razzor

After all is said, its about what is going to be done to prevent and keep this in check.
I may not be from the US but am sure a large part of the worlds rc population will hear about this.
We follow by the US and European examples.
I think Danny and any one who is knowledgeable on the issue should give some thought to and make a statement/post to inform others how to police this.
A trackside warning would be good as well stating the punishment for said issue.
have to agree with Josh that most have reacted a bit overboard but again it is how blatant the hazard is that has got the reaction it did and that it was not criticised by Danny but more so endorsed in a way.
The info about the cycling is not really the issue but the overcharging which is just scary.

twistedone

iTrader: (139)

yes this is good news

Jack Rimer

Thanks. I do appreciate that. I digress.

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Josh,

I think people were most concerned with what wasn't said. It really seemed to many of us that the important message was "see, I told you racing would ruin LiPo." I understand there's animosity toward early LiPo adopters, for they've been a big pain in the ass on the Internet (guilty) with all their zealotry (guilty) over the last couple of years. I can take that, and I've said since the beginning we'll look back on the early days of LiPo (before everybody used them) as the golden age, and we should be careful what we wish for. Anyway, I get all that, and I'm sure it's a little satisfying to see it start to play out for guys like Danny that have been vocal about how racing would make these things happen. No problem there.

The problem is, this isn't the issue to hang your hat on and say "see, told ya so." This is a grave safety concern, and ROAR's new rules back that up pretty clearly. The important thing here is to immediately tell people there's no tolerance with this sort of thing. This isn't the issue to "nyah nyah nyah" the LiPo guys, do that when you match packs and see a benefit or something.

If you guys want to shift the focus on me, that's fine. I've tried to be fair here always, although somewhat spirited at times, and perhaps a little mean. But this is about outright banning an emerging, very dangerous practice in racing that could affect its very existence. That's the issue. Stop it now, egos be damned.

kn7671

iTrader: (16)

How about some positive postings:

I can't wait to get my hands on one of the new 28C 4000mah or 5000mah LiPo packs. I was running the Orion 3200 LiPo's, but I could tell that I lost some punch with these over my SMC IB4200's.

Jack/Danny, who would have these in stock/available the quickest?

Jack Rimer

Can we all agree that now that Pandora's box has been opened, we need to work together to keep the sport safe and fair? This is the bigger issue here. You all need to understand that in order for SMC or any company to thrive in this industry there first needs to BE an industry. It does no manufacturer any good to release products if there are no customers left to buy it. By our actions in the past with IB and our strong customer service, it should be obvious that SMC understands this as well as anyone. We have no desire to ruin the sport. This is not backpeddling, it is simply company policy.

CBear3

iTrader: (3)

Well, it may be nice for SMC to distance themselves from Tony, but when Tony said he could post his procedure Danny asked him to. Then specifically told him to keep it up once the crap hit the fan.

Basic opinion is this:
We didn't need step by step instruction on how to create a nuclear weapon to know that we should arrest anybody who tries to do it. We didn't need the over-charging procedures to know that we should ban people who attempt to use it at the risk of endangering themselves and others.

The important thing is that we all know its very easy to do, and very dangerous, and I think its been agreed that those who push this envelope will be dealt with harshly. It was a less than pretty way to get there, but we got something valuable out of it anyways.

Good talk.

Biff Malibu

Josh,

Make sure the parental controls are set correctly on your computer.... We don't need Pop's reading this

syndr0me

iTrader: (32)

Sounds fair and reasonable to me. Sorry one of your LiPo threads had to get mucked up yet again. Thank you for putting safety first. :-)

or8ital

iTrader: (38)

Jack, I think most of us have said we would make sure (or are already making sure) it is enforced at our tracks. What is SMC going to do so that we are "working together".

To go back to Rick's post earlier. My fear is the guys most likely to do this practice are the guys that the track is least likely to kick out. Sure you will get some young kid or someone that doesnt know what they are doing that will try it. They will play dumb and the track will have decide if they intentionally did something or were "just following what the fast guy at the 'Birds posted on RcTech". But if as Danny said, this type of stuff is only done at the top ranks of racing are we really going to kick the local "fast guy" out of RC for good? Im not lumping all fast guys together, just building off where Danny said it would happen most often.


Jack, just so I understand. Tony isn't sponsored by SMC? As I would see sponsored drivers as "reps" of the company.

linger

iTrader: (1)

Wow, this thread has gotten out of control.

The method described is a high 2C charge followed by immediate 35 amp discharge. Rinse and repeat to get better cycle data. Let’s break down what is really happening here.

