Can some of you guys,describe shortly how you go about charging, discharging, not discharging, peaking, repeaking, or just how you take care of you batteries on a race day/night?
P.S. I know its a pain of a question but Im kinda lost.

charge @ 6 amps for local events and club racing.
dis charge on a integy 30 amp tray until room temp.
than dead short pack while still in tray until next time you use it.
always invest in a quality charger.
never cycle a pack unless you "think" there is an issue with it.
sell your packs when they get old (maybe every 4 months)
never buy more than 3 packs at one time (GP always updates there cells)
when the pack is peaked it should be close to 140 deg (gp 3300 like heat)
never charge your pack hours before your race(get them to peak minutes before your race)
buy only what you can afford and buy from a well known matcher(smc,power push,pro match etc...)

you will find that there is no one way to do things..and you will find that some will not agree with me,lol. i race oval 4 cell this is what works for me...hope this helps?

youve never had a problem dead shorting them? Also leave them in the tray until completely dead? Thus "dead" shorting?

put the batts in a discharge tray intill the lights go out than take a piece of solder and solder it across the + and the -. If there is still two much voltage in the pack the solder will melt. So then just let it sit in the tray longer and try agian. when you dead short you lower the internal resistance and the voltage goes up. Hope this helps.

Brandon

Really ok. I have yet to see anyone out here do that. (ive only been to 2 races) But 2 of you agree on it ill definetly try it. Do you do this for storage, also?

What about this 0.90 I keep hearing about?

If they are not in the car, keep them dead-shorted.

If you have a turbo 35 you disscharge the pack down to .90 per cell so that would be 3.60 than put it on the tray and when the lights go out then dead short. so wit a 6 cell pack that would be 5.40. hope this helps.

Brandon Snyder

Ok And I c should do this in between runs?

youve never had a problem dead shorting them? Also leave them in the tray until completely dead? Thus "dead" shorting?


the integy 30 amp dis charge tray will take a pack down to 0 in about 30 minutes time. i let the pack sit in the tray until it comes back down to room temp about 78 deg ..than while in the tray dead short the pack. that is a piece of solder from neg to pos...keep pack shorted until next time you race.

now don't get me wrong at leat half the guys on here will not agree with that method. only the fast guys will,lol. noone wants to kill a good pack by dead shorting in correctly. the method above is fool proof. the use of solder is like a safety net or a fuse. if there is by chance some voltage left in the pack the solder just melts..not your pack... hope this helps

Oh and the charger I have is a reedy Quasar pro, and i just bought a Tekin B112, I have an indy tray and a home made 20 amp bulb discharger

ok so the "fast" guys do this and you use the same pack for maybe your 2 or 3 heats and the main? Possibly.
Would that be correct?
sorry about all the questions but this will help me alot and maybe in a few years Ill see you all at a National race!!!!!!LOL

I have a few practice packs and then i have like 3 good packs i run my worst pack the first race and then the better one and then my good one for the main. it is a good idea to have atleats two pack to run one first heat then the other batt second heat and the pack you ran in the first heat for the main. Make sure the batt you use in the first heat is youe best because you will run that in the main if you only have two. I agree wit katf1sh the solder is just like a fuse.

Brandon Snyder

Great, thanks so much for all the info, I have 6 packs right now 3 I bought used from ebay and 3 I bought new somewhere else non matched etc. So Ill try with all and find the best ones. If anyone else has anything to add Im open to anything.
Milky(Andy)

I would reccomed you to send them out to get zapped and matched. I would go with whiplash terry Brown is a very nice guy to deal with. If you are intrested let me know he zappes and put lables on each cell a $1 a cell.

$1 thats it? How do I get ahold of him?

thats all it will be alot eiser to match them give him a call tommrow his number is 1-717-865-5032 And that is terry brown he is a very nice guy Tell terry that brandon sent you.

Brandon

Thanks alot.

no problem anytime I will do what ever i can to help u out.

Brandon Snyder

1 pack for each round of qualifiers, you can re-run a pack after about 2 hours rest.

unmatched packs are for drills and toy cars..when you can afford 3 packs buy matched packs even if there not 1.18's buy what you can afford.

if you are racing you need a few matched packs...if your in your drive way playing with your car you can use whatever for batteries. none of the above realy need apply to unmatched drill packs.

Yea I have 2 matched packs that I bought used. How old, I dont know. But I will get some more. You say keep them a few months then sell them, thats probably what Ill do.

i would sell them in like 3 months or so if you need good packs talk to terry and he will sell you batts if you need them i would wait a bit to get new batts because they are comming out with 3700 and 3800.

Also yea it is for racing. I won three heats in this "rookie" class, then my batt. dumped when I was catching the leader. LOSER

Dont they have to be approved first?

I dont fallow up to mich but i think they are going to be aproved on jan1 i realy cant answer that for you but i would not go out stocking up on 3300 because you never know what might change.

