Two things come to mind quickly because "cycling" many times is problematic.

For the pre-set discharge cutoff many times the voltage is dropping so fast that the display cannot keep up and by the time it is refreshed or updated the correct voltage really has been reached evne though the display didn't catch it. This is much worse on a fast discharge where the voltage is dropping quickly. If it was a slow drop then I have no idea what it could be. On epossibility is to set the cut-off to .8 instead (or perhaps you can use 1 less cell if it is settable)

For the capacity difference of 199 to 600 mah it will need to be determined whether the trouble is at the full mark of the empty mark. This can be accomplished by using manual charge and discharge rather then "cycling" One thing is for sure, there's not much capacity from 1.05 volt/cell to .9 volt/cell anyways.

Guillo,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. It has taken me quite awhile to get this all straightened out.

After posting my first message, I decided to take a closer look at the Multiplex I have used and loved for several years and compare it to the Venom. Low and behold: The Multiplex was doing exactly the same thing; at the completion of the discharge cycle, instead of the pack being at the final discharge voltage of 3.6 volts, my voltmeter indicated the pack at 4.7+.

This initiated, on my part, a lot of research on-line and a call to the RC Guru in my club.

Mr. Guru suggested the difference between the volt reading of my charger and my voltmeter was the voltmeter. I was using a standard volt meter, which does not read the voltage of the pack under load.

During a discharge, as you probably well know, there is a specific load programed into the charger to discharge the pack. Because my voltmeter did not place a load on the pack, this was the the reason for the significant difference in voltage readings. When I used a voltmeter that placed a load on the pack, the readings were still a little off, but much closer to equal.

Regarding the low capacity of my packs: After reading a plethora of suggestions for charging, discharging, reconditioning and storage of battery packs, I came to the conclusion there are as many ways to use a charger as there are people using them; however, Red Scholefield's Battery Clinic website was the most helpful. http://www.hangtimes.com/redsbatteryclinic.html

Using Red's procedures, which he can explain better than me, the pack I mentioned in my previous message, that only had a capacity of 199 mah, I was able to get a capacity of 610+. I had a couple of packs from last year that I had put in my dead battery drawer, in hopes of a miracle in the future, and decided to try Red's method on those packs; much to my pleasure, both batteries indicated capacities of 610+.

I don't remember if this was on Red's site or not, but I read about a method of restoring a battery pack with low capacity, after the normal method of reconditioning (Again, read Red's site.) failed to regain the packs rated capacity, that proved to be successful. If the pack was not restored to the rated capacity using a discharge voltage of 3.6, the procedure was to cycle the pack by setting the discharge voltage equal to .6 volts per cell or 2.4 volts. Someone else recommended .4 volts per cell but I did not feel that aggressive.

Thinking this was suspect, I had a NiCD pack that I could not get a capacity reading higher than approximately 250 mah using Red's method. I had nothing to lose with this pack. I cycled the 4 cell pack 2 times, charge to discharge, at the mah ratings recommended by Red, and a final discharge voltage of 2.4. At the completion of that programed cycle, I cycled the pack once, charge to discharge, with the final discharge voltage set at 3.6; I was pleasantly surprised to see the capacity of that pack now 600+.

The reason stated for using this final voltage of .6 volts per cell was to overcome the NiCD memory issue. Ironically, not everyone agreed that NiCD packs of today even had this memory phenomenon.

Anyway, I had success using these procedures with both NiCD and NiMH packs; and that's all I have to say about that.

William

Originally Posted by AirmanBob

Yep...angrymelon is correct...

You have to go into the 'user set program' and find the
setting that lets you switch between USB and TEMP ports.
Then enable the USB port and the thing starts working okay.

Angrymelon... It looks to me like you are charging your NiMH
batterys at too high of a rate.

A 1400 mah pack charged at 1C would be 1.4 amps.

You say you are charging at 4mv...whatever that is...
Are you making sure your decimal point is in the right place?

If you are not sure just set the NiMH charge function to AUTO.
It's simpler and much safer and the charger will figure it all out
for you and charge it faster than any other charger...safely.

Just my .02
Happy charging...
AB

The manual is not clear on how to set NIMH to auto charge. This is how to do it which I got from another model which this one is probably rebadged as:
browse to program select HiMH BATT and enter. Press enter and the set current will start flashing. Now press the decrease and increase buttons together and it will change to Aut (you just do the same to change it back to manual mode) and set current will change to current limit. I usually set this to 1C to be on the safe side but you probably could go higher. Then hold start for 3 seconds to start the charge. It will stop when battery is full and beep.

my .02 is DONT get this charger, i bought a pro charger plus yesterday (thursday 9/16/2010) and have charged 2 Ni-Mh batts and now the psu that came with it is dead and when i connect it to another 12v power source be it a 12 volt battery or another 12 volt psu it works although the switch is working in reverse ( off is on and on is off ). i am going to contact james at venom and see what he says but if he says send it in i will just tell him i am going to return it for a refund and buy something else, this is the second venom product in a month to fail me (first was a 7 cell Ni-Mh with the univeral plug system)

Originally Posted by gr8taz nitro

I've had mine for several months now and I've pretty much threw the intructions in the trash. I've talked to venom several times about the software with no joy. I was finally told that they had tested the software and charger on their systems in house and they were all XP based systems. I have vista and surprise surprise, it won't work on vista.
For the most part I don't miss having the pc link. It's a good charger that handles the packs I'm using. I've charge nicd/nimh, lipo, li ion, and nano's with zero problems. It's basically become my workhorse charger that gets used on a regular basis.

