purplepro3

rcracingfreak: Orion has a digital discharger that costs less than $100. it will discharge 30 amps (4.8v cut-off), 25 amps (5.1v), and 20 amps (5.4v).

Danny: when you say sanyo nimh, this includes older 3000 cells (yellow & green) right??? would you recommed the orion digital discharger i mentioned above??? would the 4.8v cut-off@30 amps hurt the cells????

D_Ames

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Purple...
I actually have a Tekin DIS350 discharger that discharges at 30 amps and is very nice. I just wanted to get a unit that would do it all but none of the new charger/discharger combo's(Integy/Reedy) discharge at 30 amps. The turbo35 is the only one I know of that does it all and its $400 and you still need a power supply.

Addict sa RC

Integy has a 30amp discharger with a 5.4V cutoff for only ~$50. I have one and its indispensible.

Aurra Sing

Hey.

I first used my 3000's successfully 2 weeks ago. I will use them again this weekend. Between the two weeks, I didn't do anything to them. They still had a partial charge from the run before.

I put them on my Millennium Pro (didn't have voltimeter) and read 8.5 volts (first pack) and 8.0 volts (another pack) at the very beginning. Question: How low voltage can the 3000HV's go down to without damaging it?

Speedo

purplepro3- I think you would treat the older sanyo cells like any other nimh, just the HV's are different, I think.

rccarracer

Thats my understanding.

David Root

I have read this whole thread. I learned a lot. I have not raced electric yet, but raced gas for one year and am doing gas and electric with my son this year. I have an XXXt and he has a XXX.

After I read this, I went home and built a "discharger" out of 10 3157 bulbs. They fit into a nice little circle. This is only 10 amps, but it helped me out a lot. I have a Fluke ocilliscope that will plot time Vs Volts with the screen width being full all the time. It shows min, max and average volts along with the graph. With my first try using 3,000 radio shack packs (its my first year ya I know rs is junk) to see how much capicity they had. First Pack: It had been charged for a couple of days: 5.8volts and dropping slowly for the first minute or so. Then it started to come up all the way to 6 volts or so after about the 3 minute mark. It went on for 8 minutes then died at 5.4 volts. Average volts 5.91. Most of these packs did the same thing. I let them cool and charged them at 4.5 amps 20 mv cut off ( that is .020 volts) and tried the same discharge again. WOW with a warm pack, started at 8.5 and went down fast at first then leveled off. 7 minutes, 6.36 average volts! This is nothing like the cells in this thread, but I sure did learn how to treat them!

I had a 1500 pack I thought was shot, so I tried that one too. 10 Amp discharge, 2mins 22 sec. I forget what the Av volts were. I charged it 4.5 amps, .040 volt cut off. and this time 3 mins 56 sec . What a difference. I have been way too kind to my packs

This also helps me understand why I could charge a dead 3,000 Nimh pack for a few minutes, bring it down to 5.4 then charge it. It gets the stuff in the battery going before it gets a full charge.

My 3,000 packs are still increasing capacity and average voltage (for the whole pack). Thanks again everyone for the education.
David Root

rcruv

Thanks for posting your experiment.
I think I'm now convinced that I should pick up a decent discharger and see if my packs get more punch.

JesseT

Or build your own 30A discharger to save big bucks. If anyone is interested in how to make one, just let me know.

HarshGuy

iTrader: (6)

Hey Danny ...one of my SMC packs seems to have "met it's maker", nothing wierd about it I was practicing yesterday cahrged it up worked fine the 1st time, threw my light bulbs with black box cuttoff after running it all fine and dandy the 2nd time I went to use it (prolly about 2 hours later) when I went to charge it says "peak detect to high" or something like that (T35 BTW) ...I start pressed past that only took about a 10 minute charge and it no workee. I tried cycling it this morning, same deal ...I didn't write the numbers down but IR was huge, only about 120 seconds runtime, stuff like that.

...any advice? ...BTW the other 6 packs I have purchased around the same time period (about 6 months ago) are still perfect & no probs.

Danny/SMC

iTrader: (2)

HarshGuy: Sorry to hear one of your packs died. Try and figure out if it's only one cell or the entire pack.

The RC3000HV is a great cell but it's still NiMH technology and maybe the cycle life of the cell isn't as good as nicads.

quantum

hi danny,
did you get the email i sent you two weeks ago?
please let me know!

thanks!



[email protected]

Danny/SMC

iTrader: (2)

Possibly but you might want to send it again. I just have been really busy and sometimes I read emails and plan on responding later and then I forget.

bigbadbullerboy

HOW MUCH???

ChristopherKee

iTrader: (28)

Danny -

Is SMC still rematching and rezapping cells? I have 6/6 cell packs of SMC 3000HV's that need to be re-zapped and matched.

I've beat the hell out of these packs and they all have over 50 cycles.

And if so, how much and do I need to clean off the lables and solder before sending them in...

What is the ususal turn around?