I recently aquired a second hand Ikelite SS200 strobe, and it has its original Nicad 6 cell battery pack.
The battery pack only lasts about 6 full power flashes before giving up the ghost.
Once i've fully recharged the battery pack and leave it for a couple of hours, its registering about 8.6 Volts on a multimeter(a nice strong reading), however after 6 full powered flashes, it wont fire anymore and drops down to about 6.2 volts.
Does anyone know what the volt reading indicates in terms of battery life/strength etc? 8.6V seems to indicate that all the cells are working, but then it only lasts 6 flashes??? A battery pack that works for about 60 full power flashes, also has a 8.6V reading after a full charge. Is there another multimeter reading i can use to test the actually 'juice' in the battery pack?
Does anyone know if this battery pack is a goner, or is there a way to get it to perform better?
Last resort is to rebuild the pack with NIMH's, but i've read about resurrecting dead packs by giving them a surge from 24V, or putting them through discharge cycles etc???
Anyone got any tips?
cheers,
Peter
