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<font color='#000080'>I've just spoken to a collegue, who said the charge cycle for these two types of batteries are very similar. He recons you should be able to charge the Nicol Metal Hydride Batteries in the Ni-Cad charger. He did say to watch the batteries periodically on first charge to ensure they don't get too hot. If they get very hot to touch they should be OK but if they become so hot that you actually burn yourself then stop charging. But from the charge current of 450mA they should not get very hot if at all. As the charge current is very low this would indicate a trickle charge type, so there is little chance of frying your batteries.
Gblades is right about the charge cycle time. As the newer batteries are twice the capacity they will theoretically take twice as long to charge.
With respect to Reeve's coments about frying your resistor, My collegue says this should not happen. The only difference between the two batteries is the capacity. The voltage and current should be similar (you know 1.3 volts as apposed to 1.5 volts say) and this should have no bearing on the resistor as the only difference is the capacity or life of the charge. The new batteries should last longer and take longer to charge as you already know.
Try it and let us know how you get on. You do know that before first proper use you should charge and discharge a couple of times. This is to bring the batteries up to top efficiency as they will have been stored for a while before they were sold and will as I said require a couple of charge and discharge cycles to get them back to shape. I found with new batteries you can discharge them in your torch whist its weighted down in a large bucket of cold water to stop your torch over heating and possibly melting parts of the casing.
These batteries have approx 1000 charge cycles of Life time, i.e before they expire. To get the best out of the life of your batteries, ensure they are discharged (not fully as this could cause damage to them) but very near to fully before charging them again. I don't know a lot about NiMH barreries memory but charging and discharging properly will help to prolong their working life time. Memory by the way is where you charge the battery up before its fully discharged and it gradually starts to have a lower output voltage than it would do if maintained properly, i.e. proper charge/discharge.
Good luck.  |