On 7/8/2014 3:29 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...

In my never humble opinion:
1. There's no such thing as NiCd "memory effect", except in very
unique conditions found only in sintered plate batteries (found in
airplane starter batteries).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect


Some years ago when I worked in the television industry, portable
cameras of the day were powered with Ni-Cad battery packs. I recall
reading a white paper from Anton Bauer about this only somewhat true
memory effect. According to the paper a good battery cell that had an
apparent memory problem would still deliver the total amp hours expected
from the cell but at a reduced voltage of around .1V per cell.

The actual problem stated was manufacturers going the cheap route and
using too few cells for a given voltage...like using 10 cells to get a
nominal 12 volts. In this case that .1V per cell could add up to a full
volt. The solution used in high dollar cameras was to make the battery
packs using 12 cells and then using voltage regulation in the camera to
produce the needed 12V. Then even if a memory effect existed causing the
12 cell battery to lose a nominal 1.2V, there was still enough voltage
to regulate down to the required 12V.

I never made a huge personal study/experiment on this and it could have
just been marketing by the battery company because they always put 12
cells in their 12V batteries but it did make sense to me at the time.