5 amps is fine

Question: As I don't have an equalising tray, is it acceptable to connect my charger/discharger to each cell in turn and discharge that particular cell to 1volt? Will that do the same job as an equalising tray?

Or, as I've just bought my first brand new batteries (IB4200), how about charging and discharging each individual cell before they are built up as a way of equalising them?

no spend 10 -15 quid and get a equalising tray, cant balance cells properly that way, even the LRP or nosram trays will do the job fine,

Col, both of those methods will work, but very time consuming. I wouldn't bother cycling the new cells, just means one less good run on them. Equalising is worth doing though as they do self-discharge at different rates during storage.

Col it just won't work as well, I honestly urge you to borrow/by a tray to care for your cells, I think the first few charges are the most important so you get all the cells on a level playing field!

what's everyone's views on charging the IB4200's twice in one day?

heard that its OK as long as you let them cool down properly but, obviously its going to half there life time

how about giving them a hug after every run?

...starting to get scared to use these cells!!

Twice a day is fine, they are normally a bit better on their second run, but let them cool.

Oh, and if the hug doesn't work, try a little dry humping instead :)

Oh dear :p

I make a point of using my IB's twice a day, you get more punch on the second run :)

Really? How long have you had them for?

They're over a year old now and still pretty good, overall power has gone down but they still have pretty much all of their capacity.

im in the same boat as richard.. i had my ibs well over a year and only just replaced them after xmas.. 3 packs, ran twice a day.

It's weird that you've managed to keep them going for a year, yet other people (and there's a lot of them recently) are having cells die on them within 3 charges. I wonder if it's the way they're being treated, or whether the new batch of cells made are really dodgy?

I have only ever had two complaints and they were from the same person, but i dont think it is from the way he treated them, unless the damage was caused by soldering them up. I do know of others (Mr C and Mr P) who had dead cells on arival (but those were not of my matching, they were from a well known brand).

It could be that there are manufacturing or material issues with certain batches of cells. They certainly have a shorter life than other cells overall.

N

My IB's are on thier second season too, although they have been downgraded from 4wd and 2wd duty (twice a day on each day) to just 2wd duty for this year.

G

i got some brand new IB4200's off ebay..died in 2 charges..wasnt happy

The biggest problem I understand, with the IB cells is when they went to the WC batch(es) which were just too highly strung, I got SHV's from when they first came out, and are still plenty strong enough (18 months? and thats with long rests between charges)