Batteries

[Scott91MJ]

Got a couple of NIMH batteries that have had a lot of use during last summer, gave them a good charge before putting them to bed for the winter. Just checked the voltage of them and one is at 0.54 volt and the other is at 2.64 volts. I had a thought of trickle charging them for a couple of cycles to bring them back, hence the post in the wanted for a trickle charger. What is a good way to bring these batts back to life?

[ZooMad75]

You might be able to get them back that way. That's what I was told worked on nicd's, but nimh seems to work a little differently. I've found that it's best to store them charged and keep them topped off during extended storage. Since nimh cells do self discharge over time (one pack I've got lost almost 1 volt overnight, but it had a dead cell too) they don't stay completely charged up. From what I found is if you discharge a nimh battery too far it can be damaged and even reverse polarity if you go too far. I think that's what killed one of my packs. I was discharging after runs like I used to with nicd packs. I ended up killing 1 cell in the pack.

You may give it a couple more cycles to see if they wake up.

[newracer]

Best way to try and bring them back would be to discharge each cell to .9 volts individually and then peak charge each cell individually. Then discharge the whole pack to .9 volts per cell and peak charge the whole pack.