Everybody has their own theory about how to maintain batteries, and apparently all of them are wrong because I hear a new one about every two weeks . For my NiMH packs, I'll just recharge them between races. I don't discharge them until the following week the night before I go racing again, when I'll hook them to a lightbulb rack followed by the tray. Once all the lights on the tray go out, I charge them back up and they're ready to go tomorrow.

If they're going to sit more than a couple weeks (or in my case all summer while I race the gas truck), I'll go through with the lightbulb & tray process, then only give them half a charge. When I pull them back out, it's back on the dischargers, then one or two cycles of fully charging (but at a lower than usual amperage) followed by discharging.

Like I said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the next post after this is someone saying "OMG that's gonna junk those cells if you're doing it that way!!!", but at this point I really don't care. I have my method, it works for me. I DO know for sure you don't ever want to take a battery down to nothing, either by running it until the truck stops or using dischargers with no voltage cutoffs.