I have an infant chair that has a little motor to make it vibrate, and I put one eneloop in it. By the time the battery is drained enough so that the motor stops, the eneloop is down to around 1.0 V. If someone forgets and leaves the switch on while the motor is stopped then the battery will go under 1.0 V. Does anyone know how low these batteries should be going before they are charged? Is allowing it to go down to 1.0 V OK or should I be pulling the battery out and charging before the motor stops? Thanks.
Max eneloop discharge for longest life?
- Thread starter DarkNova
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Mr Happy
Flashlight Enthusiast
The important measure is what the voltage recovers to after you remove the cell. If after a few minutes rest it recovers to 1.2 V or greater you are good to go. If it is much less than that you should remove the cell sooner. Leaving the cell in the chair after the motor has stopped and forgetting about it will soon enough damage the cell. Therefore my advice would be to remove the cell for recharging when the motor is starting to slow down and before it stops. A silent chair with a stopped motor will be easy to forget about.
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SilverFox
Flashaholic
Hello DarkNova,
Welcome to CPF.
The best situation is that the cell voltage rebounds to around 1.2 volts after you take it out and let it rest for 10 minutes or so.
If your cell is showing 1 volt after resting, you are running it too long. It may be better to just charge it more often and not let it run all the way down. An occasional over discharge can be recovered from, but there is usually a little damage done.
Tom
Welcome to CPF.
The best situation is that the cell voltage rebounds to around 1.2 volts after you take it out and let it rest for 10 minutes or so.
If your cell is showing 1 volt after resting, you are running it too long. It may be better to just charge it more often and not let it run all the way down. An occasional over discharge can be recovered from, but there is usually a little damage done.
Tom
Thanks guys. The 1.0 V I mentioned was pretty much immediately after I took the battery out. I tested a battery that had been sitting for a couple days and I know it had recovered to over 1.2 V but I'll have to try it after 10 minutes next time. I'll probably just take it out to charge sooner, though, based on your advice. Thanks.
It's not necessary to drain to empty each time. In single cell applications, deep discharge is not exceptionally harmful, but in multi-cell applications that allow the weakest cell to be forced into polarity reversal, there is a great harm.
Apollo Cree
Enlightened
It's better to not discharge the battery way down. However, if you just throw away the battery when it gets to the point where it won't hold a charge, it's probably not really costing you that much. Is the effort of proper handling for long life worth the money it saves for you?
It's also probably a cumulative effect. Doing it over and over does damage a little bit at a time. One single over discharge probably won't do that much damage.
Eneloops/NiCd/NiMH aren't like lithiums. Over discharge is not likely to make them explode or vent nasty stuff.
It's also probably a cumulative effect. Doing it over and over does damage a little bit at a time. One single over discharge probably won't do that much damage.
Eneloops/NiCd/NiMH aren't like lithiums. Over discharge is not likely to make them explode or vent nasty stuff.
