<Rick.Sylvia_at_ferguson.com> wrote: >> I have the HX260S and wonder if I'm hurting my battery life. I listen to the weather before I leave the house. While I'm paddling, I leave it turned off, but after a couple hours, or if the weather looks like it's changing, I check the weather again. Consequently, I only use it about 10 minutes for each outing. At that rate, I can go many weeks without draining and recharging. Am I okay, or would it be better to leave it on overnight to drain, and then recharge the next day? How many days/weeks should I let it go before purposely draining and recharging?>> I think you are as OK as you can be. But read on. Ralph Diaz's use of his Horizon NiCad (top off before use; drain completely every few days and then recharge) is pretty good maintenance for a NiCad, certainly the best you can do without special tools. However, even with Ralph's careful maintenance, his NiCad died after three years. In my experience, this is not unusual (I used to fly RC aircraft). If you really want to get anal about it, there are NiCad chargers/cyclers that will take a battery all the way up, and then down, measuring the charge the battery can hold. For critical applications, worth it. Check the RC magazines for these. Must be de rigueur by now, although connectors may challenge you. The better choice would be to switch to lithium batteries, which do not have the "memory" defect of NiCad's, and seem to have a longer service life when used by normal (non-anal) humans. Too bad Horizon does not make lithium batteries to fit Ralph's old radio (or, do they?). YMMV. -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Sep 18 2002 - 08:23:17 PDT
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