RCU Forums - 2300mah Charging Question?

typically slow charging would be about 10%... 230ma for that 2300mah pack.... With the REALLY high capacity packs you have to be really careful charging though... They have VERY thin internal walls. Even at 230ma, it would be VERY easy in the last bits of charging to destroy that pack if you charged just a tad too much... To make matters worse, because of the internal impedance of very high capacity packs, most chargers (triton, superbrain, etc) will NOT correctly sense the peak at the end of the cycle... The only way to charge at that rate SAFELY is to use a thermal probe. You CAN quick charge by the way... Up to 1amp... BUT... It's VERY VERY hard on these batteries... and should ONLY be done with a thermal probe....

That's the bad news... You wanna know the good news though??? Ni-MH are very different from Ni-Cd... Even though they have such a large capacity, you know what the BEST way to charge that pack of yours is? 50ma... Yup... Your plain jane wall-wart tx/rx charger... The one that came with your radio... Takes about 16-20 hours, but it'll charge it perfectly and have far better results than you'd get with any other rate.... The other great thing about the wall-wart charger... You can leave the thing on something like 72 hours and still not really damage the battery... You don't WANT to leave it on that long of course, but it won't kill it if you do....

Last but not least... If that's a new pack, don't forget you have to formation charge it... In other words, cycle it three times.... Charge it up (either at 50ma or 230ma, but never more) then discharge it at 200 to 300ma. Do that three times and you'll have a peak pack that will give you a couple years of awesome service....