Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
"Worn Out Retread" wrote:

If the batteries are NiCad's, the memory effect is NOT a myth. Ask
anyone who flies radio control aircraft and uses or used to use
NiCad's.

Real men fly gas.

Where can one obtain one of these gas powered radios?

The memory effect isn't really a myth, but it's so widely
misunderstood that is might as well be. AIUI, less than perfect
charge/discharge cycles lead to a reduction in fully-charged
voltage.
That reduction is approximately 5%.

So a device that uses four 1.2 volt cells, i.e. 4.8 volts, would
charge to approximately 4.56 volts.

The problem arose because early engineers tried to substitute NiCad
cells (1.2 v) for alkaline cells (1.5 v) one for one, so they were
already working at minimum voltage. Battery operated devices were
barely above the working threshold, and losing another 5% was enough
to kill them.

After NiCads had been out for a while, engineers wised up, and
started
building a more reasonable margin of safety into their products.

The myth is that memory effect destroys amp-hour capacity. It
doesn't,
to any significant degree. It will cause a device to quit operating
if
that device is designed to quit with a 5% reduction in voltage. That
isn't finicky batteries, that's ****ty engineering.

--
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--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)