Poor Man's Forming Charge?

Enroute to enlightenment, I have been lurking around here a lot, and reading and searching to find answers. Just like with many of the other forums I belong to, the people on CPF seem extremely knowledgeable and more than helpful...so I thank you in advance regardless of your answers to this post! :lolsign:


I know the new 9000 from Maha has a forming charge capability, but since I don't have that model, I was curious to know if there's a way for me to do approximately the same thing with the new Ray-O-Vac hybrids I've purchased. I don't want to be overly-anal about this, but after years of being disappointed in rechargeables, I just think I might have stumbled onto the holy grail of information in these forums, and once again am willing to stick my chin out with some of the new technology.



I have a recently purchased (w/in the last month) Maha 800S charger as well as a Radio Shack 23-335a and Radio Shack 23-405, and a newly acquired Duracell 15 minute charger.



I know some will say "hey dude, if you want to form, just buy the 9000", but with all the knowledgeable people on these forums, I wondered if someone could give me a workaround to execute a forming charge or at the very least get near maximization of my batteries' performance with the chargers I currently own.


i.e. Is there some way to do a cycle charge with my 800S and then when complete, put the cells in one of my other chargers for say, 5 or 10 minutes to ensure I'm filling the battery to max capacity without causing harm? I don't have a tester, which is akin to asking for a recipe and saying I don't have measuring cups, but would welcome suggestions on how I might perform this task without any extra purchases, and using a little 'kentucky windage'.


I plan to use the Maha as my primary charger, but am curious as to conventional wisdom in here...should I be using the standard charge rate on the Maha or should I use the soft charge method for the majority of my charging? Time is not an issue for me in this regard, and I know Maha has mentioned soft charge will extend battery longevity, but I've also read that the soft charge rate might cause issue with recognizing termination voltage.

Hello Eskimonio,

The Eneloop cells don't seem to benefit from a forming charge, indicating that they have already been formed. I don't know about the Ray O Vac cells.

If you don't have the ability to do a forming charge, you will have to cycle the cells to break them in.

The preferred method of cycling is to use them... You may find a slight increase in run time over the first 10 cycles or so.

The other method involves doing 10 conditioning cycles on your C800S.

Tom

In running my hybrids through a set of 5 cycles on the C9000, they don't seem to have increased in any important capacity. I would say they are subjected to a similar forming procedure before being packaged.