FLAT BATTERIES-NiMHPROBLEM??

JamesB

I`ve recently checked on my Cateye Double Shot LED lights for the shorter nights bearing down on us; Use Ni MH battery pack that was put away fully charged Feb this year , and not touched since; FLAT AS A PANCAKE. ..nil charge left; tried recharging, got a bit back in, and then flat agin in a few days; chgarged again but after 30 min charger wouldn`t put any more in (using charger supplioed, `clever one` cuts out etc.

took back to LBS, Cateye now say that should have recharged during storage :shock: , somewhere in vast amounts of manual refesr to this, but not in teh `quick guide` bit as far as I can se. Option now of new battery pack!!! to buy! :shock:

I`ve looked at various i`net threads on this, seems quite a lot of variation in advice :? ; SO can anyone advise:

1. Can I restore these batteries thro` a recharge / discharge exercise?

2. What is the best way to treat Ni MH??

thanks

James

in the dark.....

roger645

Have a read here;

http://batteryuniversity.com/

PHcp

I don't know what the Cateye battery pack is like, but it will use standard cells. I'll be far cheaper to replace these than the full pack. It might require a bit of soldering, but it isn't that complicated.

roger645 wrote:

Have a read here;
http://batteryuniversity.com/

Excellent read, answered a lot of questions. All batteries should come with such clear information.

JamesB

Complicared isn`t it!! :shock:

So as I understand NiMH are more `fragile` and require more care than Ni Cd, but don`t have memory effect and don`t last as long (recycles)........answer then appears to be Li ion batteries it looks like??

PS if buying loose and building up pack any recommendations? I`ve seen various prices and capacities for Uniross, GP, Energiser @2500 and 2700mAh AAs, any better than others? All new world to me :?

ta

MrGrumpy

JamesBwmb wrote:

I`ve recently checked on my Cateye Double Shot LED lights for the shorter nights bearing down on us; Use Ni MH battery pack that was put away fully charged Feb this year , and not touched since; FLAT AS A PANCAKE. ..nil charge left; tried recharging, got a bit back in, and then flat agin in a few days; chgarged again but after 30 min charger wouldn`t put any more in (using charger supplioed, `clever one` cuts out etc.

took back to LBS, Cateye now say that should have recharged during storage :shock: , somewhere in vast amounts of manual refesr to this, but not in teh `quick guide` bit as far as I can se. Option now of new battery pack!!! to buy! :shock:

I`ve looked at various i`net threads on this, seems quite a lot of variation in advice :? ; SO can anyone advise:

1. Can I restore these batteries thro` a recharge / discharge exercise?

2. What is the best way to treat Ni MH??

thanks

James

in the dark.....

knowledge base

now my tripleshot had extra instructions on the charger

"if you are charging the battery from new or after storage times of longer than 90 days, the LED indicator on the charger can illimuninate green, indicating a fully charged battery, after just a short period of time ( within 2-30 minutes ) even if the battery is not fully charged. If this happens please unplug the charger and plug it back in again.Leave the battery > connected to the charger for 24hrs, regardless of whether the LED indicator on the charger illuminates green or red.
After the 24hr period unplug the battery from the charger and immediately re-plug again.One of two things will happen:

1) If the light does not turn green within 10min your battery is ready for a full charge.Please keep chargingtill green light is on.

2) If the light turns green again within 10mins unplug and re-plug the charger and battery.You may need to do this several times untill the green light no longer appears and your battery is fully charged ( up to 10 times )

The above procedure brings your battery back to its standard function. If this is not the case, the battery may have expired. "

Now there is nothing like that on the website, those instructions I typed out are what came with my set so suspect its an extra thrown in ? Anyway follow that above as that worked for me word for word including the unplug/re-plug 10 times part.[url][/url]

JamesB

Thanks very much for this .

..it certainly supersededs teh instructions on my Cateye Double Shot charger, which has a yellow label just saying , words to effect of, that the green light may come on within a few minutes tehn unplug and try again. Which I did and teh green light came on again! IS teh charger too clever???

Your updated instructions seem to be keep cahrging anmd eventually a charge will eb re-instated, better than unnecessarily buying a new battery set.

I`ll put this also to LBS / Cateye see what they say

James

JamesB

Mr G

many many thanks ; tried your method and it works well ; without the 24 hr bit I just kept on switching the cahrger off when green light showed and the time of charging steadily increased ie 2 min, then 4, 4 min again, then 6 then 9, then 10 and then green stayed on for 3 hours giving a full charge.....just checking today light run times today but can`t see why should`nt be OK

This looks liek something CAteye should look further into, as a new NiMH pack costs £90 from them :roll: :roll: ; cf GP batteries on e-bay at about a £1 or so each!!!

cheers again

James