Battery increasing in capacity over time?

[DonRotolo]

Although testing conditions will influence the results, the three curves are about identical until you get to the knee at 10.5 volts. Beyond that is somewhat unimportant. Odd but not a miracle.

[Michael Hill]

I've been really mostly concerned about dead cells, but the capacity thing confused me.

[IKE]

A quick question:
Are you using the same chargers that you were using 2 years ago?

Here is a neat site that has a lot of articles on batteries, battery management and pros/cons vs. types:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/

Anecdotally, I have heard with specific types that there are different techniques you can do to increase a batteries capacity.
During the minibot effort in 2011, I heard many rumors of different tricks that would eek out slightly different performance curves. Slight changes to charging rates and voltages.

During my solarcar days, I remember hearing about a team doing controlled battery cycling using a specially designed oven to increase a batteries useable capacity. While controversial, I will say that particular team was able to run much longer in cloudy weather than all the other teams so I have to believe there was something to the effort they were doing.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by IKE

A quick question:
Are you using the same chargers that you were using 2 years ago?

Here is a neat site that has a lot of articles on batteries, battery management and pros/cons vs. types:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/

Anecdotally, I have heard with specific types that there are different techniques you can do to increase a batteries capacity.
During the minibot effort in 2011, I heard many rumors of different tricks that would eek out slightly different performance curves. Slight changes to charging rates and voltages.

During my solarcar days, I remember hearing about a team doing controlled battery cycling using a specially designed oven to increase a batteries useable capacity. While controversial, I will say that particular team was able to run much longer in cloudy weather than all the other teams so I have to believe there was something to the effort they were doing.

Yes, all batteries are charged with the Schumacher SC-600A chargers using the 2A setting prior to testing (though 6A is normally used at competition). There may have been various amounts of rest between charge and testing, but I wouldn't expect the capacity to change too much.