On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:23:13 -0000, Michael Houghton wrote:
Howdy!

Dave Hinz wrote:

Come on over, I'll show you a real example. People have been saying for
decades that it doesn't exist, and people have continued to experience
it during all that time. A NiCd battery rejuvination produces
measurable real results; if that's not from memory effect, what do you
think it's from?

Rechargable batteries deteroriate in a variety of ways. Just because your
NiCad battery isn't putting out what you expect doesn't mean you are
suffering from the memory effect. Overcharging can do damage that results
in lower capacity.

True. But, if Makita's product literature is to be believed, their
chargers are well-behaved in this regard.

The "memory effect" is specifically the result of repeatedly going through
a discharge/charge cycle that is (effectively) always a fixed percentage
of the battery's capacity. Consumer use of NiCad batteries is vanishingly
likely (read not hardly at all) to meet this strict requirement.

Could be.

Now, "rejuvenitation" may well be able to repair some of these forms of
damage, but that doesn't mean that "memory" is involved.

Fair enough.

Did you actually follow up on my "Do A Google Search" to see what I was
looking at?

Well, without knowing which search terms you used, it's hard to know.
But, yes, I'm familiar with the chemistry and terminology involved, as
well as the various failure modes.

Now, I'm not an electrochemist, but I had no trouble discovering this
information online, nor in corroborating it from multiple sources.

Well, put it this way...we used to use a charge/discharge cycle device
to increase the capacity of NiCd battery packs. The diminished capacity
appeared similar to the memory effect, and the improved capacity
afterwards appeared similar to a memory effect being mitigated. The
effect may have been something not technically "memory", but the
usability of the battery was effectively the same as if it was.