Stinger fast charger maintenance charge.

[KC9KFJ]

Hello,I have been reading these forums for 3 months and have learned alot.I recently purchased a Stinger with an AC fast charger.How long can I leave the flashlight on maintenance charge without overcharging the battery? Thank you and Merry Christmas!

 

[SilverFox]

Hello KC9KFJ,

Welcome to CPF.

I don't recommend leaving a battery on the charger continually, but the NiCd cells in your Stinger can take extended charging better than NiMh cells can. I believe the fast charger charges in around 2.5 hours. You can leave the battery on the charger for the rest of the day to balance the pack, then remove it.

After 4 weeks off of the charger with no use, if your battery is in good condition, you should still have around 75% of your run time left. After around 8 weeks you will be down to around 50% and it would be a good time to charge the pack back up.

Hopefully you would be in a position to use your light often and not have to worry about keeping track of self discharge rates.

Tom

 

[KC9KFJ]

Thanks.

 

[D-Dog]

As you probably already know, the Stinger fast charger charges the batteries at a fairly high current until they are mostly charged and then switches to a "maintenance charge" which is really the same current (please correct if wrong) .18amps that the standard "slow" charger provides. This current is .1C of the rated capacity (.18 vs 1.8) and thus the additional charge is "bled" off in the form of heat. However, as long as your battery is only mildly warm, I would leave it on, as nicads lose 10% of their charge in the first 24 hours, which can make a big difference in extended usage (could be 50min vs an hour in extreame cases). Although this does not sound like much now, if you are in need of the light and it goes dim 10 minuites early, you could be in trouble.