6 Unit Charger issues

[lexxtank]

I bought a third party 6 unit charger from ebay member ptron1 and it's very nice, but I'm not sure if it charges Ni-MH batteries or not. The auction said it does, and it does hit a green light after an hour or 2 on my 2700 mAh Ni-MH but today the battery died rather quickly compared to its normal times. Normally I leave the battery on for 8 hours monitoring while at work, and maybe a total Tx time of 20 minutes, and then it needs to be charged, but today it only lasted about 4 hours. The battery is brand new. I just sent ptron1 a message. Any ideas? Thanks.

PS: I have 2 more 2700 mAh Ni-MHs on the way for spare use plus another saber, and another 1800 mAh Ni-CD and a 1300 mAh Ni-CD coming with a Saber. I'm hoping to not need to buy another charger as money is now tight after buying 4 batteries and a fully loaded Model III saber.

[Tom in D.C.]

If the charger works on Nicads it should work okay on Nickel Metal Hydride batteries.

You should be able to get at least a 90% charge on the NiMH units using the standard
charger. Understand that as the internal resistance of the battery increases so does
the open circuit voltage. You should be able to read voltages of about 8.2 to 8.6 volts
on a nearly fully charged battery. Use a digital voltmeter so you'll know exactly what
the voltages are.

As far as the problem battery goes, you didn't say how old it is. A battery that's been
through several cycles can have a bad cell at any time for any reason. Check the
voltage when it's come off a green light; if it tests at something like 7.2 volts you've got a
bad cell in the pack.

[lexxtank]

It's a brand new battery (third party about 3 weeks old) I'll have to use the fluke meter at work, but the battery will have been off teh charger for about an hour first. (Not used but not in the charger) I think it's a dual chem charger, but I'm not sure how to tell (what circuitry would I look at to determine this?) I'll check it out tomorrow. How can I tell if a cell has gone bad? Thanks for such a quick reply.

[lexxtank]

According to a brand new Fluke Meter the battery tests at 8.47 DC Volts. It probably just needed it's overnight trickle charge. (Something I've been skipping lately)