Originally Posted by CamR
Hi,
As a Pro-Trak newbie, courtesy of Santa Claus, I have read all 15 pages of this thread before asking this question.
Can anyone advise a good starting set up for charging 3300 & 3700 6 packs for 5 minute 19turn races.
I am a relative novice when it comes to battery care but having checked a few of my packs on the Pro-Trak I want to do something that both maintains battery conditions and optimises performance.
I am currently charging using the stock settings, i.e., pressing charge and letting the charger do it's stuff.
All help gratefully received
TVM
Cam
Hi Cam,
The following text is directly from my website. I'll add a couple of notes afterwards too.
"General charging technique
I have been asked a few times recently about my regimen for using my cells. I do believe you need to have a method which you stick to as it seems that these cells do like to be treated the same way every time. If you have read most of this web site and the Pro Trak website you will see that fully equalizing your packs is essential for getting the most run time out of your cells. Even if you do not use all of that run time it is useful to have as it gets you further back on the discharge curve (higher voltage) at the end of the run. So saying, the following method is what I do with my cells.
After racing I will discharge to 1v/cell to find out what run time I have left, then put my cells away (no equalizing here).
The night before my next race I will pre-equalize my cells for around four hour and maybe leave the last cells on the tray overnight.
On the day of the race I will put my cells on the discharge tray and leave them there until I need to take them off to charge.
I charge my cells as normal (for me this means temperature charging in the winter to 115F and peak charging in the summer with a cutoff of .03v)
Repeat.
I don’t like the idea of leaving my cells on the discharge trays for too long as I think sometimes strange things can happen, particularly with older cells. A lot of people have had some good results with dead shorting but I have heard of some problems. If for example problems will only happen to 5% of cells packs that still means you may lose 1 pack in 20, for me it is not worth the risk. Also the much touted improvement in cell voltage is easily explained by the reduced run time, I would be much more interested in the voltage at 5 minutes as a more accurate comparison.
Generally I can get over 4200Mah into my 3300’s when I use this method and from the tests we have done the more you put in, the more you will get out."
This has been on website for quite some time and these days I have 3 equalisers so I do not pre equalise anymore, I just put them on the trays as soon as I get to the track, I usually get 3 hours minimum into my cells before they are charged this seems to be enough.
Also from my website you will see the best results from discharge data i have is for mutli phasic charging and for hard pulse charging so I combine both methods. I use Multi Phasic set to 5A / 7A / 5A with the 2nd stage 7A charge using hard pulse set to 30%. With my 3700's can generally put 4400Mah into my cells very consistantly. I also use a 115F temperature cutoff when the ambient temp is below 85F. Do not use multi phasic or hard pulse with IB cells, they do not like it. I have not tested IP cells yet.
I'm always interested to hear what people are getting in thier cells. I know some Pro Trak guys at my club who can get 4800 Mah in quite regularly. I don't know many people who can do more than 4400 with GP's. My first batch of GP's I could get 4700 in easily, this batchis not taking as much.
Anything else, please ask.