Battery help!

[kyle milliken]

ok just charged my 9.6v 1600mha ni-mh battery and it is hot like something you just had in the microwave for 20 seconds hot. is this normal or should i be running to the pond near my house and throw the battery in?

[L473ncy]

Depends on how fast you were charging it. If it was a "fast charge" ie. 2C or more then it should get hot. If you were "trickle charging" your battery at 0.5C then it shouldn't get too hot.

Basically the more amperage you're pushing to the battery the hotter it should get. Don't charge at too high of an amperage or you can damage the battery.

[kalnaren]

As a general rule, charging batteries above 1C is a good way to cook them. Some are more tolerant of it than others (and this depends on many factors). To be safe I never charge above 1C.

[kyle milliken]

Originally Posted by L473ncy

Depends on how fast you were charging it. If it was a "fast charge" ie. 2C or more then it should get hot. If you were "trickle charging" your battery at 0.5C then it shouldn't get too hot.

Basically the more amperage you're pushing to the battery the hotter it should get. Don't charge at too high of an amperage or you can damage the battery.

the battery was a
class 2 battery charger
input:100-240v~50/60hz max:0.2a
output:8.4v/9.6v 0.6a

should i be worried now?

[L473ncy]

Well I can tell you that your charger charges the battery at 600 mAh (or 0.6 Amperes).

I don't really know if you should be worried. TBH I charge my battery a lot higher than that on my smartcharger.

Now, it really depends on your definition of "hot". Is it hot like a heated grill? That's not OK, you should probably get a smart charger and possibly a new battery. OR do you mean hot like the outside of a cup of coffee this is "normal" and you shouldn't worry.

[kyle milliken]

its the second one and thanks i was worried for a moment but if this is normal than all's good.

[Styrak]

It's a dumb wall charger so chances are the battery may already be full and it's just turning most of the charge into heat, and damaging your battery.

This is why you buy a smart charger.

[FreelancerInc]

i was told one time that you can charge your battery to the amperage as the mah on it, without damaging it. forgive me for the lack of technical terms and correct me if i'm wrong.

if for example you have a 9.6v 2300mah nimh you can push 2.3amps into it

or a 9.6v 3200mah nimh you can push 3.2mah

obviously this is done with a good smart charger. i have done this with every battery ive put on my smart charger, and i've only had one battery get fairly hot and it was a battery that we were fairly certain was toast anyways

[L473ncy]

@Freelancer:

That's the "C" rating that I'm talking about. "1C" equals the amperage of the battery pack. If you have a 1000 mAh pack 2C is 2A, 1C is 1A, .5C is 500 mAh etc. If you have a 2000 mAh pack then 2C is 4A, 1C is 2A, .5C is 1A, etc.

@OP:

Smart Chargers don't "need" to have fancy LCD screens or things like that there are smart "wall chargers" too.

All you need to really look out for is to make sure that your charger has a "Negative Delta V" feature. Basically it detects when the voltage drops in the battery pack (as you charge voltage of your pack will go up until it is fully charged and it will then drop to the normal nominal cell voltage) to cut off charging current, and I think after that will "trickle charge" at a nominal current (not sure on this). Basically a smart charger can be a wall charger with 2 LED's that tell you when the battery is done charging or it can be those fancy units like the Imax B6 chargers. (NOTE: DO NOT CHARGE LIPO'S WITHOUT A BALANCE PLUG/BOARD. IT WILL DAMAGE YOUR BATTERY). There are "lipo wall chargers" available as well like the eFlite ones and those are perfectly fine for charging lipos.

[kyle milliken]

my charger is one of the ones that has a red light for when its charging, a green light for when its done, and a bliken red light for if the battery is damaged.