JMontes

Hi, just have a quickie. I have a 6 cell 3000mAh battery pack. If I want to discharge this between charges, what should I bring it down to? Is 0.9V per cell considered "discharged"? I read that this is also what I should bring it down to for lengthy storage, so I'm confused as to why 0.9V per cell would be considered discharged. I just want to know what to bring it to in order to get the maximum life out of my batteries.

Thanks!

aliens8mycow

If you discharge the entire pack the individual cells won't end up being at the same voltage anyway, so it won't do you much good to get too technical with it.

I wouldn't bother discharging NiMH's unless you do plan to store them for a while. They don't have a memory like NiCD's do.

The reason that you don't want to go to 'zero' is that you run a huge risk (especially trying to discharge the pack all together) of getting a negative voltage, which pretty much puts an end to your battery. With something like the novak smart tray you can discharge each individual cell so that each one is matched at the end of the process. Unless you're doing something like that, I wouldn't try to discharge too far down.

R/C-SS

Yeah, I wouldn't discharge your NiMH packs too often. I do mine about every 15 or so runs. If you do discharge them like NiCDs, their life will greatly decrease. Just make sure that you have a good discharger, such as the one that Deans makes.

Speedmunkey

I'm a pretty hardcore racer at my local track, and taking care of my packs is a big deal to me. I discharge my packs religiously the day after every race. I leave them flat all week. I then charge them the day before raceday and let them sit overnight. I then run them flat in practice on raceday. I cool them with a fan, discharge and peak them @6A. Seemed to work pretty well for me last season, as it helped me take home the big trophy for my class..

Most people that say not to discharge aren't racers. They are bashers. Nothing wrong with that, but bashers and racers look at things differently. Myself, I don't care how bad what I'm doing to my packs is for them, cuz I think of them as disposable tools. A bashers will baby his packs cuz he wants them to last a long time. Now some I do baby, like my qualifying and A-main packs, but the majority I treat like dogs lol. I'll use those for my practice packs next season.

JMontes

Thanks guys. So is the general consensus to run them low in the car, then just throw them on the charger when they cool down? What is considered the "Discharged state" of NiMH batteries? 0.9V per cell?

Thanks,

John

aliens8mycow

Speedmunkey speaks the truth - One other thing buried somewhere in there is that if you plan to run your car everyday or two, there's not much need to discharge the batteries. If you run weekly at a track, or plan to store the car for the winter, definitely discharge them.

Speedmunkey

btw, I want to address the issue of not charging/discharging properly for a long time (a week? lol).. Our season ended November 6th. That was the last time I'd touched any of my RC gear till today. I didn't even bother discharging my packs as I normally did during the season. I've been charging my packs up and seeing how they've survived the winter today. So far, I see no noticeable drop in them. Now, I'm not on the track watching my lap times, so I can't say they're running at 100% of what they were on November 6th, but I can tell you that I got long run times and the little dude was flying a few minutes ago. So for general bashing, I'd say NIMHs are pretty much bulletproof. Just peak em and go.

Stemage

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