New cell caring / equalising

[bigred5765]

5 amps is fine

[Col]

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?

[Col]

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?

[bigred5765]

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,

[sosidge]

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.

[super__dan]

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!

[Kopite]

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

[bigred5765]

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

[Kopite]

how about giving them a hug after every run?

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

[sosidge]

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

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by sosidge

if the hug doesn't work, try a little dry humping instead

Oh dear

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

[Kopite]

Really? How long have you had them for?

[Richard Lowe]

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.

[PaulRotheram]

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.

[Kopite]

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?

[neiloliver]

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

[Northy]

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

[losichris]

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

[DCM]

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)