Trung

I went to the hobby store the other day to buy a discharger, I couldnt find it so i asked the hobby store guy and he said just leave the Tx and Rx on till the batteries die. It sounds ok to me but just wanted to make sure cuz I read somewhere on hte net and it said to get a voltmeter, leave Tx and Rx on till each cell get down to 1.1V. So Tx = 8.8V and Rx = 4.4V. Ive been leave them on till they run out once or twice, would that do any damage or do I have to get those dischargers and a voltmeter? Thanks guys

Rodney

You can seriously damage your battery doing it that way. The weakest cell will go dead before the others and will then be reverse charged by the still functioning cells. This can cause irreversable damage to the weaker cell(s). You are correct in only discharging to .9 to 1.1 volt per cell. If you are working with individual cells, it is okay to discharge it to zero as that will not damage it, it is only when you reverse charge a NiCad that you cause damage. It is really unecessary to discharge your batteries as long as you are using the charger that came with your radio equipment as it charges at about a 0.1C rate. Even if you leave that charger on for 24 hours you wont damage your batteries. Check out www.rcbatteryclinic.com for some good info on care of your batteries.

Trung

Ive read a bunch of stuff on the "memory effect" of NiCd batteries thats why i wanted to buy the discharger. So I can just charge the batteries to full before using them and thats ok?

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

I would not worry about it. Just slow charge your pack periodically as well as fly until you get down to 4.8 on the reciever and 8.8 on the transmitter every month or two.