Charging 3700 NIMH with UAC 50 Charger

[Boons]

Hi all,

I think I'm getting the hang of Lipo charging but I now have a couple of NIMH batteries for another car I have.

I've had a read of the book but could use some advise!

What should I set the charger at, other than NIMH obviously, and it has a manual and auto setting???

Cheers all

Ryan

[bodgit]

Everything you need to know

http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6362

[terry.sc]

Just plug the nimh in, select nimh charge, set current to match the battery capacity (3000mah=3A, 4200mah=4.2A) and press start. Manual setting will charge the pack at the current you set, auto setting varies the current which is not the best way to charge nimhs. Just let the cells cool down after running before charging them.

A couple of suggestions though if you are worried about damaging them Delta peak as standard is set to 7mV, you might want to drop it to 5mV and you might want to limit the capacity cutoff to around the capacity of the cells. Personally mine is set to default manual charge and never had a problem as I never ran any of the Intellect cells that were the big problem a few years ago.

Cells are much more durable now the manufacturers aren't trying to get every last bit of performance out of them. Personally I'm running 3700mah cells, charging them at 5A as it gets more performance out of them but it does shorten their life. They get balanced on a discharger every month and they don't really need it based on the readings.

[Boons]

That is very useful thank you!

Regarding the discharger, what device is that? Can I not discharge them using the discharge feature on my charger or is that different?

Cheers

Ryan

[terry.sc]

For discharging I have a MuchMore CDX-D2 balance discharger. It discharges all the cells individually and gives you a reading of each individual cells capacity and average voltage. It was useful when we used race spec 4200mah nimhs that weren't that stable and they used to go out of sync very quickly.

To be honest all it has done has shown me that the latest nimh cells don't actually need to be balanced on it as the readings all show the cells are still well balanced after a couple of months use. Using the UAC-50 every so often to reduce any memory effect will do just as good a job.

[Boons]

I've just charged one pack for the first time and set the charger to NIMH, manual charge, 3.7a and pressed start. I've attached an image of the full charge. Look ok?

[terry.sc]

That's fine, nothing wrong there.

[Boons]

Thanks Terry

[Steven Forster]

Originally Posted by Boons

Thanks Terry

Daft question about the charger but.......is the sound of the beep loud or pretty quiet ?

Just that ive bought a new one and its very quiet compared to the older UAC 40 charger ive got !!!

cheers

[Boons]

I haven't heard the 40 but mine beeps quite loud, prob about microwave volume