what is typical voltage of new nicad?

May be fully discharged. New NiCds don't mind being near 0 V.

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There's nothing wrong with discharging nicads all the way. The problem is with batteries (cells in series); there will always be one cell weaker than the rest and when it gets discharged to zero, it'll then get charged in reverse from the others ramming current through it.

I was once told that NiCd batteries should come fully discharged and have a much longer shelf storage versus once they receive their initial charge. I do not know if this is indeed true or not, but it seemed to make sense to me. I do know that fully charged and fairly new NiCd batteries will fully discharge on their own without any external current drawn over a period of

Bob

Thanks to both of you for those helpful replies.

They don't charge 'em cause the process time to do so would bring the production line to a crawl. There are probably other secondary issues. mike