Nicad questions

[typhoon_driver]

This seems like the best place for this thread.

I have just taken hornet 2 to bits and apart from a fan blade missing on the victor everything seems ok but I do have a question about my nicads.

I was running the 2400MAh Sanyo sub C cells in 2 12v packs in series. In the final whiteboard the end caps on the packs came off exposing the connection to the metal chassis (you can see it sparking if you get a look at the video). What I want to know is if it will be safe to run with these cells again?

Looking at them, two have what appears to be a green powder on the end and others show signs of sparking on the case. The packs have charged ok and hold the voltage they should.

Is it just a case of putting some decent heat shrink around them and throwing them back in the bot?

[big_nipper]

The green stuff sounds like just corrosion, my guess is that it is on the ones with the soldered leads where the flux has not been fully cleaned off after soldering and this is common with age, Do a full charge (14 hours trickle charge at 240mA) to balance the cells and then discharge to 0.8 Volts per cell, if the cells in question are the same as the others after discharge then they will be fine, if they have been damaged then the voltage will be much less (could even be negative).

[typhoon_driver]

cheers mark