[oldtamiyaphile]

boho, we use up to 1.5 times voltage because a cell reachs up to about 1.6v during charging.

Namara, you can't use a DMM to measure how much a cell can 'accept'. What you described would only measure charge current. Charge current is regulated by the charger alone and not the cell, so your reading would be what you set the charger to.

All you can do is charge a different currents, discharge the cells and then determine at what point the cells begin to struggle.

I measured the current a stock Bit charger puts out.

Nicad: 300ma
Alkaline:200ma

I also did your short circuit test

Nicad 500ma
Alkaline 300ma

As you can see, it far from puts out the max current of the AA's.

Superfly, yes, you will get different results depending on what batteries or else you use to power the controller, as you can see, Nicads charge faster than Alky's so you'll get a more complete charge (even if one charge is still only about 5-10% full). Given that the most current the charger draws is around 500ma, adding a bigger supply won't have an effect though, might be something to do with voltage (3v vs 2.4?).

If you have a MM, try measuring current/voltage of different sources.

Could you explain this in more detail?

If you charge at 500ma instead of 1000ma, a lot less current will be wasted as heat. If a cell generates enough heat, it will begin to vent gasses (to prevent expolsion), the point where this occurs is surprisingly low. Also hot cells self discharge much quicker than cool cells. If you leave a cell at 60 degrees C, it will go flat much quicker than a cell left at 30 deg C. Heat is the enemy.

What this boils down to is that you might be able to charge for shorter than a peak and still get the same runtime. It would take a lot to fully explain it. I hope this makes sence.