Well, I’ve got my R/C gear to install in my toy trains but I suspect that my new Radio Shack charging unit is not working correctly, as the LED charging light didn’t come on in one charging bay. (there are 4 bays for total of 8 AAs that can be charged simultaneously)
Sooo, I brought my digital multimeter to work to test each battery for charge. However, I don’t know how to use the multimeter.
Options include (which do I use–lost instruction book):
V
uA/A
mA/A
Ohms
Hz
EF
Thanks
Dave : my meter reads batteries at DC-V. Mine is older, but you should have DC on there somewhere. If they are fully charged ni-cads, they read around 1.40, or so.
That’s each.
Thanks,
Dave; you should be using the setting for DC volts. Not sure about ni-cad baterries but new Duracell batteries should read around 1.61 volts each, I find that a reading under
1.39 for AA batteries to be bad(regular batteries). Ni-cad batteries may be better because you think that you are not spending as much money on batteries but I have had little or no success with ni-cad batteries.
Lee F.
Thanks, guys!
Used the V setting and found some batteries 1.35 and 1.4.
For the 1.35, should I discharge them first and then recharge from scratch or put them back into the recharger as is and recharge?
Thanks
Nickel-cadmium cells should usually be fully discharged before recharging. Otherwise they come to have only the fraction of their original capacity that you habitually use.
thanks, Much all!
Got it all working. This weekend will try and rewire the locomotive and will post results on Monday, perhaps.
He actually has NiMh 2000 mah cells…so the “memory” issue is moot…the charger he has most likely charges at the C/10 rate (150 - 200 mah) so charge them overnight…can’t hurt anything.
[#ditto] Jim, as usual, you are correct. They used to say that with the older batteries, you would have to discharge as mentioned earlier, but these new ones don’t have the memory issue. I have yet to see if they actually last longer than properly charged older batteries.
Dennis