I see what you mean. I wont, I dont have any money left anyway.:)

The minimum I would recomend to get by with would be two good packs. Run one for the first heat, run the other for the second... run the first pack for the third heat, then run the second pack for the fourth...

Discharge down to .9v per cell imediately after each heat... brining each cell down to zero volts on a discharge tray, is not a nessesity between heats, even if you do dead short for storage... but you could do it if you feel it helps. The main thing is you need to let a pack rest for at least a hour before you charge it again, longer then a hour would be better.

Three packs helps cause you can let a pack rest more then one heat...

Assuming yor packs aren't junk... batteries like stock motors are probably not your biggest issue in trying to go fast... Chassis setup is the bigg issue... It's good to learn good battery managment, but I bet you can go faster with the packs you have, if you just work on chassis setup... Untill you've gotten your chassis setup down, it may be a waste of your money to go buy killer battery packs. That is don't expect a battery pack to take you from the C main to the A main it just isn't going to happen.

What? Batteries wont help me get to the A main? Drn it. No just kidding. I just want to do it right. No more dumps in the main or any other races. Then I can eliminate that problem. I just want my only excuse to be my lack of driving experience. I think Ill get one of those Novak dischargers with the digital #'s on it. Also a racer I met this past weekend had a discharger that held like 4 batteries in it tray at once. Anyone know which one this is and where I can get it?

milky call murdock rc and ask rob about the integy discharger it holds 4 cells and brings them down to 0 its awesome and his price is right on it.John

www.fusionbatteries.com

4 cells or 4 packs?

4 cells!

Yea the battery tray I was looking for held multiple packs. I cant remember the name of it. Also yesterday I did the dead short thing for storage, I used my little indy zero tray, everythings ok so far. The batteries were cool when I did it but there was a slight voltage in them still like .39. Ok?

that should be ok i think.

Brandon

perfect, Thanks so much you guys!!!

Did you get a hold of terry Brown?

This week isnt a good week for me $$$ wise. ill have to wait another week or so. What does this "zapping" do anyway? Just curious

Milky

Do NOT buy 3700's or 3800's!!!

At least not for this seasons racing. No decision has been made for next season yet and won't be until probably October.

If you dumped 3300's however, I would look for a problem.

3300's take nearly 50 amps to dump them in 4 minutes w/ a full charge. If you ran that stock motor and pulled 50 amps...YOU probably need a NEW Motor now...

If your track does not follow Roar rules then get 37s or 38s. They are proving to be better. Many people are over looking the runtime. It is true that in stock you don't use the whole battery. But if you cycle 3300s verse 3700s and follow the voltage in 10 second intervals to 240 secs at 35 amps, the 3700s stay in the high voltage longer. This will keep your lap time close to the same from start to finish.

Milky, it is a good thing to ask alot of questions. It helps you learn and make your own desicions about things. You'll find rather its batteries, motors, tires, chassis, the setup, everything is more of a personnal preference. It can also save you some money by letting others do the testing on new products first so you can get an idea of what is better. Like the old saying, if the winner of the A-Main had a bag of *@!^ (Crap) hanging on the back of his car, everyone the following week would do the same.

LOL yea. Ive been around racing all my life and I do know that it is Monkey see Money do.

zapping will bring the cell back to life if it weak. may not always but should help.

Brandon

Found this on the internet about battery charging...

The NiMH battery is affected by memory also, but to a lesser degree. No scientific research is available that compares NiMH with NiCd in terms of memory degradation. Neither is information on hand that suggests the optimal amount of maintenance required to obtain maximum battery life. Applying a full discharge once every three months appears right. Because of the NiMH battery’s shorter cycle life, over-exercising is not recommended.

A hand towel must be cleaned periodically. However, if it were washed after each use, its fabric would wear out very quickly. In the same way, it is neither necessary nor advisable to discharge a rechargeable battery before each charge — excessive cycling puts extra strain on the battery.

Exercise and Recondition — Recondition is a slow, deep discharge that removes the remaining battery energy by draining the cells to a voltage threshold below 1V/cell.

The memory phenomenon can be explained in layman’s terms as expressed by Duracell: “The voltage drop occurs because only a portion of the active materials in the cells is discharged and recharged during shallow or partial discharging. The active materials that have not been cycled change in physical characteristics and increase in resistance. Subsequent full discharge/charge cycling will restore the active materials to their original state.”

When NiMH was first introduced there was much publicity about its memory-free status. Today, it is known that this chemistry also suffers from memory but to a lesser extent than the NiCd. The positive nickel plate, a metal that is shared by both chemistries, is responsible for the crystalline formation.


So dead shorting (deep cycle) the cells are good but not necessary after each charge.
Good to take down to below 1v/cell threshold discharge (short cycle) everytime.


Very interesting....
Nothing beats new cells..:)