Hey Jerry, that's a killer avatar you have there. :wink:

???
 

Sorry BG don't know how to do all of that. I try not to get too deep into the geek areas myself:na:. It took a while just for me to get up the thinking just to put pics on here:rofl:. Avatar?? How in the hell do you do that? Isn't that the new movie just released:lol:. Great Movie:yipi:.

Find an image you want on the net or wherever, and save it to your desktop. Make sure it's like 100x100 pixels wide/tall (or less) and less than 100kbytes in size. Then, go to your control panel, then the avatar link, then browse your computer for the file. Voila!

Thanks brian
 

This is a photo of the wife and I on teh Great Wall of China when we were here in Korea back in 2005.

lol, that works. See? That wasn't so hard...

I guess
 

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Some things just have to be explained to me or shown to me once, before I get it. Anyway thanks for the info BG.

So come on people place your orders for LSD AA batteries. The bigger the order the better the price. I know everyone uses AA batteries around the house.

40 cells remaining.

Where are all the slackers that were jumping at a group buy? Here it is! If you guys don't hop on this train, it's leaving the station without you.

Question?
 

Hey Sean do they have AAA batteries to? Maybe we can get a few of those as well since you are already working on a shipment. I would take 20 AAA cells as well if that is possible.

Yea, Hobbycity has AAA.

Jerry that will have to be on another order. This order has all ready been placed & payed for . We hope to have it this weekend or early next week if were lucky.

Sorry, been busy, didn't get by yesterday -

#1 hippie 20 cells
#2 brian g 30 cells
#3 JERRY 30 CELLS
#4 Duster_360 - 30cells


Thanks Sean!

Cool, hopefully everyone is happy with these cells. The 5 I got are still working well for me. Just remember: charge at ~0.3A for best results. 0.5A would be the very max I'd charge at if you're in a hurry.

10 cells still available. I can let an additional 2 cells go from my allocation if someone needs 12 though. Just let me know.

I'll take the other 10

The next thing I am going to do is make a charger for these. Yeah, you can use your R/C charger, but I am also going to want something smaller for trips and such. I've already drawn up a circuit which uses a constant current charge (0.3A) with temperature peak detection. It will charge two cells at a time, but the circuit is simple enough that making banks of two to get 4, 6, 8, etc will be easy enough. Power requirements will be ~6vdc and ~0.35A for each bank of two cells. So, charging 4 cells at once will require 6v @ 0.7A, which cheap "wall warts" can supply.

Dammit man, you said you were working on my Delorean....

Would it be okay to charge these kinda things ( I bought some Energizer AAs only a month ago, shame.. ) in a little rx pack-type cell holder, then connect it to an r/c charger? I have a couple old normal wall chargers, but I dont know the current output as the labels are long worn off- a low current in the sub 0.5amp range wouldnt melt the contacts or wires I imagine...?

http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/images/batts/AA2x2.jpg

I accidentally sent the Delorean into the future without a passenger so I have no way to get it back. Sorry.

Anything 1A or less is fine in a holder like that. Just be aware that the higher current you charge, the higher the charger voltage will read because it has to overcome some voltage drop across the small wires and not-so-good contacts.

I figure I am ordering too small a number of batteries to get in on this. Count me out of the group buy.. I will definately get some with me next order tho!

I charged the batts today and they got very hot. They melted the 1st 4 cell holder. I changed the holder to a new one. Hopefully it doens't melt this one as well. I set my charger to 0.3A. Should I set the final voltage to read 4.8v? Or let it charge to over 5v? I'm using it for DX3S on 4 AAs.

What did you have your delta peak set to? I set mine to the lowest value on my charger (3mV per cell IIRC) and it works fine.

The charger I am designing uses thermal peak detection so once the cell gets to X*F, it shuts off. I feel this is a better method to detect when full charge is reached without relying on an unknown delta peak value that works well with these cells.

The Delta Peak is set on 3mV.

OK, I hunted around the net a little bit for a simple proper 2-cell NiMH charger for these cells, and the best I could find was some USB-powered charger. It should work, but didn't like the fact that the reset function was not the best. So, I created my own circuit. I just breadboarded it and it looks like it works very well. Here's the schematic:

http://scriptasylum.com/forumpics/nimh_charger.jpg

Although a bit unusual at first glance, it's pretty simple really, and was done from parts I had in my bins. The basic charge circuit consists of:
- R1: 6 ohm resistor rated for 1W or more
- Q1: TIP127 darlington PNP transistor. Should be on a small heatsink.
- R4: 100 ohm 1/4w resistor
- D1-D4: 1N4001 diodes

The diodes and R4 set up the biasing for the transistor in constant-current mode. R1 sets the charge current. With a R1 value of 6 ohms, the charge current is ~280mA. Two series NiMH cells are connected where stated.

