Tigerlight battery question

[Josh]

I was checking the runtime of my TL and didn't notice it wasn't on any more

. It is a NiMh battery, did I do any significant damage?I'm still trying to get an hour out of this thing.

 

[laynlow]

Probably not, but try and avoid it in the future. I remember Randy saying the engineers estimated 7-15 charge cycles for full capacity.

 

[Josh]

7-15, thanks for setting me straight

I'm running it right now but in a place I can't help to notice when it runs down

 

[FalconFX]

I don't think you have to fully run it down to recreate a good break-in conditioning cycle...

I usually just use mine for 30 mins a day and recharge... By its 10th recharge, it should be good to go for full capacity...

 

[Josh]

I ran it down to nothing by accident

 

[yclo]

Maybe you should have it on a neck lanyard....

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Josh,

I did not notice a lot of increase in run time, but there was a little. Initially I had around 60 minutes, after 6 cycles it is up to 67 minutes. That is almost a 12% increase. Ummm, more than I thought.

One thing I did notice is that NiMh batteries do not seem to recover like alkaline's do. I ran a test 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off and saw no change in run time. I thought that the batteries would recover during the off cycle and give more run time.

Tom

 

[bhusick]

It's a good idea to fully cycle a new NiMh battery 3-4 times from full charge to shutoff. This conditions the battery for full use. I do this with all my digital camera batteries and AA cells. It's a well documented procedure.

-Brad

 

[bhusick]

Here's a link to the conditioning article for the NiMh digital camera battery.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/diginews/2001-06/2001_06_26_en4.html

 

[Monsters_Inc]

Could those that have TL battery packs at "full capacity" measure the voltage of them? I'd be interested to know how they compare with my 8.42V, which is relatively new (after 2nd full charge cycle).

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Onyx,

After 6 cycles and 24 hours on the charger, I am showing 8.65V on my TigerLight batteries.

Tom

 

[lemlux]

A 1.45 V per cell "surface charge" on freshly charged NiMHs is not unusual. This drops rapidly to between 1.30 V and 1.35 V per cell with no-load after about 2 hours of self discharge. This surface charge is capable of "flashbulbing" many bulbs -- beware of using feshly charged NiMHs on an overdriven bulb.