Charging Higher Capacity Batteries Than Charger Spec?

[Percymon]

Ordered some stick batteries online and supplier sent me higher capacity ones - 5000mah vs 3800 ordered. My acx1 charger is supposedly rated to 3800mah. What will happen with the 5000 sticks? Will they shut off at 3800mah, will the charger keep going to full battery capacity or will it just not charge at all ??

[tamiya monkey]

not sure about this, but when i had a ripmax charger that had a lower max capacity limit, once it had finished i stuck them again.

[Gruntfuggly]

The ACX1 is a peak charger so in theory it should still work - when they came out the biggest packs were about 3000mah so I think that's all they rated them for (mine was only rated for 3000mah) - sounds like yours might be a bit more recent.

The trick with nimhs is to keep feeling the packs to check the temperature. If they are too hot to keep your hand on then they are overcharging. They will get hot before the peak is detected anyway, but they shouldn't get too hot to hold. You might find that it detects the peak too soon - if it stops charging while the pack is still cold. You could try disconnecting and reconnecting and give it another cycle...

The ACX1 is *very* basic compared to more modern chargers, so you might want to look at something that gives you a bit more feedback and control...

[stu22]

I'm guessing that they rated the charger to 3500mAh since it only charges at 3A. I would fully drain the 5000 and put it on the thing. If the pack is still cold when the charger shuts down you'll know it's being cutoff early. If it takes closer to 2 hours to charge you know it's peaking correctly. You really can't hurt anything by trying.