Timeline for Charging NiMH Batteries
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 3, 2022 at 13:15 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @EJE A microcontroller based charger allows you to tailor action to suit and would be as good as a custom IC at the expense of probably needing slightly more 'glue' components to achieve power switching. | |
| Aug 3, 2022 at 13:13 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @EJE Any charger that allows full charge termination will be better than one that demands trickle charge. The DS&2715 - also by Maxim and also an older device has this capability - which they refer to as the DONE state. || The BQ2005 has topoff and trickle modes BUT both can be disabled if desired. The target slow trickle rate is said to be to combat self discharge- but the C/32 or C/64 rate offered is too high for safety with recombinationless cells. | |
| Aug 2, 2022 at 23:57 | comment | added | EJE | @RussellMcMahon, you started the answer referring to better ICs for the NiMH charging job. Would you please provide some examples? Although after 8 years, your list might be different. And the increased availability and affordability of MCUs as Attiny85 could be competitive alternatives to - but your answer made me curious. Thanks! | |
| Jun 6, 2017 at 8:32 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @WhatRoughBeast Since you mistyped Panasonic for Sanyo, Panasonic bought the Eneloop brand reights from Sanyo :-). The new ones are good but not quite as good as the old ones. | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 13:30 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @ChrisStratton (1) Yes. (2) I made no comment on the comment other than that they made it. BUT (3) in this case the fact [tm] that essentially all major manufacturers of std NimH cells say that they should not be trickle charged, and the fact that this IC is either in fast charge or aggressive trickle charge mode and no others, suggests that this may be the reason for the advisory note - and that even if this is not the reason its a good enough one anyway . Yes ? :-) | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 12:54 | comment | added | Chris Stratton | "All versions are Not Recommended for New Designs" does not mean it doesn't work well; it means "we're not sure we want to keep making this, or we would rather sell you one of our newer products" | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:57 | history | edited | Ricardo | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:35 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | Ack! Sanyo, not Panasonic. Damned insubordinate fingers, typing what I wrote, rather than what I meant. | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:30 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @WhatRoughBeast Actually (1) If you find Panasonic branded Eneloops they are fakes :-). (2) I was not saying that they are wrong (Panasonic are never wrong :-) - and Sanyo seldom are) BUT rather that they said "use any NimH charger" because they were confident that "any charger" you can now buy will not have trickle charging capability. I am confident [tm] that if you look at what Panasonic say about THEIR NimH that you will find that they will say they should NOT be trickle charged. [I haven't looked recently]. | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:26 | history | edited | Russell McMahon♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:18 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | That's a long version of "the Panasonic FAQ is wrong." Heh. But I appreciate the expanded version. | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:17 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | .... when there is no recombination mechanism Hydrogen is generated once charging is complete and even at low rates it still gets generated and has nowhere to go. Hydrogen diffuses out of the battery even if the overpressure vent is not formally tripped and this represents an irrecoverable loss of water and a step on the path to cell death. || SO you'd hope that the statement "Most NiMh rechargeable battery chargers may be used to charge Eneloop" could be understood to include " .... as NimH they do not provide trickle charging". I use a standard MaHa NimH charger for Eneloops. | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:12 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | .... One can hope that, given what battery manufacturers say, most modern NimH battery chargers using modern ICs do not implement trickle charging. Those that do would violate the requirements from every major battery that say that their batteries MUST not be trickle charged. A very small minority (1 from memory) specified a far lower than classical rate (for a while) and one or few specified and extremely limited period and low capacity rate as a non preferred option but the overwhelming advice is that trickle charging must not be done. |Because .... | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 11:09 | comment | added | Russell McMahon♦ | @WhatRoughBeast - I am not complaining that you or anyone do not know this (why should you?), but in recent years I have investigated in depth what as many major battery manufacturers (or major vendors) that I could find data from say about their NimH cells and especially about NimH charging. I've been involved in the manufacture of products using the better part of 1 million NimH cells in the last few years and have a greater than usual interest in the subject. Given the choice I'd not use NimH :-)..... | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 10:21 | comment | added | WhatRoughBeast | The injunction that "newer higher capacity one MUST NOT be trickle charged." is not borne out by the Panasonic Eneloop site FAQ which states, "Most NiMh rechargeable battery chargers may be used to charge eneloop". | |
| Aug 2, 2014 at 9:54 | history | answered | Russell McMahon♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |