PhatPat

iTrader: (5)

Novak Smart tray

What do you guys think. Is it worth the money? ($95-105). What are the positive effects of discharging and equalizing each cell individually. Will the pack have more runt time, will this increase life expectancy, does this decrease internal resistance.

Batteries are a big investment. I counted my 3300 packs I bought in the last 5 months (12 @ 65 avg cost = $780.) My wife would blow her freakin top if she knew how much these C cells cost. I willing to make the investment to preserve and care for this investment - if it's worth it.

Aurra Sing

An equalizer is an investment you will make for preserving your batteries. I bought two batteries the in the last year that are still running good because of good battery management. You can find it for $79.99 at either of the two hobby shops in my signature below.

mo

iTrader: (7)

You may also want to look at the Rayspeed tray. It does the same thing and it costs less and doesn't require you hook it up to a power supply for it to work (unless you are doing less than 6 cells).

koabich

I have just pruchased the Novak equalizing tray. All I can say is that I love it! If you consider the fact that I have 20 battery packs and that each one cost me at least $70.00, this tray is a small investiment to help keep you packs running as strong as possible for as long as possible. This tray will help you do that. Amother positivew is that it is an American product!!

Speedyjay

iTrader: (1)

Ive really only seen a 20$ Difference with the Rayspeed tray.

So what does the Novak have that justifies paying 20$ more? Other then purple heat sinks and all that crap?

koabich

First of all the Novak unit is digital. You can also change the cutoff voltage. It has a built in Dead Short mode. And it doesn't rely on the charge remaining in your battery to power the unit. You can either run it off of a wall socket or your power supply!

rc_bam226

Wait a minute, doesn't the Rayspeed tray manual say to connect the tray to a 12V power supply for operation?

mo

iTrader: (7)

You only have to put power to the Rayspeed tray if you are dischargeing less than 6 cells. It also has adjustable cutoff of .9 or .1v and adjustable discharge rate of 5amp or 1amp.

Steve Weiss

A few other features that the Novak Smart Tray has that might be of interest to you:

Adjustable cut off and dead short mode: It's like having a couple different trays in one... you can have it equalize your cells down to whatever voltage you want, or you can have it deep discharge down to zero volts per cell

It's also been designed to be very rugged: you can put fully charged battery packs into the smart tray without fear that the tray will overheat and blow up

rice98w

anyone know if the unit can run off of 240v? UK style? like is it switchable at the back or anything?

if not, how can i run the smart tray in the uk?

cheers

Steve Weiss

It comes supplied with a pigtail connector that you can attatch to your regulated 12V power supply.

rice98w

excellent, cheers

CRASH

iTrader: (26)

The only problem I see with the Smart Tray is you have to have your batteries in a certain configuration. Especially for dead shorting. All of my packs are opposite of the way the tray is laid out and there is no way to dead short the pack when it is on the tray upside down.

What other trays are out there that work well for dead shorting?

Thanks,

j240z

If you are referring to the output + and - battery bars, all you have to do is desolder the bars and flip them so they are now pointing 180deg. This will allow you to use the smart tray but your labels may now be upside down.....hope this makes sense...

CRASH

iTrader: (26)

Yes I considered flipping them 180 degrees but unfortunately that is not an option with my Xray and saddle packs. It puts the positive on the wrong side of the car.

What about the Integy Zero Equalizer Discharge Board? It is Bi-Polar. Not as trick as the Novak but would make things much easier. Not to mention I can get 4 of them for the price of the Novak.

Thanks,