Whats a good charge rate for NiCd's? I did some searching but I really didnt find any useful info on nicd's, besides the stuff about discharging. Im going to be doing some Legends racing and they use 1800mah nicd sticks (6 cell). Should I charge them at 2A, 4A or even more (or less)? I dont really care if I shorten their life since they are so cheap, I just want to get the most bang out of them.

Alright, getting ready for Quaker Steak I see.

If you have a charger with adjustable peak detection I would go with 4A, but you might need to adjust the cutoff so that they do not get too hot. If your charger does not have this option you should stick with the highest you can without them getting too hot. I like to keep them right at 125F at the moment of termination. The higher you charge them the more punch you will get out of them, but of course lifespan and temp will come into play.

4-7 amps is a good charge range i always charged a 6 for the heats and then 7 for the main

make sure u re peak it right before you run it to get the most punch possable and the batteries work there best with a little heat in them

i know beople that would charge at 6 then re peak at 10 yes 10

Good info. I opened this thread expecting to see 1C recommended.

Pretty much how we did it with the good old SCR 1400's back in the day....and the 1200's before that..

not sure current nicds are as good as the ones we had back then....?

$50-80 plus for 1400 mah.........ahhh the good ol' days..

Thanks for the info guys! My charger only goes up to 5A so I guess I'll charge them at that for now. I am getting ready to race over at Quaker Steak, hopefully the weather will dry up so I can get some test runs in.

I have been charging these type packs (NICDs) for over 10 years and 5 amps seems to be about the best rate anyway. That's what I have my charger set up for. If the battery has been sitting for a while (15 minutes or longer) but fully charged, you might want to top the charge off with a 7 to 10 amp charge if you can watch the charge rate rise and fall and stop the charging when the charge voltage on the pack starts to decline. Good Luck at Quaker Steak. I will be there February 13th racing in the Masters Legend Class. Hope to see you there.
Dan Nusekabel

According to Novak, battery makers recommend a charge rate of 2.5 times the rated capacity. In the case of 1800mAH packs, this is a charge rate of 4.5 Amps. In my experience (starting back in the 1400mAH days), charging packs of this capacity greater than 5 amps only generates an excess of heat in the packs and does little to improve performance. If you have a digital discharger, you may want to do a little experimentation with charge rates to see if higher charge rates in fact do increase voltage, runtime, etc. If you have a bunch of these packs, you can also find out which are your best and worst too. Cell zapping is another way to go. Improvements will be best seen in packs that have had a number of cylces gone through them. If packs feel a little 'soft', low on voltage,false peak or are just old, a zap really works. I just zapped some 2400mAh NiCd packs of mine. They had been in storage for about 4 years. After a couple of cycles they were showing very ordinary performance. After i zapped the cells, i got an average of a 9% increase in both voltage and runtime, as well as a 34% reduction in internal resistance.