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Battery/charging questions for raceday - 1/10 buggy

Battery/charging questions for raceday - 1/10 buggy

Old 07-27-2015, 09:44 PM
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Originally Posted by xjwolfpacker
Awesome. Thanks guys. Just trying to wrap my head around all this "new" (to me) tech, and what's actually competitive at the track.

So, do most of you guys just run 1 battery all day and recharge it between heats? Or do you have a different battery for each heat?

Do you all agree that they don't really need to cool before charging?
Correct, I do like to have 2 packs handy per car I race, just to make sure I have a backup available, but I usually do the whole race day on one per car. And as long as you don't go nuts with the charge current, you won't have to worry about letting it cool down, just take it out of the car & start charging right away....
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Old 07-27-2015, 09:50 PM
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All protek battery's come with the adapters to run 4mm on your esc still!
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Old 07-27-2015, 10:19 PM
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I'll +1 the Hitec X4. It does only go to 6000A but you can run 4 batts at a time and it's always reliable, has a port you can use at tracks without power to utilize your car battery to charge and is relatively inexpensive.
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Old 07-28-2015, 04:35 AM
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So far there has been some terrible advice here imo. The big risk of charging above 1c is not shortening the cells life. The big risk is actually starting fires and having the pack literally blow up. I never charge above 1c. The x4 and x1 are great chargers for the track, but at home I use the Graupner Polaron. The only real downside of the x4 is that it is awfully slow about putting batteries into storage. It only runs a a max of 1amp on discharge and only .4amp on 4s and .6amp on 2s. The Graupner will charged and discharge at up to 10amp and also give cell resistance along with a ton of other cool features.
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Old 07-28-2015, 05:37 AM
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Originally Posted by jubjub47
So far there has been some terrible advice here imo. The big risk of charging above 1c is not shortening the cells life. The big risk is actually starting fires and having the pack literally blow up. I never charge above 1c. The x4 and x1 are great chargers for the track, but at home I use the Graupner Polaron. The only real downside of the x4 is that it is awfully slow about putting batteries into storage. It only runs a a max of 1amp on discharge and only .4amp on 4s and .6amp on 2s. The Graupner will charged and discharge at up to 10amp and also give cell resistance along with a ton of other cool features.
your opinion; on terrible advise. Your listening to your LHS guy too much. Yes you are very safe at 1C but if you race 2C is also very safe as the manufactures state on their batteries. If you have any history with RC racing in general with electric cars you already know the dangers can and do exist, and already know how and what to do if an accident takes place.

So just let me ask you this; where at your tracks are the sand buckets?
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Old 07-28-2015, 08:09 AM
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Originally Posted by freebird
your opinion; on terrible advise. Your listening to your LHS guy too much. Yes you are very safe at 1C but if you race 2C is also very safe as the manufactures state on their batteries. If you have any history with RC racing in general with electric cars you already know the dangers can and do exist, and already know how and what to do if an accident takes place.

So just let me ask you this; where at your tracks are the sand buckets?
I work at a hobby shop and also race. The amount of people that puff their batteries and have incidents due to trying to charge overy 1c would boggle your mind. Typically we get the same answer to the question "why were you charging above 1c" is that they read online that it was okay. If you are an experienced user of lipos and understand the risks and take the proper precautions then by all means risk it. Otherwise the cost of a battery to a novice/beginner is pretty minimal compared to replacing their burned down home. You saying I listen to the people at my lhs does nothing but tell me that my experience has also been seen by other hobby shops as well. Whole you have had success up to this point does not mean it's safe and is definitely not reccommended.

And as to you sand question, we have one bucket at the end of each pit table row as well as several located around the track.

Feel free to charge as you like, it is important that the dangers be known and not taken lightly.
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Old 07-28-2015, 10:19 AM
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Originally Posted by jubjub47
I work at a hobby shop and also race. The amount of people that puff their batteries and have incidents due to trying to charge overy 1c would boggle your mind. Typically we get the same answer to the question "why were you charging above 1c" is that they read online that it was okay. If you are an experienced user of lipos and understand the risks and take the proper precautions then by all means risk it. Otherwise the cost of a battery to a novice/beginner is pretty minimal compared to replacing their burned down home. You saying I listen to the people at my lhs does nothing but tell me that my experience has also been seen by other hobby shops as well. Whole you have had success up to this point does not mean it's safe and is definitely not reccommended.

And as to you sand question, we have one bucket at the end of each pit table row as well as several located around the track.

Feel free to charge as you like, it is important that the dangers be known and not taken lightly.
Even the MFG of the batteries now a days say they are safe to charge at 2C, puffed batteries are from a lack of care. If you run your batteries down to lip cutoff or below everytime, and never balance them, is when you will have issues, and the recharging of the cells is what creates the chemistry inside the battery after it has been ALREADY damaged that creates the fire....
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Old 07-28-2015, 10:38 AM
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aLots of interessting opinions here.

here are some hard facts of what we see as a full time operating race track.

Every battery failure to fire was created by user error on the charger. Always a settings error. Always a incorrect chemistry setting. i.e. charge your Lipo as a nimmh.

Every smoke filled on track failure was electronics failing to dead short or user creating a poor choice in connector/wiring creating a short circuit.

Some packs puff. Regardless of how you treat them some generations of Lipo's have just puffed after some use.

Some chargers are very poor at voltage cutoff and damage batteries causing puffing.

