Olympus M. 15V Ni-CD Charger 1 for Motor drive

Andreas Thaler · May 23, 2025

koraks said:
Which either failed or was fed the wrong prompt.

I classify this under the topic of power adjustment, voltage adjustment and current adjustment (in German: Leistungsanpassung, Spannungsanpassung und Stromanpassung).

Today you are vague in your answers, especially my threads must have impressed you

Chan Tran · May 23, 2025

The way to charge the NMH battery is to charge it at certain current until the voltage stop rising but actually lower a little bit. And thus the charger only regulate the current and monitor the voltage to know when the battery is full.
Now If the charger current is limited to 36mA then a short circuit may not cause it to get hot or smoke.

Andreas Thaler · May 23, 2025

Chan Tran said:
The way to charge the NMH battery is to charge it at certain current until the voltage stop rising but actually lower a little bit. And thus the charger only regulate the current and monitor the voltage to know when the battery is full.
Now If the charger current is limited to 36mA then a short circuit may not cause it to get hot or smoke.

How are such chargers constructed today?

So, if I want to charge my NiCad batteries in the Olympus Power Pack with a current device, what should I use? Aside from current safety standards, see my pictures above.

koraks · May 23, 2025

Andreas Thaler said:
How are such chargers constructed today?

Based on charge controllers that monitor voltage, current and possibly also temperature. The kind of charger we're looking at here is likely built in a more basic way and will be less of a black box.

Andreas Thaler said:
Today you are vague in your answers

Not sure what you mean here; I think I was being quite clear. W.r.t. to AI-messup: the AI output seemed to refer to a generic power supply. This is a battery charger. Different things. Some things that apply to the former do not apply to the latter; the information that AI gave in this case borders on useless.

Andreas Thaler · May 23, 2025

koraks said:
Not sure what you mean here; I think I was being quite clear. W.r.t. to AI-messup:

In keeping with this, my conclusion;

Post in thread 'Can AI help us repair our cameras? A test request on my own behalf'
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...-request-on-my-own-behalf.213813/post-2898214

Chan Tran · May 23, 2025

Andreas Thaler said:
How are such chargers constructed today?

So, if I want to charge my NiCad batteries in the Olympus Power Pack with a current device, what should I use? Aside from current safety standards, see my pictures above.

A NiCad charger is a constant current device. It should charge at current of 1/14 to 1C. C is the Ah rating of the battery. For example if the battery is rated at 2000mAh then 1C is 2000mA or 2A. Charging at slow rate like 1/14C they then to rely on time to terminate the charge. Charging at higher rate there are 2 ways.
1. Terminate the charge when the temperature rises rapidly. So the rate of change of the temperature is monitored and there must be a temp sensor on the cells.
2. Terminate the charge when the voltage stop rising but goes down from the highest slightly. This voltage signature is very slight and hard to detect. It's more pronounced at high charging rate.

Andreas Thaler · May 24, 2025

Chan Tran said:
A NiCad charger is a constant current device. It should charge at current of 1/14 to 1C. C is the Ah rating of the battery. For example if the battery is rated at 2000mAh then 1C is 2000mA or 2A. Charging at slow rate like 1/14C they then to rely on time to terminate the charge. Charging at higher rate there are 2 ways.
1. Terminate the charge when the temperature rises rapidly. So the rate of change of the temperature is monitored and there must be a temp sensor on the cells.
2. Terminate the charge when the voltage stop rising but goes down from the highest slightly. This voltage signature is very slight and hard to detect. It's more pronounced at high charging rate.

Thanks!

Chan Tran · May 24, 2025

We're talking about the charger but does the OP have a good battery? I doubt any NiCad that old is still good.

nbagno · May 28, 2025

The charger had a blown fuse, which I will replace when I return in a few days. I did find another charger, and its output is 32VDC without load.

The batteries, as suspected, are shot. Luckily, the leaking batteries did not destroy the circuit board. I was able to get the pack to work by connecting a variable DC power supply set to 14VDC. I also found a second motor drive 2 and confirmed that both motor drives work. In addition to all that, I found a control grip 1, which uses 12 AA batteries and works with both my motor drive 2’s.

Amazon sells 1/3AA Ni-CD batteries, so I’ll assemble them into the grip and get that a shot.

nbagno · Jun 7, 2025

I was able to change out the old leaking batteries with 1/3AA NiCd. The new batteries were slightly larger, so it was a very tight fit, but it worked. I was also able to fix both of the charging transformers by replacing the interior fuse. Now I have a fully function MD with new batteries and the original charger

Andreas Thaler · Jun 7, 2025

nbagno said:
I was able to change out the old leaking batteries with 1/3AA NiCd. The new batteries were slightly larger, so it was a very tight fit, but it worked. I was also able to fix both of the charging transformers by replacing the interior fuse. Now I have a fully function MD with new batteries and the original charger

View attachment 400360

Congrats!

Olympus M. 15V Ni-CD Charger 1 for Motor drive

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