Newbie Rechargeable Battery Questions

[tonyt]

Hi

A newbie set of questions for you! I have read the manual and searched, but can't find the answers, so -

1. How long is it OK to leave rechargeable batteries in Pentax Kr (Supplied Lith Ion / Ni Mh in AA holder) in the camera before removing them if the camera is not going to be used for a prolonged period? Or do you remove them after every shoot and replace them for the next one?:confused5:

2. Do you store batteries fully charged or fully discharged?:confused5:

3. Is it OK to charge a partial used battery, or is it better to fully charge / discharge?:confused5:

Many thanks for your help

tonyt

[SmartWombat]

It's always better to remove batteries from equipment if it's not going to be used.
Unlikely, but there is always the risk of leakage & corrosion.

Store fully charged, they won't be after a while in storage though.

Both battery types, LiIon and NiMH, it's OK to charge partially used batteries (but not for NiCd).
You will get better capacity with discharge/charge but remember a battery life is measured in charging cycles - so don't wear them out prematurely!

My preference for NIMH is to use Uniross Hybrio batteries and MAHA chargers.
The Hybrio batteries lose less charge than anything else I've tried, including "professional" batteries form Varta.

I use two different MAHA chargers for different jobs, I'm going to get another one because I use so many AAs in the two flashes.

The MH-C800 will charge 8 AA cells, and can also discharge and recharge once automatically to cycle the batteries if they've been part charged many times.

The MH-C9000 is an analyser as well as a charger, it can tell you what the capacity of a battery is in mAh ... useful if you have old batteries that you want to measure. It will also do multiple discharge/charge cycles to try to recover old NiCd cells, and it has a break-in setting to optimise the charge in batteries used for the first time.

[gryphonslair99]

You might want to look for POWEREX MH-4AAI-BH in AA. Same type of battery as the Sanyo Eneloops and Uniross Hybrio batteries but with a storage capacity of 2400mAh instead of 2000mAh.

[SmartWombat]

I thought I was doing well to get 2100mAh in the Hybrio.
If I can get Powerex in the UK I'll try a set.

[gryphonslair99]

If you can't you might look for the new Sanyo eneloops coming out that are also supposed to be 2400mAh as well. They announced them a while back.