2000 mah Nimh batteries at Odd Lotts

My brother saw some Digital Concept 2000 mah Nimh batteries at Odd Lotts. They are 5.99 for 4 AA. Would it be silly to use these to make receiver or transmitter packs? Or should we just go buy some good name brand battery packs? Anyone tried this or have any experience with these inexpensive batteries?

| For the little you 'save'.....it just might cost ya a plane!

... of course, there's no guarantee that that pack you just bought from SR Batteries won't cost you a plane either.

It's more than a little too. That's a $6 pack, where a pack from Futaba is more like $20, and that's just 600 mAh NiCds.

I've never seen that specific battery brand, but I buy 4 AA 2000 mAh NiMH packs at Frys for $5 when on sale, and I've made several battery packs from them with no problems. Ditto for the 900 mAh NiCd packs I find at Wal-Mart (in the solar powered light section) for $5.

But I've also made packs, and found that they cycled poorly, and threw them away without ever using them (or marked them BAD and used them only on the bench.) If you're going to make your own packs, I'd say you really should have a cycler with which to measure your battery's conditions, and do so with every pack you make. (Actually, you should do this with any pack, no matter where it came from.)

As for NiCd vs. NiMH, NiMH cells are perfect for transmitter packs. For receiver packs, it's not so certain, because the NiMH cells have higher internal resistances, and may not be able to provide enough power when all the servos move at once. So I usually use NiCd packs for receiver packs, even though NiMH could give me more time and would probably work OK most of the time.

For $6, you buy and test them. Cycle them several times and whack them around a little bit before flying them. If the cells are really storing ~2000mAh and you did a good job on soldering the tabs, you win big. If not, you lose the price of a burger and coke.

-- Bob