Cells ??
 

I was browsing the rcracechat forum and found quite a long thread about IB cells going BANG.

Now i've seen a pack that went BANG in our region at Durham, it would have being nasty if anyone would have being sat near them ?

The reason I ask is I was going to order some IB cells, from Voodoo, but this thread gave me pause for thought.

Has anyone from our region had any problems with these cells, aparently they need treating differently to GP's, in what way ?

Laslty, can we run Lipo in the NE Regionals if we make the car up to weight ? I bought a lipo to run my touring car and it's totally brilliant, so personally i'd prefer to just run that if I could ?

Cheers.

Andy.

After this season if the cells stay as they are, I'll be using GP's next year.
I bought some IB's and GP's at the same time, both have had similar (ab)use. The IB's have lost quite a bit of performance, the capacity is still there but they have lost a lot of punch. A couple of packs have leaked too which is never good. The GP's still feel almost like new cells, havn't vented/leaked and still have almost all their capacity.
Fair enough the IB's had a bit more punch to begin with, but not enough to put up with the cells fragility IMO.

I like the idea of Lipo cells, can't wait to run them :)
It's ok to hacksaw a pack in half to fit in my BJ4 isn't it?! :p

I'm looking for some cheap packs of cells for 2WD off road use next year. I will be using brushless, don't need to be great packs. Anyone know the best place to get some cheap matched packs of GP3700's or IB3800's?

TJ Cells.....I have decided to replace my GP3300's after two years worth of (ab)use :wtf:

if u want sound advice speak to neal oliver he does batteries for all sorts of shit hes the man who nows so there:yawn:

How much are the TJ Cells packs?

Been looking at a well known store abroad they do IB3600 cells for $3.90 each, IB3800 for $4.50. IB4200 for $5.50 each and GP4300 for $6.50 each. Don't think really need 4200 or 4300, is there much difference between the IB3600 and 3800?

ur being fleeced try hong a kong a rooney pipe

The 38s are probably newer and so probably have more punch.

I recently bought some new cells for regionals, they are gp33's, I believe that these new cells, although they have the punch, they drop off quickly and need a lot more TLC than the GP's. Its just whether you want cells that last or fast cells that need alot more maintenance

Especially with brushless I don't think you need lots of power from the cells in off road? May get the IB3800's think they have a more level discharge compared to gp3300's.

are you having a laugh? i use the 42s no problem, look after them, i bought 48 cells for 177quid the shv variety matched them myself. the are great just dont kill them
the are awesome




:)

Hi Richard.

You've sort of said what I feared in you post. I reakon some new GP's will be the way forward for me then. If you can't look after them, then i've no chance.

Does anyone know if you can you run Lipo in the regionals ?

Trust me Rich, i've got one, the Trakpower and it's brilliant in every way !

You could always covvert your Bj Worlds to a BJ, the thought had crossed my mind, as the Pred's not keen on stick packs either :)

Andy.

Can I ask a question?
I just put my new Epic Monster Metal 3300 cells on their first charge on my pulsar. Settings were 4amps at 25mv cutoff. They got to 4300mAh without peaking, so I took them off, is this normal.

tc2k,

You're too high on the delta setting there, the LRP charger is different to everything else, I use 5mv (not a typo) on mine normally, 10mv if it's very cold where I'm running. Chris Doughty uses 10mv everywhere I believe. I assume the cells were pretty hot?

Andy, Lipo is not BRCA legal so to my mind cannot be used at BRCA regionals, I don't see this as optional as they are 7.4v so it simply would not be fair!

Dan

Hmm, I heard new cells take in alot more than normal. Ill try lowering the delta, I heard the pulsars was high but usually 20mv works for all my other cells. Ill try 15

Great ! I imagined as much. That's the thing I love about this hobby, something great comes along, that means it will be better and cheaper for us all in the long-run, and we have to buy more of the old stuff ! looks like GP's for me then in 2007.

PS Dan, If I start beating you at the 2007 Outdoor Regionals, you know why :)

I may well be wrong, but I was under the impression that the mV setting on the LRP Pulsars is a TOTAL value for the pack? Whereas on my Orion charger it is set PER CELL. So I would use values in the range 3-5mV, which would be equivalent to 18-30mV on a Pulsar (for six cells).

Btw, there is a thread on Chris Doughty's site where he suggests using a 20mV, not 10mV cut-off.

Unfortunately, the Pulsar manual doesn't appear to answer my question above. Although, the majority of its suggested settings use a cut-off in the 20mV range or above.

Apologies if I'm sewing yet more confusion! :D :eh?:

Aye, the pulsar cutoff is for the whole pack, but I believe Dan is saying that it actually has a higher cutoff than it says so they use lower settings to get a more normal cutoff.
Well I charged two sets last night, on first cahrge, both false peaked at around 150mAh which isnt a surprise as they were probably dorment for a while before I bought them. One reason I think they overcharged is theyve never been used and so the chemicals may need a bit of work to get em going like normal. Also, like you said the settings may have been high, finally, it was boiling inside and the charger had been running for nigh on 3 hours so was rather hot so I think the mAh it gave out was alot more than it was putting in due to heat loss as when I discharged the pack, it only gave out 2600mAh

Hhhhmmm, that's interesting, Chris must have changed as I know he defo used to use 10mv. Doesn't the manual say 20mv for nimh on sheet supplied, maybe he was quoting the party line ;)

Judge it on temperature though I say, all cells when they are charged start to get warm. With nimh as soon as they are warm they are charged, not like the old nicads which you had to charge past the peak voltage and get them warm.

As an aside, I consider some sort of equaliser more important now than ever before. Some of the nimh cells I've had have wandered all over the place whilst left both partially charged and discharged. On assembling my latest cells I equalised them before their first charge and they were all over the place, I guess due to when that cell was actually matched. Similairly I have discharged a pack to 5.4v, left them for over 2 months and had 2 cells read 0.05V purely through self discharge. I equalised the pack and seems to have been fine, but I wouldn't want to make a habbit of it. So now I deliberatly leave my cells with charge in them and equalise them before charging on race day!

Dan

Im going to have to get an equaliser I realise. However, Im skint after christmas because I spent all the money on spares and the batteries. I have about 16quid left, hopefully I can buy a decent second hand tray for that.

Interesting reading on the Pulsar delta peak.

I was always told 0.5mv p/cell... hence 30mv with a 6 cell pack. Obviously I use a 20mv delta peak with my 4 cell packs. Looking at other people's chargers (especially with 4 cell packs), that's what they use. My cells don't get too hot, and i'll often charge my cells at 6 amps.

I use old Gp3700s in my buggy, they still have plenty of punch and duration.