Charging at 2C does nothing for the discharge curve other than taking away a big chunk of cycle life. What you are seeing is the effect of temperature due to the higher charge rate. Go ahead and charge one cell at 1C and the other cell at 2C. Wait a couple of hours for the temperature to stabilize and you will get identical discharge curves. You can get the same results by preheating your pack and not take the hit on cycle life.

Doing high rate discharging does not make the next cycle any better. Calling 35 amps “high rate” is a joke anyways. Stop thinking in terms of NIMH. For LIPO, it’s a 7C discharge rate which doesn’t even come close to stressing the battery. Regardless, doing the 2C charge followed by a 35 amp discharge causes the average core pack temperate to go up for the next cycle. Again, you can get the same results by preheating your pack. Going through all these cycles to improve voltage is like pounding a square peg into a circular hole.

Other than temperature, there are times when lipos do not perform at 100%.

There a lot of data to support that lipos do not perform well when rested for a period of time. It takes a couple of cycles at ANY discharge rate to “exercise” the entire chemistry and they will perform as good as new. If you store the pack at 100% charge, then the first cycle is much worse than if you stored at a much lower state of charge. For just about everyone, this isn’t a problem, since you can run the pack a couple of times in practice and your pack will be at 100% by race time.

Danny/SMC

iTrader: (2)

You guys can accuse me of bashing Lipos all you want but I'm just pointing out potential issues with Lipos. Up until now we only hear how Lipos are perfect and don't need to be trained or maintained but that is not completely true. If you want to extract the most out of your Lipos you will need to cycle them under high loads to keep them at there best.

I never reccomended overcharging and I guess the fact that Tony posted what he does with his Lipos has shown that this is real and happening. I can understand that it may not be good for some to see this but what if someone hears about overcharging a Lipo and tries it and goes way past 9 volts ?


Bottom line is racers and track owners need to discuss the posibility of some trying to overcharge a pack and together it can be policed.


For those of you who understand battery numbers under a 35amp discharge here are some numbers of the same SMC 22C/5000 pack charged normally on a Lipo GFX and then overcharged using Tonys method. This will prove why overcharging should not be done. The main reason is safety but then there is also a significant performance gain.

Regular charge: 518 seconds , 7.22 voltage , 10.0 IR

Overcharge : 610 seconds , 7.46 voltage , 6.9 IR


Now on to high amp cycling which breaks down the memory effect. The test was done on an Orion 3200 pack. This pack was used multiple times on the track during a race weekend. Then it was cycled 4 times in a row using a normal Lipo charge and 35 amp discharge down to 6 volts.

Cycle 1: 314 - 6.76 - 17.1

Cycle 2: 322 - 6.95 - 12.3

Cycle 3: 326 - 7.01 - 11.2

Cycle 4: 328 - 7.03 - 10.8



Now you guys can attack me on something else as the above numbers prove what I have been saying and my goal is keep racing as fair as possible. So next time you guys race your Lipos and one guy is faster than you it may mean that he has found ways to keep his Lipos performing at there best.

Danny/SMC

iTrader: (2)

linger: Thanks for the info. I hope that heating up the pack works as good as cycling it multiple times as this means we racers will only need a heating pad instead of a GFX or other similar device. Guess we need to bust out the heating pads to see what this will do to the packs.


By the way when we call 35 amps high load it's more than what people normally do to there packs as most racers don't have a GFX or similar device. I hope that discharging isn't what is getting the packs better as heating them up will be allot cheaper and easier.

or8ital

iTrader: (38)

Great info per usual Ling! Your post goes a long way into describing what Danny is seeing in his post above. His method is just a long tedious way to warm a lipo pack for better #'s. People I guess are going to continue to think in their nimh ways until they understand how different lipo batteries are.

Danny, if you know overcharging is not safe why are you doing it to get the #'s? Yikes! Let's keep the "expert" advice to the experts for now

Danny/SMC

iTrader: (2)

I see overcharging as being unsafe and also something that gives a big advantage so it's best if no one does it but as some of you like to challenge me and think I'm just out to bash Lipos I have to test and give info that proves what I say.

Your right when you say Lipos aren't like NiMH as there is no way to overcharge a NiMH and get a significant advantage. So maybe we can all learn things from this thread instead of assuming that I want Lipos to go away. I just want everyone to know that Lipos or any other battery for that matter will require some type of maintenance to stay at its maximum. It maybe discharging at 1 amp , 35 amps or 150 amps or it maybe as simple as heating them up. Only time will tell as more and more racers use Lipos and try to figure them out.