Andrew,
> Charging in series is fine, with one proviso -they must all be matched
> cells. Generally this means brand new, identical cells permanently
> wired before even the first charge. Difficulties arise when series
> charging different cells, or identical cells that have had different
> amounts of use.
Unfortunately they don't remain matched for very long. Every charge/
discharge cycle affects each cell slightly differently and the
differences are amplified each time, with some cells getting
overcharged and losing a tiny bit of capacity and others discharging
before the others and getting pushed too deep.
Soon enough your nice matched set are as divergent as any random
selection of new cells would have been and the performance of the
battery degrades a lot faster. This is a pity as the life of NiMH
cells charged individually can be very good indeed. NiCds suffer a
lot more in a battery than NiMHs do - but they are history.
Joel.
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/Received on Mon Jun 19 06:49:24 2006
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