incorrect, here is what james beams of venom sent me via e-mail about it working with vista, i have not tried it myself as i am looking for how to get it to work with windows 7 ultimate x64 and i have the pro charger plus. hopefully this info helps some of you though.

copy the [exe] Charger_en.exe from crograms files/charger to desktop [you should also be able to make a shortcut instead did not try]
Right click on charger-en.exe or a shortcut of charger-en go to properties at the bottom open up properties. Click on compatibility
tick box [run this programs in compatibility mode for] then click on drop down window and highlite [windows xp (Serice Pack 2) then click
on apply close properties windows thats it
i have charged 12 batterys and software has been stable
Installed software on laptop no problem after running it in windows xp (Serice Pack 2) mode as above
installed on desktop and a box poped up saying can not find CP210xManufacturing.dll to run the program to fix i coped CP210xManufacturing.dll
to c:windows/system or c:windows/system32 dont remember what one fixed problem ( but i think this was my fault as had no problem installing
on friends desktop how also has this charger
ps (do not do this in the crograms files/charger folder must be a copy or shortcut of charger-en.exe on desktop or somewhere else

and as an update james at venom is being very helpful in getting me taken care of a new psu is on the way . teh switch working in reverse when connected to a 12v batery or other psu (other than the venom one for it) is normal according to james and it appears to be true, i charged and discharged a ni-mh pack today with the charger connected to a 12v battery and it worked just fine.

Originally Posted by AirmanBob

You have to go into the 'user set program' and find the
setting that lets you switch between USB and TEMP ports.
Then enable the USB port and the thing starts working okay.

and where exactly is this for Ni-Cd/Ni-Mh the only thing i see for this is under lipo/life/lion , i turned it off but still no joy working with my pc. i have tried running it in xp sp2 mode and following the procedures to get it to work in vista. i am going to keep messing with it to see if i cannot get it to work though.

for those needing the software/driver download go ti this page:

http://www.venom-group.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=0660
scroll to the bottom and under teh UL info you will find teh download, just click on download.

Subscribed (just picked up my Venom Pro today)... for now I'm gonna use it as recommended and just be a fly on the wall in this thread for informational purposes.

dam i bought this charger about a weekago, and if i would have looked at the manual or read this discussion first i would have got something else....im charging my first lipo now or should i say im giving it all a smoke test. wish me luck.

Originally Posted by lordraptor1

incorrect, here is what james beams of venom sent me via e-mail about it working with vista, i have not tried it myself as i am looking for how to get it to work with windows 7 ultimate x64 and i have the pro charger plus. hopefully this info helps some of you though.

copy the [exe] Charger_en.exe from crograms files/charger to desktop [you should also be able to make a shortcut instead did not try]
Right click on charger-en.exe or a shortcut of charger-en go to properties at the bottom open up properties. Click on compatibility
tick box [run this programs in compatibility mode for] then click on drop down window and highlite [windows xp (Serice Pack 2) then click
on apply close properties windows thats it
i have charged 12 batterys and software has been stable
Installed software on laptop no problem after running it in windows xp (Serice Pack 2) mode as above
installed on desktop and a box poped up saying can not find CP210xManufacturing.dll to run the program to fix i coped CP210xManufacturing.dll
to c:windows/system or c:windows/system32 dont remember what one fixed problem ( but i think this was my fault as had no problem installing
on friends desktop how also has this charger
ps (do not do this in the crograms files/charger folder must be a copy or shortcut of charger-en.exe on desktop or somewhere else

and as an update james at venom is being very helpful in getting me taken care of a new psu is on the way . teh switch working in reverse when connected to a 12v batery or other psu (other than the venom one for it) is normal according to james and it appears to be true, i charged and discharged a ni-mh pack today with the charger connected to a 12v battery and it worked just fine.

Just wondering if the issue of how to make it work with the computer was ever sorted out??? I can't get mine to work with two of my computers!!!

jay

Originally Posted by jcflyer

Just wondering if the issue of how to make it work with the computer was ever sorted out??? I can't get mine to work with two of my computers!!!

jay

nope apparently vista and win 7 users werent thought of when the software was made, teh workaround stopped workign one day and hasnt worked again since. basically unless you are outdated and still on xp dont expect teh pc link to work ( you would think with the money venom is making they would have moved up to at least a 32 bit version of vista/7 by now)

ANyone has the software to download from? Not on the site anymore and want to give it a try...

software doesnt work with any thing but Windows XP
also wow thread necro lol

Originally Posted by lordraptor1

nope apparently vista and win 7 users werent thought of when the software was made, teh workaround stopped workign one day and hasnt worked again since. basically unless you are outdated and still on xp dont expect teh pc link to work ( you would think with the money venom is making they would have moved up to at least a 32 bit version of vista/7 by now)

well since this is already necroed
the software with my new Powerlab 8 works great with both Windows 7 32bit and 64bit
go go FMA that charger is worth the price they are asking for sure

Originally Posted by Elios000

software doesnt work with any thing but Windows XP
also wow thread necro lol

Yeah, I have many computer. I cna use XP, you have a link to download?