battery discharge

[larsob801]

dose anyone know the discharge rate for a 1500mah ni-cad?

[Brooks]

1500mah means that the battery can support a load of 1500ma for 1 hour. If you want to know how fast you can drain the battery w/o damaging it (say at a 3000mah rate, or 2C, for a speedboat), you'd have to contact the manufacturer.

Perhaps you can find a more complete answer here:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/index.htm

[Shaun Hendricks]

Discharge rate is based upon what the battery manufacturer says it is.

Rough 'generally safe' assumptions based on battery chemistry type if the rating is not listed:

NiCd = 10C
NiMh = 8C
LiPo = 5C

So a 1500 mah NiCd could be discarged at 15amps. As a NiMh it would be 12Amps. As a LiPo it would be 7.5amps.

1500mah = 1.5Ah. Ah x "C rating" = Ah discharge rate.

The rates I gave were for batterys of about 10 years ago or first generation LiPo. Modern batteries should have a "C" rating listed on them and that is accurate usually for short term peak discharge. High end battery makers use the "C" rating for continuous discharge so be careful.