are you supposed to discharge nimh batteries??

[blueballz]

i heard u dont have to since theres no memory ...but can i do it neways? will there be a point to discharging it, like keep the batteries in longer and bettery shape.
because i heard from somewhere that you SHOULDNT discharge nimh. so i wanna know the real answer before i do nething to my nimh batteries.

thanks

[SHaKaL]

You dont... or you will damage them in the long term

[blueballz]

any body else have answers to he discharging..i jus wanna hear from more ppl ...thanks

i also heard that ur not suppose to trickle charge nimh batts..true or false?

[CalvinTat]

You can discharge Ni-Mh all you want, just that after you discharge it, good luck getting it to hold a decent charge again.

Edited due to invalid infomation.

[blueballz]

hmmm..see im gettin mixed answers again. i posted this exact post on another forum and those ppl are saying that i should discharge them and no harm will be done.
but theres been only one person sayin trickle charging nimh are bad...

any body else got answers for me please

[Gryphon]

Geez, lots of bad information in this thread. Such is the usual case when it comes to batteries here.

Trickle charging any nickel-based chemistry is not good for the cell. It's a good way to form dendrites that will eventually pierce the internal membranes and destroy it. They are meant to be charged at 1C which is 1 times the capacity of the cell, so therefore if you have a 3600 mAh battery it should be charged and discharged at 3.6 amps.

Discharging a NiMH occasionally is good practice as it helps break up dendrites and keeps the crystal structure small. It's not necessary every time you charge, as it unnecessarily cycles the cell and reduces its life (batteries aren't good forever). However unless you control the discharge properly and make sure the voltage doesn't drop below about 1V/cell, you can run into something called voltage reversal which will destroy your battery in short order.

Bottom line is, buy a good charger that will let you do all this in a controlled manner and your battery will last for years.

Recommended reading: http://www.batteryuniversity.com

[CalvinTat]

Thanks for the info and correction Gryph. I had just skimmed the info at batteryuniversity, must have missed NiMH part.

[SHaKaL]

And what bad infos did i gave?

[blueballz]

thanks for everybodys info. that was very informative gryphon.

[Kos-Mos]

http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=29686

Should answer everything

[blueballz]

very informative kos-mos! thanks...you answered my questions