🚀 go-pugleaf

mm7q+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Oliver Muller) writes:

>    My question: The battery was very low, and so I plugged the unit and
>the transmitter battery pack into the factory supplied recharger
>overnight. Ofter about 24 hours of recharging, the voltage on the
>transmitter pack read at about 5.6 V, according to my Tower Hobbies
>voltmeter (top of the "green" scale). However, the transmitter pack read
>at only 9.5 V, which is rather low (the low end of the "green" scale).
>Also, the voltmeter on the transmitter read only about 80%. When the
>unit was new, the voltmeter read above 11 V, and the scale on the
>transmitter read above 100%.
>    Is my batter dead? Can I fix it? Or should I just get a new battery.
>Is this the expected life?(two years)?

Looks like your transmitter battery pack has a "dead" cell in it,
cause voltage should really be above 10V after recharging.
You should keep an eye on NiCad's during the winter or any time when
you're not using them. They need a frequent recharge to prevent a deep
discharge of one or more cell's. The best thing is to do a
discharge/recharge cycle every 4-8 weeks.

How to solve the problem: Open the battery pack so the contacts of the
cells are reachable and measure the voltage of each cell (at upper and
lower contact point). There should be one, which voltage is much below
1.2 volts. This is the defect cell ! Remove it and solder a new one
(try to get one of the exact type as the old one) in place. That's it.

You could use your airplane covering film to shrink around your
revived battery pack if you cannot get one of those shrinkable hoses.

Hope that helped !

Bye,
  Torsten.

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