Question about a peak charger........

[DarkTari]

Yesterday I took all the S2K bodies (3) off my Sports and put the chassis on some new bodies I have. Now this standard Sport, I charged about 30 seconds with a 4AA batt charger ( idea from Sessiz). Put that baby on the floor and it flew, I mean this 1.6 ran like a 2.6, almost like it was dual celled for about 2-3 minutes. Then I charged it on the tx and it ran like a 1.6, tried to charge it again on the 4AA charger and the batt got warm, still ran like a 1.6.

Logic please?

[kwikbb]

Logic please?

I 2nd that Q! These damn things are sooo strange some times I stopped using a 4AA charger the moment I fried my dual cell !
Now it's a 3AA charger that pumps out approx. 3.87v, i give my single 150mah ridez a 2 min. charge.... what can i say i'm a slow learner lol. I'll push it till it busts

-word

[sessiz]

I can't give ya the logic but I will speculate. You are giving the single cell a jolt of nearly 6volts at like what 1000mah, way too much power for that single cell. I think it's like drinking a quart of cheap liquor in less than a minute. You will spit some of that extra juice out.

[noxorc]

I fried my dual cell !

body parts.

[hue35]

I have noticed the same deal. A single 45 second charge is only pumping in a small fraction of the juice the batteries can handle. I think of it like a squirt gun... when it's full you're shooting a strong stream, and when it gets empty, it squirts out that pathetic little limpniss drizzle. Try 3 or 4 charges from the controller and it will probably be closer to your 4AA charger @ 30 seconds...

BTW... you mofackis do this shiat up right... props to all y'all.

hue35

[crazydave]

It's a proven fact that the faster you charge a battery, the faster it will discharge. That's why in 1/10th scale, most people with matched cells and peak chargers, charge at 5A, some reccomend 3-4A to prolong battery life, but most charge at 5 to get the most from their batteries, and throw battery life to the wind. So by doubling the batteries used you doubled the mA your pushing, and charged the battery twice as fast.

Also I noticed if you push more voltage into a battery, it will take a higher voltage while chargeing, and intially it will put out a higher voltage, but this is slight, maybe just a couple hundreths of a volt.

I personally would not reccomend charging a single cell with 6 volts. Most batteries might take it, but some will not. I use 2 AAAs to charge, and when they're properly peaked the batteries are slightly warm, and very punchy. Whenever I just do a quick timed charge off the controller it always seems so much slower, like the batteries are already dying. That's part of the reason why I wish more people would pay attention when I'm talking about peak chargeing, the battery is your source of power, so how can you worry about all these other mods, when your limiting your potential right at the beginning.

It's so simple to watch for voltage drop with your volt meter. You see the voltage slowly climb, it might bob up and down slighlty, but for the most part it goes steadily up. Then it will level off, and stay at it's peak voltage for a little bit, then start to drop consistantly down. When charging a new battery it might start to drop early, but I usually wait for it to drop about .05 volts before I pull it off. After the battery has been broken in, it gets more consistant, and easier to judge, you also get an idea of where it's going to drop everytime, and you can start to pull it off as soon as you see the drop. I've had nothing but success chargeing my batteries this way, also by runnning my NiCds all the way down, and running NiMHs down to about 1.2v. If you cycle your batteries properly, they'll just get better, and better.

[noxorc]

I have noticed the same deal. A single 45 second charge is only pumping in a small fraction of the juice the batteries can handle. I think of it like a squirt gun... when it's full you're shooting a strong stream, and when it gets empty, it squirts out that pathetic little limpniss drizzle. Try 3 or 4 charges from the controller and it will probably be closer to your 4AA charger @ 30 seconds...

BTW... you mofackis do this shiat up right... props to all y'all.

hue35

Welcome to the bit Pimp Hood Hue35.

Make sure you see All aspects this forum has to offer...
If ya got any questions....just ask..

Homies Rule

-nox

[hue35]

thanks for the fine welcome nox.

One more thought after reading crazydave's post is that charging with an AC charger takes a lot of the guesswork out of the mix and makes it a lot easier to get a consistent charge. Charging batteries with batteries makes it difficult to get the same charge every time. Superfly and I built AC chargers a while ago and haven't looked back. When running the same setup, our runtime is almost exactly the same every time. Best thing that 12-Bit biatch ever talked me into.

hue35

[sessiz]

I gots a plug in charger for home and when I go over someones house. I definatly prefer the plugin, but sometimes there aint a plug around.

[crazydave]

I've been meaning to build a plug in charger, but I had a cigar box full of AAAs from when my wife used to work for a pager company. I charge my cars a couple times, and they're not the same, by the 4th charge they're still alive, but not putting out enough for me, so I throw them away.

It's been fun blowing through batteries without a care, but I need to build some kind of plug in charger before the batteries run out. What did you guys use? I've got a 4.5v 400mA adapter from a portable CD player. I think this will be perfect for chargeing dual cells, but I'm not sure I want to risk my single cells using it.

[sessiz]

This is the charger I have.
http://tinyrc.com/lincoln/Worlds/MicroRC/BitCharger.htm

The only thing I changed was the adaptor. I went with an adustable 1.5v-12v 300mah.

I'ld also like a lil more info as to how you watch the bat with a multimeter for a peak. I mean do you open her up and stick the probes in the car's cavity while charging?

[Buzzbait]

I got my Piranha peak charger a few weeks ago. It's a friggin' steal for $50.00!!!!!! A good peak charger makes you hate using those wimpy charging bases on controllers.

[mpbiv]

Interesting.....I ended up building my charger similar to the one in the link.



However I started with 2 AA's supplying the juice and replaced them with a DC adapter because it seemed the current from the AA's was too much for my 40mah dual cell. Now it has a 3v 200mah DC adapter powering it.

Everything I have been reading on charging says you should charge at a voltage equal or close to your batteries rating. For this reason I don't see it being good to have 3+ akaline battery chargers unless you have some sort regulating circuit on it or 3+ cells in your car.

As for the charger on the controllers, from what I picked up on tinyrc, one 45sec charge usually fills the 50mah stock battery halfway. So I always double charge.

[mpbiv]

I'ld also like a lil more info as to how you watch the bat with a multimeter for a peak. I mean do you open her up and stick the probes in the car's cavity while charging?

I want to know more about this as well, it sounds almost like an art. I plan to put some external connections on my charger that go to the charging stand so that voltage across the battery can be checked externally. But first I need to get a new multimeter, mine went kaput and is showing false values all over the place.

[bdebde]

I use a high end peak charger (from 1/10th rc's) for all my 2 and 3 cell cars. I also use for single cells when I have time to wait. For quick charges on single cells, I use an ac adaptor that plugs into my controller. It is 3 volt 1000ma adapter. It charges almost as good as peak charger, but not quite up to full capacity. The battery gets warm after 2 charges so that's where I stop.