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Coneykid

New Battery Charging

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Appoligies if this has been covered before but having looked through various threads havent found an answer.

I have just bought a new charger and battery pack (just cheap and cheerful ones) whats the best way to start charging.

Is it still advised to slow charge them for the first few times???

The charger is a Protech Mega Peak 3000 (instruction a bit brief to say the least) the instructions only relate to fast charging and that when the delta peak cuts in it switches on to trickle.

If i connect the battery and leave it on trickle will this slow charge the battery or do you need a separate slow charger.

John [?]

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Yep, basically just leave its on tricle for the first 2-3 cycles. You will probably also find that if you attach the battery to the charger without plugging the charger into the AC supply that it will discharge your pack so beware!

In the future, doing a few long charge cycles will restore a battery that is begining to loose capacity.

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I have the exact same charger. I asume you hav NiCad Batteries. In that case, you should discharge them completely (by using the car, needs no further explanation on that point?). Then you put the battery on the charger and the charger on the power source. when everything is ok, a green led ('Trickle') wil lit up. When you hit the yellow button ('Start') the green led will turn off, and after a second the red one ('Fast') will lit up with a beep. Now you are fast charging you battery.

When it's done, the Charger will start to beep quite loud, annoying friends / family that are in the same building. You can't miss it this way I guess. when it does that's the pack is full, and you can hit the yellow button to trickle-charge it. When you want to stop this, unplug the battery (beep!). Now you can use the battery again.

Keep in mind that you should always fully charge and fully discharge NiCad batteries before re-charge/discharge... Also, old batteries will perform a lot better after a few charging cycles, this will re-activate them... Hope this helps, I'll leave it with this as there are people here that can expain about these things much better than I can. [:)]

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I just plug and play, buts thats just me. I do however only use good cells and a good charger and have never had any problem. When the cells deteriate, i just chuck them and buy more. Its only money [;)]

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You should slow charge for the first 2-3 cycles at no more than 1/10 C (where C = battery capacity in mA) For example 2000 mA cells should be charged with not more than 200 mA of current. NiMH cells will often false peak if fast charged before a few cycles of slow charging.

Also, discharging cells untill they are absolutely dead will drastically shorten their life. If the battery gets too hot to touch you are either drawing too much current or running the cell too dead. You should run the car untill it slows down noticably, then recharge.

Hope this helps.

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Cheers all.

I have also bought a discharger, so should be able to keep the cells in good condition.

Just wanted to make sure i got of on the right track.

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