The thermal peak detection portion of the circuit consists of:
- U1: Any general purpose SCR (or triac or thyristor).
- R3: Resistor to limit gate current
- R2: Resistor that along with the thermistor, provides a voltage divider.
- R5: Thermistor

Operation is pretty simple. The thermistor is physically placed in contact with the batteries. As the batteries heat up (signaling the end of their charge), the thermistor resistance drops. This causes more voltage to appear at the SCR gate until it turns on. When this happens, it essentially "shorts out" the biasing diodes D1-D4, and shuts off the charging transistor. The neat thing about SCRs is that once they are activated, they latch that way. So, even when the thermistor (batteries) cools off, the charger will not reactivate. You reset the circuit simply by removing power via a switch.

The thermistor is the one for my Eagletree logger, and the SCR used was not "ideal" (rated for 600v and something like 500A :oh:, but it's all I had). So I didn't list the actual values for R2, R3, and R5 since the real values would be quite different.

A regulated 6v, 0.5A power supply was used because a non-regulated supply would effect the voltage divider (R2 & R5). At that voltage, two NiMH cells can be charged at once. If you want to charge more cells, simply use two circuits at the same time in one enclosure. You can design it so that the supply is higher (like 12v) for charging 4 cells at once, but then you have to charge 4 cells at once all the time. Many devices use 2 cells, so I figured this would be more useful. Besides, 6v is a good value to use to keep power dissipation on the CC transistor low (~0.4w worst case).

In a few days, I'm gonna place an order for the proper components (SCR and thermistor mostly) so I can make an actual unit I can use on trips.

Can I use the Sanyo Eneloop charger to charge my Turnigy?

Depends on how it works. If it's a true delta-peak or thermal-controlled charger, then yes. If it's just a timed charger, or simply charges on a power supply via a resistor, then those aren't the best because you can overcharge or undercharge.

The Eneloop charger for the Eneloop batteries shuts down and stops charging once the batteries are fully charged, presumably.

If it says 'intellegent charger' anywhere, then it should shut down once the batts are fully charged, or switch to trickle charging mode- I might find a speky wallwart charger that just plugs into the socket on the side of my speky radio, so I can charge them in-situe.

FYI to the folks who got in on the group buy...I just got an e-mail that the order has shipped to me. I expect it to be at my house by Thursday or Friday this week.

All of the AA's were sent out today except hippie's. His package is going out tomorrow as his box was the only one too big to fit in my mailbox!

BTW Jerry, got the MO today, thanks!

No problem
 

No problem Kelly. I am just happy that you were willing to get this order going so we can all have a shot at using these cells for our needs. Thank you very much for your support and efforts in making this happen. Nice to know that there are still some guys out here who have integrity and are willing to do the right thing for fellow hobbiests. Nice doing business with you Sir.

Kelly is his last name . His first name is SEAN.

Point??
 

And your point is?:oh: Reitired US Navy and after 20+ years of using only last names I am too old to start changing my ways now.:na: I'm sure he knew it was meant for him. You do some time serving our Country and then come talk to me about something so trivial. I doubt that he was offended.:neutral: I know I know I should learn that I am a civilian now. BUT actually now I am a Federal Agent and the same protocal still applies to my every day life.

BLAH BLAH BLAH :lol: Sean is not smart enough to be offended :lol:.

Not offended by it at all. There's actually a lot of us that call each other by our last names at work and refer to a lot of others that way as well. We have a lot of ex-military where I work and deal with the military quite often...especially since they're our customer.

I'm cool with him calling me by my first or last name, but my middle name is off limits. That's reserved solely for use in my whole name when I'm in trouble with the wife. :lol:

Cool! They're on their way. I guess I'm gonna have to finish my homemade charger then. Did some tweaks to the schematic posted a while back, and ordered the necessary components. The biggest problem is finding the proper enclosure. Unfortunately, finding one that is the perfect size seems to be impossible; they are either too big, or too small, or the wrong dimensions (wasted space).

Im just going to use my hyperion 610i to charge mine.

Do tell???
 

Oh boy now that would be bad if that gets out. With some of the nice guys we have around here like Haorld, James, Squee. I know Hippie was just trying to poke fun at me. I am too old to let that bother me though. That does not mean that I will not bite back just like an old Chiwawa with rabies.

Don't think that hippie is a spring chicken himself...he's probably closer to your age than you think. :mdr:

The first one who paypal's me $20.00 kind find out skellyo's middle name .

Don't forget I still haven't mailed your package. :whip: