Danteazy

I don't have a discharge tray, but I do have a Volt Meter. What would the battery pack read to know when it is fully discharged?

I have a 6 cell 3300 nimh.

ahmedwali

Hello,
It will show the battery meter..

JeromeK99

iTrader: (3)

Well... a fully discharged 6 cell pack would effectively be 5.4v (.9v per cell).

The problem is that if you don't have a discharge tray, then it's hard to be sure each cell is equally discharged. A tray brings each cell down individually.

Without discharging each cell separately, your pack will eventually become unmatched. Some cells overcharging while you charge and others over-discharging as you run it and discharge it.

Optimal performance takes a lot of work and tools.


Jerome

HCHL

Assuming that your cells are not dead, your voltmeter will always show 1.2v if you are no putting any load on the batteries.

Danteazy

Cool, that's what I was looking for. So each cell suppose to be 0.2v?

How come I seen in other threads that when you have a discharge tray, each cell should be 0.9?

Dave H

HCHL was referring to per cell, not the pack, with the 1.2v number. (7.2v for a typical 6 cell pack)

Yes, typical discharge under load is to 0.9v per cell (5.4v for 6). But a good cell will rebound after being removed from the load, back up to the ~1.2v per range.

rcjunkie3000

iTrader: (94)

I use a Multimeter/Volt meter to check each individual cell after charging. After charging a pack each individual cell should read 1.2V or higher. A good cell generally gives a higher output, like 1.24v. A cell fully charged cell below 1.2V that you have cycled a few times is most likely going dead. Mark it with a pen and replace.

When discharging your cells after a run, try to discharge the cell down as much as possible, you can use an Integy Zero Thirty for that purpose. On a Novak Smart Tray SE, 0.9 volts appears to be the lowest voltage to bring down each cell w/o damaging them permanently similar to not letting dual cell lipos go below 6V (3V for single cells).