Batteries Charge/discharge Nicd Battery

[bigone5500]

My UP100AC Plus charger has a function called charge/discharge. Is this a good method to add life to a NiCd battery? It also can do re-peak. I just want to try to get a little more life from this battery. It's a 7.2v 1500mAh.

 

[Tony]

First thing you need to do is put a brake light from a car on that battery (with both elements glowing) and take it down to damn near off. It will just be slightly be glowing. Then fully charge it all the way up, rinse and repeat about 5 times and you will get the most out of that battery that you possibly can. Those batteries keep a memory and you must discharge them all the way down almost to keep them from killing themselves.

 

[bigone5500]

This charger will discharge the battery automatically. It will discharge at a programmable current. It will also discharge to a set voltage down to .1v.

My question is what is a safe current to discharge?

 

[Tony]

I have never used a charger to do this job on a NiCd or NiMh, I always used a light. But a single light is about 2 amps.

 

[bigone5500]

I'll assume .1 is a good voltage to discharge to...?

 

[Tony]

As long as you immediately charge it back up. Just make sure your charger doesn't require a minimum voltage to start charging.

 

[bigone5500]

The battery was basically fully charged when I started the process.

 

[Tony]

You should never leave one of these batteries fully charged. Much like a lipo, it will destroy them. But unlike a lipo, you want to discharge these down to about 10%

 

[bigone5500]

So for this 1500mAh battery I should discharge to 150mAh?

 

[Tony]

Think voltage, not mah.

 

[bigone5500]

Tin fore

 

[bigone5500]

These batteries should be left to cool before each part of the cycle right?

 

[Tony]

Yes, absolutely. They get a little warm lol

 

[bigone5500]

Almost done with the second charging cycle.

 

[bigone5500]

So I finished the 5 cycles. I discharged and recharged 5 times. I checked a couple times and was getting just under 1400mAh of charge into the battery. The last time I discharged, I set the limit on my charger to cut out at .8v. This should be fine right? Here is a photo of the screen setup.

 

[Tony]

Yea, that should be fine. If you have a high powered fan, you can try charging at 5-6 amps to pack in more power. But you will have to keep the pack cool while doing this. I always charged at 5 amps when racing, but I was also purchasing new race packs about once a month. On these packs, the faster you can get the power in, the faster it will release it.

 

[bigone5500]

So I can charge it at 4 or 5 amps and be fine? I assumed that over 2C rate would damage the pack.

 

[Tony]

Back in the day, we didn't know about C rate, we just knew heat. If the pack was getting too hot, don't charge that high lmao.

 

[bigone5500]

So what size battery do you use to cook ramen noodles?