ransley wrote:
On Jul 4, 9:32 am, wrote:
As far as chargers go......Buy the cheapest, slowest dumb
charger/chargers you can and plug them into the cheapest
electrical timer you can find. Set the timer for a couple hours
a day and you'll always have a fresh set of batteries, you'll
never have to worry about overcharging, and you'll have
more money in your pocket for other toys.
The cheapest charger may only get Nimh near 90% charged if its a Nicad
profile
The cheapest slowest dumb chargers can easily overcharge a NIMH
battery. That is why they are dumb. By using the timer set for just a
couple hours a day you nullify any damage caused by overcharging.

For my RC cars and a dumb charger I used to measure voltage, when it
dropped the slightest amount they were charged, that is also when they
get warm, but temp is hard to monitor when batteries are in a charger
that produces heat itself. The best chargers would have to measure
voltage and compute when peaking occurs by voltage drop, the temp
method I dont trust. My sony cameras came with good inexpensive
chargers for NimH


Both my NiMH chargers monitor for the voltage change. I don't think
it's foolproof. Occasionally over the years when charging seemed to
take too long, my cells felt too hot. If I were charging manually, I
would scan the pack with an infrared thermometer. That should show when
the temperature of a cell rose.