Airshield Pro battery useage question

[Andy Pratt]

I just bought the Trend airshield pro, It's on it's initial charge right now and I have a question about future charges for anyone who has used one.

The manual suggests kind of vaguely that you might have to let it drain all the way down before recharging. I think it was translated text so I'm not sure if they meant to give this impression or it was accidental. It is a Ni-MH battery, and I don't know much about how they work on a partial recharge. I know it's not okay with a Ni-Cad and is okay with a Li-Ion, but this is in the middle.

Anyone do it one way or the other? Since it takes 14 hrs for a full charge I wouldn't want to have to run it all the way down before giving it another charge, but I'll do that if I must.

Buying a spare batt and stand-alone charger isn't an option for me right now unfortunately.

Thanks,
Andy

[Ryan Baker]

Like anything else Ni-MH, you can partial recharge it but you will lose some capacity. Ni-MH is better than Ni-Cd, but not that much better. You can probably use it that way for a long time without problems.

I do run mine all the way down until it sounds the alarm. I have an extra battery and the stand alone charger, which means I always have a charged battery ready to go. I don't have to plan my work schedule around battery charging. It is expensive, but for me it is worth it.

I'd say do whatever works for you and don't worry about it. It may make some difference in battery life and/or capacity, but it isn't that much difference in the long run. Actually using the unit is more important than pampering the battery. When my stock batteries die, I am going to rebuild them with better batteries anyway (and much cheaper than the replacements from Trend).