Originally posted by B3boy
I just recently bought a Integy 16x7 charger. I think it is pretty nice but then again, i know nothing really about chargers.
I am just charging my first battery on it. It has never been charged before. It is a micro rs4 6 cell NimH 1100 mah pack. I am charging it at .05 amps with a peak detection of 2mv per cell.
(was i suposed to discharge it first???)
wow that's too low. You want to at least charge it at 2 amps and peak detection somewhere in between 4-8mv. If your pack is brand new you want to train them at 8mv and since it is Nickel Metal Hydride (that's what NiMh stands for) you don't need to discharge them.
During the charge it displays a few things that I don't understand and the instructions are junk! (is it suposed to be turning on those loud fans every 20 seconds?!! )
It says:
544mah 1:05:00
8.980 0.50A MH
other screen:
Input 15.567
Peak 8.993
This was the display at the end of charge. How can the peak voltage be 8.800 when it is a 7.2 volt battery pack? is that what it means.
and on the first screen is 544 mah the amount of amperage put into the pack. I thought it was a 1100 mah pack. and also what is input?
LOLz...if you don't want those fan to be on, buy a seperate large fan to cool your charger off. It is annoying at first but then you'll realize it is working hard to make sure your battery works really well for you to race.
NIcd and Nimh tend to PEAK at a higher voltage than stated but it should be no more than 9-9.5 volts per pack. Anything above that will means that your pack is damage. That means 8.9volt is good. About your amperage. All of Nimh are half charged when shipped to distributor. You need to cycle those batteries before you get the right number at least three times. What happen with 16x7 when a battery is half charged that it turns a charge mode into peak mode. You might see 544 amps but that is 544 peaked amps plus whatever level that the company who assembles the battery put in. You should run your car first till it dump, or again, cycle it a couple or three times with plenty of cooling in between.
I am pretty sure the charger didn't false peak because it shut off when the cells started getting warm. But then again, i don' really know If the false peaked or not. an hour and five minutes seems like a long charge.
I am also curently building some 3000 NimH packs and haven't charged them yet. Should I cycle them before I charger them?
If I need to discharge them, and the voltage is wrong on the display, wouldn't that mean the charger won't fully discharge the cells to a true 0.9 volts?
If you can answer these questions it would help a lot. I really don't want to ruin my packs.
Thanks
