Going Green/Conditioning Rechargeables?

[mulchie]

With newly purchased rechargeable batteries (PowerEx) is it best to drain them completely several times to "condition" them?
I am somewhat stumped on this as the DiNotte batteries I have required several 20 minute runs to condition before they were fully up to speed. Yet I think for AAs and AAAs the rule is to run them dry a couple times.

Without being too technical (oh, go ahead) could someone untangle this for me?

#2 Any recommendations for best batteries?
thanks

[paulrad9]

1) Just use them and they'll be putting out full capacity after just a few charges. As a general rule, it's never good to discharge any battery completely (especially if they're in series) unless you know what you're doing

2) Rechargeable NiMh? If yes, I've been using Maha (over the last couple years) and Sanyo (forever) and happy with both. My worst experiences have been with Radio Shack batteries.

[Zero_Enigma]

1) Just use them and they'll be putting out full capacity after just a few charges. As a general rule, it's never good to discharge any battery completely (especially if they're in series) unless you know what you're doing

2) Rechargeable NiMh? If yes, I've been using Maha (over the last couple years) and Sanyo (forever) and happy with both. My worst experiences have been with Radio Shack batteries.

Danger danger Will Robinson! Yah I can echo the RatShacks cells arn't the best as well. Good for some non important stuff if you had to go cheap on that.

[Photosmith]

The most important component is the charger. That makes more of a difference than anything else. For everything else, there's:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/