat, never had a single pack failure. Even though the Chinese have mastered copying the packaging they haven't quite mastered the actual cells as there are some visual clues as to the authenticity. I have a computerized battery analyzer (CBAIII) and the Genuine Eneloops will hold a 10 amp discharge rate without dropping below 1 volt per cell. As far as ignition packs go IMHO they are great. They work great on my DA50, DL50, DLE55, DA100, and DLE111 and will last longer than I am physically capable of flying in one day. On the one lungers they will empty a two gallon gas can and still be haulin the mail. Heck at some of the big meets I've borrowed gas for another flight and never even considered the need to recharge the ignition pack.

As a disclaimer, I am using the 2300 A123's as my flight pack but I can not see any reason to add more complexity to my ignition setup. KISS is my moto. Keep It Simple Stupid

ORIGINAL: Truckracer

Jezmo,

Well stated!

Like you I use A123 batteries for flight packs in my newer planes but my NiCd and NIMH batteries are serving extremely well for ignition. I still have quite a fleet of smaller and seldom flown planes that use nickel based batteries and will continue to do so until they die from old age. Yes, these older batteries will probably be replaced with A123s when the time comes but I'm certainly not going to throw out perfectly good batteries just because newer technology has come along. Unless something changes, my transmitters will continue to use Eneloop batteries. In over 40 years of flying RC, I have never had an in flight battery failure.