Mrfranchize02

Sorry for the dumb question, but I don't have time to do a search. Is it absolutely necessary to discharge NIMH 6 cell batteries? What will happen if I don't discharge them?

gunnut

As far as I know it does not hurt the life of your NIMH packs to leave some charge on them. With Nicad packs it's a definite no-no.

Rat Fink

Here's one of the best guides to battery care I've seen:
http://www.specpointbatteries.com/ht...tery_care.html

SpunkyBBR

No, But it does help performance wise.I usally use a bulb discharger WITH a 5.4 volt cutoff to discharge after a run.Then I tray it to .8 a cell.Hope this helps.

dba72

Isn't there a possibility of the battery discharging itself after you have ran it down to .8 or .9 manually?

kostaktinos_mt

cell reversing you mean? yes there is, but depends on many factors. any way, just discharge no lower than 0.9v per cell [5.4v for a 6cell pack]. by the way, nimhs already have a self-discharging rate of 2-10% of their capacity per 24hours [also depends on storage conditions and cell quality].

dba72

Yea, that's what I was talking about. If this is true, then can't your nimh battery completely discharge? If it does, are you able to charge it back up again? I have a radioshack gp3300 stickpack that I think has gone bad. It only shows as 1 cell on my charger now and won't charge.

kostaktinos_mt

what happened? there are several reviving processes, but i need details to recommend any of them....

dba72

Nothing really. I usually charge my nimh packs before storing them, but I didn't on this one particular time with the battery in question. It appears to have discharged itself to where my charger reads it as a 1 cell battery. It is a 6 cell radio shack gp3300 stick pack. The charger is a MRC Super Brain 977.

gunnut

maybe try letting it charge thinking it's a 1-cell, then try again after that. I don't know for sure, but that's what I would try.

kostaktinos_mt

trickle charge for at least 24hours. if you have another charger [low-end] it is preffered to use that for this process. if the brain977 has manual mode, enter it and set the charge for 6cells. you will at least 24-48hours of slow trickle charge at 100 or 200 ma rate for the cells to start to revive. then it would need 4-6 cycles of scaled charges/discharges: 1amp charge rate then 1amp discharge rate for the 1st cycle, then 2amps charge rate/2amps discharge rate for 2nd charge, etc,etc. 4cycles minimum to reach 4amps charge rate.

jakjr

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