Discharging !!

Is there a way to discharge batteries without a charger ? So far i've just put them in an incan light and let that drain them is that any good or just pointless...

For descharging Li-ion I use a 12volt 20Watt incandescent bulb.

You simply connecto to the battery.... it will draw around 1A and check the voltage each 5 minutes.


When voltage is 3,80volt stop discharging, the battery is ready to store.

If you want less voltage, NEVER drop it below 2,75 volt, or even better never below 3,6 volt

Sorry i should of said NIMH cells

I don't know, either.

I prefer to discharge them to 1V or 0.9V. It is best to discharge them singly so that one doesn't start reverse charging which is bad for them. But it gets very tedious.

One of those 2AA plastic incans that Tescos sell for 99p is fine for the job. The light will be very dim by 2V.

In general I reckon that discharging NiMH cells is not all that useful, it's just adding more cycles to the cell. The non-LSD ones discharge themselves fast enough anyway....

The higher the claimed capacity, the faster the self-discharge. The far from cheap "2700mAh" cells I bought a few years ago were pretty much junk from the start. The best of them will now be lucky to give 1400mAh on a good day.

Could the forum please ban images from posters’ signatures so that single line posts don’t take up the whole screen?

Does everyone really want to see charlestt’s torches and other led project every time he posts?

IMHO this place is as much about tolerance as it is about flashlights. I'm not keen on the idea of lots of rules banning things that do not harm other users.

I'm cool on Charlestt's photo's. Underhood neon isn't my thing, but I can certainly appreciate the work he had to put into it...and his torches are purdy

Having said that, Charlestt always struck me a decent guy - I think if you just ask him politely he may remove them or at least resize them a bit smaller.

I am in complete disagreement on having "bans" and "rules"...we all know where that mentality leads.

Fair enough and point taken. It was 34 deg C here when I posted that and I was feeling a bit grumpy. Sorry about that.

Charlestt, would you please reconsider the use of your large signature photo? Could you perhaps resize it and use it as your avatar instead?

Thanks in anticipation.

Cheers, Chris

[quote=Chr1s] It was 34 deg C here when I posted that and I was feeling a bit grumpy. [/quote]

Stupid Australians not knowing when to have winter!! :P

... wishing he could have a summer that lasted more than a couple of days.

Haha, naa I would be much happier with snow for several months instead. At least if we had predictable weather people wouldn't go mental every time there was a bit of snow.

More than about 2inches of snow and half the country grinds to a halt, the schools shut and people ring in to their working saying they are snowed in.

That's funny because in Alaska we still had to make it in to work even with 2 or more feet of snow. Schools shut down but not work. My employees hated calling in to tell me they were snowed in because they knew I would drive out to their house and pick them up since I had a big red 4x4 ford truck. lol