On 6/17/2011 7:04 AM, RicodJour wrote:
I'm interested in experimenting with trying to revive some old NiCd
batteries by zapping them and I ran across this on YouTube. Good,
clear video about using two other good NiCd batteries to revive the
dead one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8hHLyXAyQ

R

Heh, I recall an article in Popular Electronics back in the 1970's "Zap
New Life into Ni-Cad Batteries."

Basically charge up a big capacitor and discharge it across the battery
to try to burn away the short. It does work, but the shorts can form
again. I've had good luck with zapping. It doesn't apply to NiMH batteries.

You can use a high current power supply as well. The 3.3V supply out of
an ATX computer power supply (around 20A) could work, but it may shut
down too fast with an over-current shut down if you connect to a shorted
cell for too long.

One thing that is wrong in that video is that he is zapping the whole
pack. What you must do is to find the bad cells in the pack (measure
with a volt meter) and zap each bad cell in the pack individually.