good cells, bad cells...???

[st_dragn_wagen]

a buddy gave me a bunch of individual sub C NiCad cells to make battery packs with. he told me a few of the cells may be bad, how do i check them to make sure there good?

[guver]

A voltage check right offf the bat will show a bad one, but beyond that they have to be charged and tested . The "bad" ones may just be weak.

[highroller]

If you have the time, charger that is capable of charging one cell at a time and something to discharge the cell, digital volt meter and stop watch. Rig up a holder to charge the discharge each individual cell you want tested. Use the same cells with similar charge and discharge time as well as type together. Depending on how long the cells have sat, it might take two or three procedures for cells to become stable enough to accept charging and discharging.
Or the next step is to just assembled all the cells together, charging then discharging the cells to see which packs show decent results.
Or find someone that owns a CE charger with the single battery holder. For first test charge at 3amps, discharge at 5amps to get cells balanced wait at least 2 days to a week then charge at 5amp, discharge between 15-20amp.
Depending on what type and capacity the cells are, also how old they are it is not worthwhile or effective to go through all this. If they are 2400 it may be worth the time, 2000 like the 1700SCR (black shrink) tended to become unmatched/unstable quicker so to me it really wasn't worth the time and cost of rematching them or rezapping.