Klaus

I discharge my batterys in a venom discharger until the light is very very faint, but you can still see a slight glow in a dark room. The next morning I plug the battery into the discharger and the light is almost as bright as a fully charged battery.
1. Is this normal?
2. Should I re-discharge the battery before charging?
3. Am I wrong by not discharging the batterys until the light is completely black? This takes hours and hours and hours and I have other batterys to discharge too.
Thanks

dpaton

Answers-

1. Yup. This is commonly known as voltage bounce, and happens in capacitors when they are rapidly discharged too. When cells are discharged rapidly, they retain some of their capacity in a way which isn't able to be immediately discharged. After the packs rest a little while, that capacity gets moved back into the region where it can

2. You can if you want. If the cells are NiMH, it's probably best to discharge them, let them cool to room temperature, and then charge them. Storing NiMH cells with a full charge is just fine.

3. That depends on what you're trying to do. If you want your NiMH cells to live a long and happy life, tray the pack to 0.9V/cell and let it be. If you're into the abude of NiCad cells, do whatever floats your boat.

-dave