Sub-c cell rating and discharge testing

[Grant Tokumi]

Someone pointed me to this site that did some discharge testing on various brand and style of battteries.

http://www.magtechinc.net/celltestsubc.htm

Heres a list of the cells tested.

Sanyo CP-2400SCR NiCd
Sanyo RC3000 NiMH
Sanyo RC2400 NiCd
Panasonic HHR300SCP NiMH
MT2500 NiMH
GP2500 NiMH
Saft 3000 NiMH
SR 2000MAX NiCd
Sanyo N-1900SCR NiCd
Sanyo N-3000SCR NiCd

I found it pretty interesting, especially the graphs that show the voltage drop vs time at 20 amp and 35 amp discharge rates. It kind of shows the slight differences in Nicad vs NiMH.

The one that really caught my attention was the Sanyo RC3000.
At 20 amp dischage, it seems to be one of the best, but at 35 amp discharge, the voltage sag was real bad right at the start. That would explain (to me) why NiMH seem to have poor acceleration off the line.

Comments?

[sosidge]

First comment is those tests are 18 months old, and the RC NiMH's have moved on noticeably since then - Sanyo's HV is a good cell, GP's new 3300 even better apparently - the HV's have never felt weak to me.

Those tests are on original Sanyo 3000, which wasn't all that - you can see how low the typical capacity was!

Second comment is he's mislabelled the Sanyo 3000 NiCd, that's a C size cell not a sub-C (before people start asking "where can I get those 3000 NiCd's from")

[Grant Tokumi]

Good points! I didn't think about the test's age. While 18 months doesn't sound that old to me, I guess it becomes old if a new breed of cells have been introduced since then.

But I have seen cells in the hobby stores with that colorful "3000" on them. I'm assuming those to be this RC3000. Are those cells in the stores now the same RC3000 that was tested here, with that large voltage sag?