Is My Battery Scrap ?

[Bangor Lad]

Hi folks. I bought a used Savage for parts off the Bay. I got some really great stuff off it and was well happy for what I paid for it. In with the rota start, there was this genuine HPI battery

I tried charging it on my Lipro B6 charger and it buzzed to say fully charged but when I go to use it, it does not turn the rota start as fast as my own battery ( shown below )

I have seen that the HPI battery is Ni-Cd and is only 1500mAh where as my normal battery is a NIMH and is 2200 mAh but would this make such a huge difference or is the battery scrap ? Do I possibly need to discharge it with the Lipro charger as I have seen this function on it but do not understand how it works or what Voltage or Amps to set it at ?
Any help, as always, will be greatly appreciated

 

[theant]

I didnt think that you could use a lipo charger with anything other than lipo?

Edit: you probably use your lipo charger for your 2200mah battery, so i have no clue.

 

[trax de max]

the NiCd prob has memory effect, as that type was the most common.
i would ditch the Nicd.
Did you try the b6 on Nicd setting. for that battery

 

[Bangor Lad]

I didnt think that you could use a lipo charger with anything other than lipo?

Edit: you probably use your lipo charger for your 2200mah battery, so i have no clue.

LiPro no lipo

 

[Bangor Lad]

the NiCd prob has memory effect, as that type was the most common.
i would ditch the Nicd.
Did you try the b6 on Nicd setting. for that battery

My NIMH chargers and works great. I charge the NIMH on the NIMH mode. I have only charged the NICD battery on NICD, will it not ruin it if I charge the NICD on NIMH mode ? I'm confused 

 

[Bangor Lad]

Ok, I set to discharge to 0.9V at a rate of 1 Amp which as you said, was max. It buzzed at me to say the discharge was complete. I have now been charging at a rate of 0.5 Amp for the last 90 minutes and counting so fingers crossed that it works out. Failing out, ill throw it in the bin I will let you know.

While I am on the subject, can you answer me these questions :

1 - What is the difference between the NICD and the NIMC ?
2 - Which of the two types of battery are better for my job ?
3 - How often should I carry out the "DISCHARGE" program on my batteries or is them going flat by normal use just the same ?
4 - If this battery does not work in the end, I will be looking into getting a spare for my Ez Start wand, is a lipo any benefit of are they just for the battery powered motors in the cars ?
5 - Is the higher the mAh, the stronger the battery ?

 

[Bangor Lad]

I must be the only sad person to be googling on Sunday nights ? No helpers tonight ?

 

[trax de max]

1) Nicd and Nimh have 2 types of memory effect.one of the memory effects is:-
when charging or running/discharging if you stop it before it`s fully charged or used before its drained that point becomes the capacity points. so if you charge a drained battery a few times and stop it before its full st thst point becomes the new max capacity.Likewise when you run/discharge the battery before it drains then that low point will become the new min capacity point. This will reduce overall capacity in the battery as each time you do this it will become less and less.
1b) second memory effect is when you run batteries in r/c its normally full throttle which is good but if you ran it at half throttle the power it sends out becomes memory.This type of memory doesn`t really play a part in R/C as everyone uses full throtle 90% of the time.
2)Nimhs are better less memory effect.
3) just run flat with normal use should be fine. cycling new batteries is good to break the battery in.
4) just stick with Nimh for Ez start.
5)mAh gives you capacity, run time or how many times to use.the higher the number the more you can use before recharging.some manufacturers have good batteries others have bad batteries.

 

[Racer 1966]

The difference between NiCd and NiMh is the ingredients inside the battery.
NiCd = Nickel Cadmium
NiMh = Nickel Metal Hydride

The first part of the memory effect mentioned above is somewhat true,but it happens over time not immediately. The second I have no idea what the heck he's thinking there. The rest of those answers are fine.

 

[Bangor Lad]

Thank you very much for all that Trax De Max So I will stick to the NIMH then. Thats really interesting to know about the memories. Why do they bother making the NICD then ? So if I was to go for the battery in this link. That would be a really strong long lasting pack ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Team-Orion-5100-7-2v-RC-Stick-Pack-Battery-Tamiya-Con-/220809579258

Or is that overkill for my job ?

 

[Rolex]

NiCads are becoming a thing of the past. Cycling it 3 times will often bring back its full charge as long as it's still healthy.
Let it cool completely to room temp before discharging or charging it between cycles.

 

[trax de max]

Voltage depression is a problem with NiCd batteries but less so with NiMH. It doesn't affect the battery capacity much at all. Rather, the battery voltage drops unusually quickly as it discharges. Gadgets that monitor their battery voltage therefore think the battery's flat earlier than they should. There may be lots of capacity left at the slightly depressed voltage, but the gadget doesn't know that and flashes its "low battery" warning. thats the running memory that effects voltage not the charge memory that effects capacity.

Fully discharging cells cures voltage depression, but if you fully discharge a whole battery then the stronger cells in the battery will "reverse" the weaker ones. The weaker ones go flat first, and then get charged backwards by the others. This is very bad for the weaker cells, and will kill a battery pack quick smart. So don't do it.

Discharging hardware/chargers lets you set a voltage to discharge to , 0.9 Volts per cell. A NiCd or NiMH cell that's down to 0.9 volts under moderate load has practically no charge left; it's very nearly dead flat. But stopping the discharge at that point, rather than letting the pack slump down to zero volts, should save weak cells in the pack from any significant reversal. Well, unless they're so weak that the pack's toast anyway.But i wouldn`t recommend going below 1V per cell

 

[Rolex]

It's good to have a battery guru on board. Thanks for all your good info.