Need some help with a Superbrain 959 charger. I have a 8.4v 300 Mah battery pack. I am looking for the best settings for the charger for this type of pack. Thanks.

I have 8.4V 350 m-ah ni-cad batts and charge mine using the superbrain set at .5 amp

average charge time for me is ~ 28 min a pack.

I also have the MRC 959.

If I had a 300mah pack, I would charge it at 0.5 amps. That's as close to 2C as you can get with the 959s 0.5 amp incremental charge adjustment.

Sierra Gold

When I started a year ago I got one of these because it was recomended by the guy at the LHS. After I realized that the lowest it would charge was .5 amps and thought it might be too much with charging small packs. I took it back and traded it in for a better one. I think they sold alot to the guys with electic cars. It's a nice charger but I think it's better for bigger packs.

Chris

You didn't say what type of battery pack you have.

You can charge NiCd at 2-3 C, so for a 280 mAh pack that is 2-3 times 280 mA ... 0.56 to .84 amps. I'd probably opt for 0.5 over 1.0 just to be safe. NiMh are 1-2 C or .28-.56 amps ... again probably 0.5 amps for your pack.

Carl

Thanks for the info. One other setting that is on the charger is the mV number -- it goes from 5-70. It is defaulting to 35. Looking for some feedback on what this is and if I should change the default. Thanks!

The setting you are talking about is the "delta-peak" setting. When your batteries charge up, they will reach a peak voltage and then the voltage will actually start to drop a bit. They will also get warm. The charger looks for this voltage drop to tell that the pack is fully charged. So a setting of 35 mV means that it will stop charging if the voltage drops by 35 mV.

BTW, my 959 defaults to 40 mV for this setting and not 35 mV. I have not messed with this setting at all, and have had no problems. I'd recommend leaving the default setting and only adjusting it if you are getting false peak detections (the charger stops before the voltage gets high enough or the pack gets a bit warm)

Carl

Lots of good responses here, but I'm moving the thread over to the "Batteries and Chargers" forum.

Thanks Carl for letting us know about the mV setting. The manual doesn't explain how the automatic or manual setting should work. It says to refer to the manufacturer of the battery.

I read on this forum the 959 Superbrain DC does not charge over 7 cells. Can someone shed some light on this. I know the charge is half the time on DC vs AC for 8 cell 370 Mha NiMh packs. The time on DC for a discharged pack is about 25 min at .5Ma setting and on AC is about 55/60 minutes at .5 Ma setting.

Always learning,

Ed:confused:

Wierd.
Mine charges faster on AC, and does 8 cells quite nicely. It's rated for 8 cells.

Chuck

How about a thread resurrection?

I just picked up the 959 charger. Is the delta peak threshold setting an overall setting for the entire pack, or is it a per cell setting?

What is the per cell desired delta peak threshold setting for NIMH?

What is the per cell desired delta peak threshold setting for NICD?

Thanks.