Rechargable battery packs

[Jason in Enid]

How long are the rechargable packs supposed to be good for? I have both the 1600 and 1800 MAH packs, but it seems that they just won't hold the charge they used to. I used to get days of hunting from a freshly charged pack. Now, I can charge one, put in my E-Trac and it is starting out at 3 bars. I don't get near as much hunt time from it either.

Anyone have any similar stories, or things I could try? These things are pretty dang expensive, so I don't want to buy new packs if I don't have to.

 

[Southwind]

Have you tried clearing the memory of your packs? The older NiCads will retain a memory that needs to be cleared every now and then. To clear it run the battery packs complete dead. I mean completely dead and then a full charge.

If you let NiCads just get say 1/2 drained and then charge them up, you create a memory at that point and the pack will drop dead at 1/2 charge and or only last the time you used it before the last full charge. Draining it completely and then a full charge a few times will clear that short charge memory and make them last longer.

I used to have a 12 volt car tail light bulb(1156) that I had soldiered alligator clips to and would connect it to the NiCad pack on my DFX to drain it completely before charging.