Quality charges have zero ill effects when charging at high amps. We have as a majority now the FMA and Ichargers (4010, 308) charging at 20-40 amps for 1 and 2 cell applications in the shop for well over a year now. Our regular racers who Are charging at high amperage are not seeing any greater degregation of the cells then when charging at 5-10 amps. Just a faster charge time. Hardcore drivers are also doing compete discharge and charge cycles every run.

So for myself that is 4-5 cycles of the pack on a normal race night. atleast once a week every week. I usually will go about 9-10 mo tha on a battery before swapping out for new.
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Old 07-28-2015, 10:40 AM
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Most of my batteries are rated for 10C charge rates. I rarely charge higher than 2C though (13 amps for a 6500mAh pack). All LiPo fires I've seen have been in cars on the track or from accidentally charging in the wrong mode.

Don't leave packs fully charged, even overnight. Always store them in a cool place. Never charge them in the wrong mode, such as NiMh.

Easiest way to puff a pack is leaving it fully charged for too long or leaving it in too warm of a place. If you take care of your packs, they will last a good long time.

I only have 1 battery for each of my cars. Only time more than that is needed, is on practice days, but waiting 15 minutes for a battery to charge isn't really a big deal.

I absolutely love my Elan-R X2 charger, but it's not exactly the best value for the money.
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Old 07-28-2015, 10:48 AM
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Originally Posted by xjwolfpacker
Awesome. Thanks guys. Just trying to wrap my head around all this "new" (to me) tech, and what's actually competitive at the track.

So, do most of you guys just run 1 battery all day and recharge it between heats? Or do you have a different battery for each heat?

Do you all agree that they don't really need to cool before charging?
1 battery is fine. charge right away. Reality is the warmer battery is better to charge and better to use. You really want the cells at 110-115 deg. The problem became shortly after we started running Lipo's in competition hot plates started to show up in the pits to warm the packs for better punch( you can see how quickly hot plates in every put can get out of hand and be very dangerous. That is why we now have the 5 deg of ambient temp rule at all the big races.
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Old 07-28-2015, 02:21 PM
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AND I DIDNT HEAR ANYONE MENTION IR's and TEMPS with charge rates for racing.....

Thanks AMMDREW for info the person questioning the 1C charge I saw he was new to the forum so I expect he was or might be new to RC. I do know that there is a battery manufacture that supplies a lot of batteries to LHS and they tell the shops to tell the customers charge at 1C. I quit using those batteries as they would not hold up for me with my Mod SCT and with my Mod Wheeler just didn't have the punch that another battery did. So all is good in RC Hobby Land........ Right Kids
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Old 07-28-2015, 07:20 PM
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ir goes down as you hard charge and disscharge. BUT there is no true gain on a pack. Once a pack has been used a few times it will settle on a ir. It will be stellar, normal, or a dud. We see very few duds in comparison to nimmh days. And the normal is much closer to stellar then ever before in RC.
So basically you have a great pack, or a good pack and you really can not modify that by much of anything regardless of how you charge or disscharge the pack. Yes you may see some minor change but do not expect a game changing drive.
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Old 07-28-2015, 07:29 PM
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I have been buying three new batteries at the start of every season. I use Gens Ace 5000/50C which are great for me. I charge at 5 amp. Sprinter runs the same battery all day (up to 3 heats and a main), SCLM and SC Bomber get a fresh pack after every race. All batteries end the day with a run on them. I have nine batteries right now, 2013, 2014 and 2015 and cannot tell a difference between them...!
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Old 07-28-2015, 07:38 PM
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Buy the best battery you can afford. The higher the burst rate the better, even though many will argue that. Also the higher end batteries ussually have higher charge rates, 2C-3C or so. The higher burst rate batteries should not be hot after a run or need to "settle". I won't even get into the "it's always the person charging wrong, wrong size wire that caused the fire" aspect. I actually had a charger over charge one of my lipos. I caught it and stopped it before it damaged it. And it wasn't one of those cheapies either. The main take away from that comment above is don't deep discharge the batteries. Below the recomended 3.0volts. It shortens the life as well as damages the battery, the chemicals. YES I have already posted this manufactor info and settled that argument several weeks ago. Respect the power of a lipo and it will do well for you. Get a quality charger and it will make the lipos last along time.
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Old 07-28-2015, 08:29 PM
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Originally Posted by freebird
AND I DIDNT HEAR ANYONE MENTION IR's and TEMPS with charge rates for racing.....

Thanks AMMDREW for info the person questioning the 1C charge I saw he was new to the forum so I expect he was or might be new to RC. I do know that there is a battery manufacture that supplies a lot of batteries to LHS and they tell the shops to tell the customers charge at 1C. I quit using those batteries as they would not hold up for me with my Mod SCT and with my Mod Wheeler just didn't have the punch that another battery did. So all is good in RC Hobby Land........ Right Kids
I think it's me you are referring to as a new hobbyist, which is far from true. I didn't mention IR, because quite frankly most lipo users don't know what it is and/or don't have chargers that read it anyway. An no, most manufactures will recommend 2-3c charge rates, but most tobacco companies prefer you keep smoking too. While the battery can probably handle the higher rates, you typically will go through batteries quicker which I'm sure the battery companies like....

The fact of the matter is that charging at the higher rates does save a few mjnutes, but I would suggest most have multiple batteries they don't need the battery that quicklyrics anyways. Nothing wrong with staying on the safe side is their?
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