On 26 Apr 2005 at 19:45, Doug Franklin wrote: > On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:05:55 -0400, Mark Cassino wrote: > > > I have only a simple charger for this battery (transformer with attachment > > to > > fit on the battery). There's no 'fully charged" light or anything like > > that. > > (No lights at all.) The transformer has 12v, 500 milli amp output, the > > battery > > is 12v, 2.3 amps. (2300 milliamps). How long should it take to charge? The > > guy at the store just said "charge it overnight whenever you use it." I've > > had it charging for 36 hours now and it seems OK, but it did not seem to > > have > > a lot of juice after about 12 hours of charging yesterday morning. I'm > > basing > > that on the X's drive battery meter - when hooked up to this external > > battery > > it now shows a full charge - 4 of 4 dots on the battery charge indicator. On > > Sunday when it failed it only showed a small charge (2 of 4 dots) and > > yesterday morning it showed 3 of 4 dots. > > I suspect you're overcharging it, at least at 36 hours. That's 18000 > mAh! The charger can theoretically supply 2300 mAh in less than five > hours. Some will naturally be lost to inefficiencies like electrical > resistance and such, but from absolutely pure-dee dead, you ought to be > able to top it off in less than six hours.
Yep, you beat me to it, the internal resistance of the batteries will naturally rise as the they become more charged therefore reducing charging current. However when they have saturated any extra energy that they absorb will be dissipated almost all as heat and will damage the cells. Assuming that the internal resistance of the plug pack isn't too high (it may supply 500mA but probably at a lower terminal voltage than you'd expect) then 6 hours should well and truly see the batteries charged. Overcharging is a bad for most rechargable batteries as is deep discharging. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
