Charging Basics nicad nimh lipo etc.. Please help

[blaize2010]

I just bought a new Venom Pro Charger and love the charger but i havent been involved with R/C since i was 12, So there are alot of different selections with battery maintenance and charging that I never knew about, (All we had was a simple trickle charger and a discharge function), is there a battery guide or something that clairifies how to discharge, cycle and charge batteries properly, I have searched the internet and it seems with each site comes conflicting information..

As far as nimh i am given choices like "Charge Current" 0.1A-5.0A

How do you know what Amp to charge at ???

Nimh Discharge at "0.1A-1.0A" and down to "Auto-25.0V" (although i havent seen the "Auto" selection in that menu..)

and then Nimh Cycle "chg/dchg" and "dchg/chg" and how many cycles

And the exact same choices for NICAD..

How do you know how many amps to discharge at and down to what Amp??

The manual tells you none of that information..

Is there a guide for different sizes and types of batteries that explain the different charging and discharging rates??

Venom says go to their site for battery information, which tells you no specifics.. I am totally in the dark here, Please help me if anyone knows of a single source for good information..

[tadium54]

3.5-4 amps is a good charge rate to charge batteries at.
you would discharge to a certain voltage, not amperage. .9 volts per cell is the norm I think. Discharging at 1 amp will take a long time from a full pack. If your charger can only do 1 amp max on the discharge, look at building a discharger with cutoff device, or if youre always around when your pack discharges, you might not need the cut off device.

[Glocked2]

I have the same issue.....I bought a MRC SuperBrain 989 and have a really difficult time understanding what rates to charge and dis-charge at....etc. The manual doesn't really do a great job of explaining how to set up each charge and for some reason it seems to jump to trickle charge earlier than I expect for a dead battery. I only have NiMh batts and for a 4600 Mah it seems to start trickling around 3k something. Does anyone have this charger and understand thoroughly that can explain how I can better use it? I can get it to work but am just a little unsure that I'm doing everything correctly. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Until then, I'm off to use my Onyx 240. Thanks.

[terrible-t]

Your charger is capable 5amp, up to 5000mah packs NiCd & NiMh. Discharge NiCd to .9-1v, at 1 amp. They keep memory of cells. NiMh can discharge to 0v, They don't keep memory on cell.

5anps on charger~5000mah pack. 4.2amps ~4200mah, 3.6amps~ 3600mah pack, and so on. Your charger will shut off automatically when charge. Keep a eye on charging, so they don't overheat, during charging. Top off NiCd & NiMh at .50v at trickle charge.