I am in the process of changing all my Nimh batt's to eneloops not just for lights but for camera's and other stuff.
I have bought a smart charger for a few of my FM batt packs which works great but for some of my other setups I don't have a pack to charge them in so I use a 4 cell Nimh charger which seems to be dumb, it just charges away forever and if I take the batt's off a day later they are still kinda warm so I know they are being overcharged.
Am I damaging them by doing this?
Also some of my NiMH batt's in some of my older cameras have been completely dead for a while (This is why I am gradually replacing them with eneloops so I can grab the camera I want and actually have it work for more than 30 seconds or not at all).
I have heard that Nimh batts can be ruined with being dead for too long?
Can I tell just by charging them and doing a voltage check if they are still usable for something or does it have more to do with capacity in MaH's?
I am looking for some old battery boxes from any old junk that I can use to put my non series pack aa's in for charging purposes, so I can charge 8-10 batt's at once in-series with my smartcharger and not have them get overcharged, but in the meantime is the dumb 4 cell charger going to ruin my new cells if I leave them on for too long? It's a 240 ma x 4 charger (Olympus Camedia BU-300U), It seems like the 240 ma is low enough that I might get away with it but I'm not sure and the heat bothers me, not to mention the wasted energy and the fact that I have do do this several times to get a set of batt's done.
I have bought a smart charger for a few of my FM batt packs which works great but for some of my other setups I don't have a pack to charge them in so I use a 4 cell Nimh charger which seems to be dumb, it just charges away forever and if I take the batt's off a day later they are still kinda warm so I know they are being overcharged.
Am I damaging them by doing this?
Also some of my NiMH batt's in some of my older cameras have been completely dead for a while (This is why I am gradually replacing them with eneloops so I can grab the camera I want and actually have it work for more than 30 seconds or not at all).
I have heard that Nimh batts can be ruined with being dead for too long?
Can I tell just by charging them and doing a voltage check if they are still usable for something or does it have more to do with capacity in MaH's?
I am looking for some old battery boxes from any old junk that I can use to put my non series pack aa's in for charging purposes, so I can charge 8-10 batt's at once in-series with my smartcharger and not have them get overcharged, but in the meantime is the dumb 4 cell charger going to ruin my new cells if I leave them on for too long? It's a 240 ma x 4 charger (Olympus Camedia BU-300U), It seems like the 240 ma is low enough that I might get away with it but I'm not sure and the heat bothers me, not to mention the wasted energy and the fact that I have do do this several times to get a set of batt's done.
