A recent experience has made me very wary of cell performance claims.

In past years, I have tested many cells, and my reports have been a reasonably good indication of the performance obtained in practical usage.

However, it is possible that bench tests, reported in good faith, can be misleading.

A few weeks ago I tested a new pack of NMH cells. My initial verdict was "below advertised performance, but OK at the price"  Two weeks later, I charged the pack with the intention of using it in a model, and it self-destructed. [photo above]

If I had rushed into print with my test report, it would have been totally misleading. If there had been no "follow-up" usage , I would have been totally unaware of the degradation.

During the tests, the pack heated-up more than usually, both on charge and discharge. Presumably , this was the cause of the degradation, although it did not show Immediately in the cell performance.

For my future reports, the initial bench tests will be followed by a repeat test a week or so later, to check for degradation.

And I will treat with some scepticism any published results which do not include comprehensive temperature data.