using dischargers

[crayon]

Hi guys i`ve just bought an LRP discharger or my battery packs.
What is the advantage of using one? as i`ve been told the battery`s dont like to be totally flat.

[jim76]

depends what sort you have. If it is an equaliser then it should cut off the discharge at around 0.9v (anything below this can ruin NIMH cells). It will also level out the voltage in each cell in the pack, meaning when you charge them (assuming they are matched cells) they will all peak at the same time. This offers optimum performance as all cells are fully peaked, and also extends cell life as cells won;t get ruined by over charging while other cells in the pack are still coming up to peak.

if you have a plain discharger that only does the whole pack and not individual cells then i'm not sure if it is any use at all really.

hope that helps

[crayon]

Hi right its a LRP concept Battery Conditioner Discharger
Like the one in this photo

[Col]

As Jim said, not sure how the one you have does any good, as it discharges the pack as a whole. What most poeple have used in the past is the Novak Smart tray as they discharge each cell induvidially to 0.9v. They are cheap now most have gone to lipo. Have a look:

http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19714

[crayon]

The smart tray would be good but i have got stick type battery`s like in the picture

[Dagger Thrasher]

I used to have one of those LRP dischargers years ago, but they're not that useful IMO. They have no voltage cutoff built-in that I could tell, so it's really guesswork as to how long you should leave a pack on it for (just has an LED which gets dimmer). It might be useful for the absolute beginner who wants to discharge a pack to avoid it sitting charged for too long - if their RC has broken down or whatever - but other than that, it's not going to be very helpful I'm afraid.

You're better off sticking to the discharger that's on your Prodigy; you can at least set a cutoff voltage on that.