Proper Battery Treatment
 

Ok, now that I've finally gotten into rc racing on a weekly basis, im starting to think my old battery charging and care techniques just arent cutting it anymore. I have 3 pro match 1.16+ GP3300's that I charge (and occasionally discharge:lol: ) on a Duracrap deluxe pulse charger. I've heard bad things about pulse charging and even worse things about not fully discharging and equalizing the packs before recharging them. I'm looking into getting a better charging setup. A tray and a good charger/power supply, but honestly I dont know a whole lot about how the high end stuff works and what I need and dont need. So, educate me:D

I recommend you go Orange.
Novak Millenum Pro Charger, N-Power power supply, & Smart Tray.
User friendly, fully adjustable w/ mutiple profiles

My gear: Pulsar sport, and a Robitronic dischargetray. Works great!

Nate's right. The Novak gear is good stuff, easy to use, and will treat your batteries well. You can find N-Power's used for good prices and I've seen several Millenium Pro's for sale here.

I've recently picked up a Novak Smart Tray and love it. Easy to use and essential for keeping your packs in top shape.

Rob

ok, after looking around for a while Im kind of leaning towards this: Integy INDI 16X9 v6

"16X9v6 is our best AC/DC computerized charger. Display - Indigo blue backlit LCD 2x16. IR measurement during charging, discharging & cycling, 10 programmable memory slots, data recall on all battery vital information, Torpedo type built-in boosting charge, partial charge is adjustable from 10% to 50%, new Linear VESC fuzzy logic charge, On/off trickle with automatic trickle rate, 6 user selectable ring tones, On/off auto repeak, 1 to 60 minutes repeak delay time, triple decimal digit voltage display, 1 to 10 cells handling capability. Works on almost any Ni-Cd & Ni-MH type battery, 50 to 6000mAh battery capacity, 0.1A to 7.0A charge rate, 0.1A to 20.0A discharge rate, 0.003V to 0.020V/cell voltage threshold, 1 to 60 minutes delay after charge, 1 to 60 minutes delay after discharge. 1 to 9 number of cycles, display charge capacity mAh, discharge capacity mAh, two decimal digit current display, discharge average voltage, 4 wires alligator clips output cord. 16X9v9 is very easy to use and has all the great features of the 16X5v6. This unit is very versatile and accept three different kinds of power source; 12VDC, 100-120VAC or 200-240VAC. It has an internal 14 Amp switching power supply (18A peak output), 16X9v9's internal 14A power supply is powerful enough to operate the INDI Dyno, together with the INDI Dyno, you can check motor rpm, break-in motors and drive lathe motor. Dimensions: 9.25"x8.75"x3"

ok thats a lot to read but basically, its AC/DC (no extra power supply=:nod: ) It charges, discharges, cycles, runs lathes, breaks in motors, and costs as much as or less than a peak charger, tray, and power supply bought separatley. What do you guys think about this?

I would get the lrp pulsar competion or the lrp 2 as it runs in motors, charges baterry packs (of course :D ) and if you want discharge packs it discharges at 10amp (i don't use it as i have a discharge tray)

Chazz

Hi,

Check out these threads for more info: -

http://www.rctech.net/forum/showthre...threadid=40638

http://www.rctech.net/forum/showthre...threadid=49298

http://www.rctech.net/forum/showthre...threadid=49383

From the tests I have done so far, the most importnt thing to do is discharge and equalise. I equalise down to 0.1v per cell, it works very well for me. Others go to 0.9. I'm working on different chargling methods, so far I don't see a lot of difference.

Chris

S15Racer ... you will probably still need an equaliser. The Indi 16X9 v6 is not designed to equalise individual cells. It is designed to charge or discharge a complete pack.

You could probably discharge each cell individually on the INDI. This will take you 6 times longer than discharging a complete pack and sticking on an equaliser.

My story
 

I was in your shoes about 2 years ago. Me and my two kids started racing off road every week, so I needed to get more batteries and a better charger.

So it's been about 1.5 years now and we have about 15 sets of GP3300's. We bash and race.

I use a Dynamite Twin Peak charger. All it does is charge...4 amps...all day long. We charge the batteries in the morning and then at the track at night I peak them again before practicing then racing. We run all the batteries down before the end of the night and store them pretty much just discharged by the buggies and trucks. We don't do anything else.

Most of the batteries have well over 150 cycles of charging and running, and are still going strong.

