Battery Care, Charging Tips, etc
 

I along with many other people here I am sure have questions about battery charging, cycling, etc. So if anyone "in the konw" could post their tips, and hopefully some links to helpfull FAQ's and websites relating to battery care that would be great.

I'll start it off with a couple questions:

What settings do you reccommend charging 3300's on?
What is pulse charging, and what should it be used for?
Should I upgrade from my Superbrain 959 to either a Duratrax Intellipeak Digital, Reedy Quasar pro, or Millennium Pro?

Thanks, and any help is greatly apprecciated!

Are you racing stock or modified you just bashing?

For stock racing I charger my 3300's at 6amp .5mv cut-off.

I would definitly upgrade your charger if you plan to race, the Reedy Quasar Pro is a great charger and I would highly recommend you get it.

Hope this helps.

I dont race in sanctioned races, but I am afraid I am not getting the full potential out of my batteries at 4.5 amps on the superbrain. And by .5mv is that 50mv?

Yes, .5mv is 50 mv.

Thanks, I realize that was a noob question, just wanted to make sure you didnt mean 5mv/c. Thanks for your help TC3er, anyone else have input and possibly some links to battery care websites?

It is .5mv per cell, and no question is a newb question because everyone was there once.

Ok ...I'm guessing you either mean 5mV/cell or 50mV/6cell-pack(8.3mV/cell)...

.5mV/cell is WAY low... I don't know of a charger that will detect .5mV/cell...

Sorry to nit-pick..I realise you're trying to help...just tryign to make sense of the help given:cool:

Yes, 5mv/cell

OK. so 30mv for the pack. Now that that's resolved how about anyone else with some battery charging tips or places with good info.

wow u guys charge high i charge at 10 mv for the whole pack

You can charge NIMH at 5A with peak detect of 0.03 ~ 0.04 V per 6 cell pack.

craziracer that seems pretty low. Have you tried a higher setting and gotten any diffferent results? leekayliang that would come out to about 20-25mv/pack so thats close to what we had said before. fukuyama (sp?) suggests 50mv/pack, which sounds very high comparing to everyones suggestions so far. any input by anyone is apprecciated! thanks.

I charge my Fukuyama packs on a Reedy Quasar Pro. For 6 cell packs I charge at 6 amps with a .07 (70mv) cutoff and for 4 cell 6 amps with a .05 (50mv) cutoff. I also use my discharger on my Quasar to equalize the packs before charging the day before a race. I store them discharged all week long then equalize with a .5 amp discharge down to .9v per cell and charge the night before, and repeak just before racing. After a charge at those settings regular gp3300's are between 130f and 150f. Fukuyama packs are only at 120f to 130f.

Peak detect
 

JPT249, i think u have misunderstood my post.

What I meant is peak detect at 0.03 ( 30mV ) to 0.04 V ( 40mV ) for a 6 cell pack which is about 7mV per cell.

The reason for a range because some chargers uses temperature detection to detect full charge. At full charge the cells should reach a specific temperature. If u are using these, you should set at a lower peak detect first and once peak, check the temperature and if the temperature is not high enough, go for the higher peak detect voltage.

I use a Turbo 35 GFX and settings are as follows:

Charge 5.0 amps
Cut-off .05
Discharge @ 20 amps
and use a Pro Match Tray for 20 to 30 mins before charging.
Depending on the environment you can use a higher or lower cutoff to get the final charge temp where you want it. (around 125 deg F)