Re: Not old NiCD battery shows zero volts. Possibly revivable?

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:15:09 -0500, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<veldy71@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:Dan_Musicant <man@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:>
:> The cells (4 C's) are all in series, for a potential total voltage of
:> something like 5.20 volts.
:>
:
:In that case, polarity reversal is quite likely the cause if you allowed the
:batteries to drop in charge enough for a cell to go completely dead. It
:really wouldn't be honest to ask the vendor/retailer/manufactor to replace the
:batteries, since it is almost certainly caused by you [no offense].
:
:I think another poster had a pretty decent suggestion, and that is to get a
:different light. I have to agree that the LED lights are very bright and use
:very little power, so that AA should more than suffice for your use.

I looked into bike lights and they were expensive and every one I
evaluated at the bike shops was way inferior to the light I'm using.
Granted, the technology is retro (I replaced the original bulb with a
halogen bulb, at least).

I have a bunch of Luxeon LED flashlights that use 2 AAs, and they are
bright but nowhere near as bright as my 4 C cell light when it has a
decent charge.

This light has another advantage in that I installed a plug in it to
accommodate a tail light. I have the bike rigged so that the light is
readily removable from the bike to prevent theft and facilitate
charging. When I attach to the bike, I plug the tail light into the
light (a cord running from the back to the handlebars), and there's a
readily accessible toggle switch that turns on/off the tail light, in
case I don't want it on. Of course, the light itself has a neat
convenient on/off switch. Really, it's a wonderful system as long as it
works. It's a trifle heavy (because of the batteries) and it's fragile,
so I'm careful not to drop it. Actually, I've gone through a few of
these (I'm on my 3rd and last now), and am now EXTRA careful not to drop
IT! So far so good. I repaired the others until they were hopeless.

As long as this one works OK, I've decided I'll deal with the battery
issues and continue to use it. I made this decision before buying the
current batteries almost a year ago, having investigated the new bike
lights. It's possible that there's a light out there I'd like, but I
didn't find it last year.

Somehow the ?? battery in the light suddenly started working instead of
being completely dead. I have no idea why, since I did nothing,
certainly didn't zap it (which I have done in the past with screwed up
NiCads). After a 6 hour charge, that one cell showed zero volts. I
charged again overnight, and suddenly it was 1.42 volts. Weird. I figure
it will go AWOL again one day, probably soon. Maybe I'll just order
another, maybe I'll ask the company if they will replace it. Sounds like
you guys think I should just order another for the bad battery rather
than prevail on the company to replace it as a warranty issue.

Dan


Email: dmusicant at pacbell dot net
.

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