fm battery carrier

[f22shift]

I'm looking to do a 9aa to 3d with a fivemega carrier. There is connection for a quick charger on the bottom. My question is what is my best bet for one. He does have a link on his thread but there are several chargers with a wide variety of volt ranges and currents. I'm not sure what to pick.
Also is it a bad idea to charge in a carrier rather than individually charging the nimhs.
thx!

 

[Mr Happy]

It needs a charger that can charge 9 cells in series (10.8 V). It should say in the specs if it can do that.

The advantage of charging in the carrier is convenience. If you are recharging a lot it is quick and easy and you don't have to take everything apart. Not only that but you would need a 9 slot charger, and there are not many of those about.

It's slightly worse to charge the pack in the carrier compared to charging cells individually, so you need to take care to keep the pack balanced and watch out for any sign of bad cells.

 

[geek4christ]

The thing I've seen recommended is to go ahead and charge them up at the rate you want (up to 1C). Then every 20 cycles or so give them a very slow 0.1C charge to balance the cells out.

The idea is, the cells that have higher voltage will go ahead and fill up first, then simply absorb the overcharge while the lower cells finish filling. At a slower charge rate, NiMH will absorb that overcharge without damage and you'll come out with a balanced pack.

The problem with this is that it's sometimes hard to trick peak chargers into letting the pack overcharge a bit. It helps to get a charger that allows you to adjust the peak sensitivity up so that the charger won't terminate the charge before your lower cells have come up to balanced.

 

[f22shift]

thanks guys

 

[Illum]

I've been using this guy to charge all my 9AA-3D Mag85s
http://www.batteryjunction.com/ch-un180.html

Cut one of those adapters with the female Tamiya connector and solder the ends into the male adapter plug FM should have supplied you, IIRC the center is positive.

No problems so far...but make sure you stick the thermal probe as close to the batteries as possible, it saved me from a meltdown when I had an unbalanced Elite1800 in the circuit...and it turns out elite1800s just don't like to be charged this way, so all my mag hotwires are eneloop powered.

 

[f22shift]

crap, got one without the temp probe. i wanted something compact for traveling.