No so smart about Smart Charger

Ok kids, let me run down the item list first, before I get into what must be a FNG qustion.

A friend has given me a Universal Smart Charger <For 4.8-10.8v Ni-MH/Ni-Cd> Battery Pack.

I am looking at getting a 9.6v 1600 mah Intellect Nuchuck Battery. (For a G&G GR 15) It's max recommended charge setting is 3.2A.

Now that that's out of the way, here we go. My smart charger has two charger settings, 1.0A / 2.0A . My qustion would be which setting should I use to chager this 9.6v up? Any tips or tricks as to keeping the battery up, or as such would be great help.

P.S.
This charger does not have a discharge setting, but does have auto cut off I believe. The packageing does not state name brand.. Ex that is to say "Universal Smart Charger", making it hard to googel specs. Does come with addapter for smaller batteries as well. Thanks for the help guys.

Tank

My experience has been that any battery with small cells like a nun chuck or a stick type would have, require a lower charge rate. The lower charge rate will make the batteries overall life longer. Higher charge rates tend to heat up cells and heat is the enemy.

Charge time, for me right now, is not a big problem. I just want to make sure I don't burn the battery up. That being said, I also don't want to have to wait 3 hours, if I could get it done safely in an hour and a half. But I can see your point Disco man. Untill I can find any other info or buy me a charger with better spec's. I think I'll use the 1.0A setting. Just wanted to bounce the idea off someone else. Thanks Disco.
Tank

If you charge at 1amp you can melt a 9.6 chuck. I have the same Intellect 9.6 batteries, and we melted 1 charging it at 1amp. Since then I have charged 9.6 chucks at 0.5amp and have gone as high as 0.8amp. I do not use the charger that you reference (Tank) on small batteries, only on large type bats.

Well hell, guess I need to pick up a diffrent charger then. Should have guessed, my buddy use to rock a ICS AK 74. Can you advise a good smart charger for me? Sure am glad I went into a bit of detale about the set up now. LOL Thanks for the heads up Medic, life saver buddy.

Tank

I personally have not seen any "smart chargers" in the airsoft world worth a darn but then again I havnt looked real hard either. I have always used chargers from the RC car world since ive had them for years. We had similar chargers to what the airsoft world calls smart chargers waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy back in the day when no one had any money to spend and the good chargers were super expensive. The cost went down and now we all use different chargers but they all have a digital readout screen that gives you some info about what is happening to your battery while its charging. Some of the better chargers have temperature cut off features and dischargers built right in. I always look for a charger that tells me how long ive been charging, how many amps im charging at, how many MAH the battery has received, and how much peak voltage the battery has. I also look for the temp cut off feature.

Im sure someone thats been in the airsoft world longer than myself can give you a better answer. I just wanted to share my personal experience,

I think I found a new charger that will do the trick for me.

Airsoft Atlanta (My Home Town Yall!)
Hitech Smart Battery Charger/Discharger
Battery Type:NiCd/NiMH
Charge Rate: 300 to 600 mAh
Voltage Capability: 2.4v, 4.8v, 7.2v, 8.4v, 9.6v, or 12v
Auto Cutoff: yes

"The first dial should be at 7 for 8.4v batteries and 8 for 9.6v. The second should be at 600 mA only for batteries over 1000 mA in capacity."
<from Airsoft Atlanta web sight>

RC cars, man, now that I think about it your pretty much right! Putting X-mas toys together last year, never even acured to me. But hey, whatever works right Disco man? The Hightech doesn't have a digital read out, but I think that's a great idea. Seems the more you can keep an eye on the thing, and what's going on in it.. The less chance there is of something really bad happening. Fire men make really bad alarm clocks. -smiles- So yeah, discharger and auto cutoff is a must! What kind of charger do you Husel to Disco? Think I could get one with digital read out for under or at 50 bucks? LOL Yeah I know, wishes and fishes.

Tank

I use two chargers at the same time. I have a charging station set up in my hobby room at the house which consists of both chargers, a honeywell fan that rotates into a platform that I can set the charging batteries on top of, and a set of discharging bulbs.
The tow chargers are the "Reedy Quasar Pro" which was around $200 new and the "Indi 16x8v6" which was about $280 new. The reason for using good chargers like those is that the batteries we use in RC cars cost around $120 each and I would usually have 5 or 6 of them for about a year and sell them to get new ones. SO with that much money tied up in batteries that will make or break a race you tend to take real good care of them.

I see, so we are really talking about the diffrenc between a race car, and my grandfathers old truck. Man, he would let us kids rip up the south 20 with that damn thing. What a guy to let an 11 year old go mudding. -smiles- But seeing as how we drove it to the local 7/11 once, and the store owner was less worried about our age, as how the thing was falling apart on us. LOL

Enough of memory lane, get ta sounding like an old man. I knew a few RC guys, very picky about their cars. Now they had money ridding on each race. But I can understand why ya go to such troubel with the battery. Don't think my sorry bugget will allow for such a rig Disco. But it has made me look a lot harder into the charger situation then I had planed. Thanks to you and Medic. Still, if anyone can suggest a charger, much thanks is in order.

Tank

This is the charger I use...
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