haven't flown in 3 months, and the 1000mah Nicad i have in a plane hasn't been charged in over 2 months (i know, charging once a month should be done).
i went to start a cylce by putting the battery on discharge so i can give it a fresh charge. it only had a 108ma's left.........is it normal for Nicads to drain off like this?

not sure , i would cycle them again and check them again.

thx,
i'm usually anal about anything that i completly forgot to do the once a month cycle on my batteries........for sure it ain't going up tomorrow without being right

Yep,

Yep??...................as in normal?...................or??.......you got me on that one

Nicads will self discharge. Just what they do. I would give them a cycle to make sure they are good. I have more trouble letting batteries sit in planes I rarely fly than the ones that fly every week.

sORRY, NORMAL. Depending on the charge at the time you put it away they tend to self discharge quite a bit in a couple of months. I started making up packs with Eneloop batteries to avoid this. The Enelops don't discharge by themselves very fast. Charge once a year when in storage.

Copied from http://www.hangtimes.com/rcbattery_faq.html

"Q: Enh? Charge Retention? What’s up with that?

A: All stored energy systems (batteries) have a ‘self-discharge’ characteristic. This means that a ‘fully charged pack’ is in fact only ‘fully charged’ at the point it comes off the charger in a warm state. Cycling out the pack at that point gives you the nominal ‘capacity’ number for the fully charged pack. If you then re-charge the pack and disconnect it from all devices and let it sit for 2 days and THEN discharge it, it will cycle out with a capacity number up to about 25% below the nominal capacity. More than 25% capacity loss over 48 hours and its possible there’s a weak cell in the pack. Not all battery technologies have the same self-discharge characteristics. As an example, high impedance NiMH Tx packs self discharge at a more rapid rate than Nicads. This is why we always check the voltage display on out Tx’s when we turn them on and we check on- board packs with a load tester before the FIRST flight.. Why?? Well, you may have charged that pack last night… but is it safe to fly now?? Only a load check will reveal if the pack is indeed at a high enough charge state to safely fly it."

Mike... I haven't flown in a while either and ran into the same thing on a 2000mAh NiMh. Doing a little reading and I guess they have a relatively high self-discharge rate. The Sanyo Eneloop cells supposedly don't have this problems. I cycled mine a couple times and it held the rated capacity so I guess it is OK.

Between the rain, the fog and all the crap I have going on right now this is the longest dry spell I've had off from flying in a long time.<br type="_moz" />