What I'm finding at our level of racing, one kid almost to the top of Rookie Class on a regular basis, one kid solidly in the b Mains, and me low B mains.....is that our batteries are not what is keeping us from driving better or keeping us from winning races. It's our driving skill.

I'm guessing at your level of racing that you can do all kinds of mojo to your batteries but that's not gonna do anything but give you a psychological boost.

count me on that!... Team novak products/accessories are great!.. You won't go wrong with the NOVAK...
WELCOME to the R/C WORLD !!!...
:tire: :nod:

I could care less about the performance increase but I'm really interested in making sure my batteries last a long time. I don't exactly have a car charger, since I intended to do airplanes first.

Great Planes Triton Charger (3A dis/5A charge) ~100$ excellent deal.

No equalizer.
Light bulb discharger.

I've noticed that whereas my packs once could do 3900 mAh and 9+V they are down to 3400 and 3300 mAh and 8.5V.

Time to get an equalizer, probably a Novak SmartTray. :(

How often should we equalize?

Every time we use the batteries or once per month or something else?
I currently equalize at the race day just before I charge them!

Nick

and how about maintenance zaps? when and how often should this be done? every week before charging the cells for the first time for the raceday?

True, you'll also need an equalizer. Personally, I prefer to be on the safe side, so I use one with active cut off at 0,9 volts. Works great.

About the Indy charger; It's a great charger with a lot of features, high value for money.

The main thing to consider about this charger, is it pushes the cells harder.

The good thing is that the cells is very punchy, which is especially great for stock racing. Also, it simply NEVER false peaks.

But if you're in a warm environment (25 degrees celsius or above), the cells will get very hot. You probably wont be able to keep the pack under 60 deg C (unless you use a fan, but many claims that aint good for the cells).

The hard pushing might shorten pack life, but so far, I personally havent experienced any problems with that.

You'll also have to use more conservative cut off values.

Personally I'm very satisfied with my 16x5v6. (Same software)

This is also what I do.

I got Fukuyama cells, so I use the recommendations at www.fukuyama.com.

hey cole,

yeah, i've got the 16x5v6 too, and have acutually been using it since i found out it wasn't broken.:p it does push the cells very hard, even at 3mv/cell cutoff. they do run very well when charged with the vesc type of charge, and you are correct in saying that it never false peaks.

i did want to note that it has caused my weaker (older) packs to vent. they may have 30 cycles on them, so i really won't say they are truly old, just older than my race stuff. i'm not dissatisfied with it, but there is certainly a price to pay to get everything out of a battery on every cycle. i typically use the millenium to charge, but the eagle/integy charger does put some mad heat into the pack, and i believe the runs are better as a result.

I race every week. Usually a pack is only used once, but if I do use it twice I don't discharge it before recharging.

After I get done racing I discharge all packs to 5.4 a pack. On the day of the next race I first discharge all the packs again to 0.9v before charging them at 6.0 amps to 30mv cutoff. Right before I am going to run the pack I then repeak at 6.0v with a 40mv cutoff.

Once a month I will tray all my batteries to 5.4v after they have been run and discharged. I then will tray them to 3.0v just before chargeing them for the next run.

I used to user an LRP sport, and a 18.5 amp bulb discharger whgich worked very well. I recently purchased a Pr-Trak to replace them though. I use a Rayspeed discharge tray. In my opinion Rayspeed and Novak make the only trays worth spending money on.

I usually race about every weekend so I discharge my batteries down to 5.4 and leave them till the morning of the race. Then I put them on a tray.

Equalize
 

Hey Guys

My batteries are usually dead shorted. I don't recommend this to anyone who just wants to play this is strictly for racing only. I charge my batteries at 6 amps with my GFX and after running i discharge all my SMC 35 amp packs at 35 amps to 5.4 volts and then put it on my novak tray in dead short mode for about 35 minutes more after the lights start blinking and then short it. recently I have cycled my packs and the SMC 35's are at 1.185 and 390 secs of run time at 30 amp discharge. I lost roughly 20-30 sec of runtime but i expected that.

Hi Seaball

I had a pack of Sanyo 3000 HV, which is 2 years old by now. Dont know how many cycles, but I would assume it's around 60 +. Whith this particular pack, the CDC cant cut off properly, this pack gets extremely hot. I believe this pack drops off very slow, when it finally peaks. On the other hand, I've never had really good performance with this pack, so it might be due to a damaged pack. Anyway, since it never performed well, it's going to the recyclle bin in a few weeks, when I get my new cells.

By the way, my LHS didnt had the Cadillac, so I bought a Ford GT40 instead.