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battery charging help

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spee-d

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ok here we go. i just picked up a mrc super brain 960 charger. i have read that i should set the amps at 1.0-1.5. what is the deal with the mv setting. i want to know what i should set it at to charge a sub c pack 3800 mah pack for my baja it`s a new pack so what should i do? i know nothing about batterys. i know i sound like a noob but help.
 
no answer but hopefully some helpful info

I feel a little rediculous that I have both been extensively trained in electronic repair and have even taught a few classes but i'm not sure what you are referring to on your particular model of charger so I'll give you some basic information that will hopefully arm you with the ability to answer your own question.

Volts, V, mv are a measure of potential. what a battery's "push" capabilty is. The higher the voltage of a battery, the greater it's ability to overcome resistance or produce work....as a battery discharges it's voltage drops as well. How fast it drops over time is usually a result of it's chemical composition. some batteries will hold a very stable voltage until nearly depleated then drop rapidly, others, drop voltage linearly nearly proportional to it's state of discharge.

Ohms, don't hear much about in RC that i've noticed but it's the work end of electronics and on the opposite side of the spectrum of volts. It's a measure of resistance. Whether it be a physical resistance such as a material with a reduced electricity passing ability or it's electrical, like a coil whose opposing lines of flux create the resistance is the same result. It reduces voltage accross it and slows current. I'll get to this more later.

Amps, milliamps, ma: is a measure of current. That actual passing of electricity through a circuit. mah is milliamp-hours is just a measure of current capacity and why your larger rated batteries are usually physically larger in size and if not are significantly more expensive from a more demanding chemical composition.

To keep this as simple as I can, any electrical circut has 3 basic components. A voltage source, a load or resistor or some sort that produces work, and a ground. in our rc cars, the battery is both the source and the ground because the battery itself is two parts. a positive side and a negative side (no smart guys, i'm not getting into electron flow or hole flow here) but there is no internal connection from one to the other in a normally operating battery. although some after time and poor care will eventually start to "leak" internally thus you now have a bad batt.

to visualize this, picture two pitchers on a counter with a spout at the bottom each and hose between the two with a shut off valve in that hose. the pitchers are your positive and negative battery terminals, fill one with water full, that one is your positive terminal (technically negative since it's full of electrons but we'll not get into that now either) and the empty one is the negative terminal and the valve between them is a resistor...or say..esc. with that valve in the middle closed, it is set at MAX resistance...electrically speaking, it's an open, not a complete circuit. As you open that valve a little it's resistance decreases or it's ohms are reduced and the current, amps(water) begins to flow from the full pitcher to the empty pitcher. If you can visualize this well, you can imagine seeing the hose between the two, the hose on the full pitcher side has no air in the line but with the valve only slightly open, there is just a trickle of water on the empty pitcher side, yet the water is moving through both sides at an equal pace. Current is the same in a series circuit at all points. But the voltage or potential drops accross the resistor(valve). The more you open the valve or decrease the resistance the faster the current moves....atlas, until the other pitcher fills. As the other pitcher fills to halfway and the once full pitcher empties to halfway, the voltage drops. You'll notice the rate of equalization begins to slow. Once both pitchers are equal, current no longer flows and the battery is now fully discharged. sorta, still has same charge really, it didn't "lose" electricity, they are just now balanced and no longer trying to equalize.

To charge a battery you have to reverse this process, i thought i didn't have a cool visual for this but I just came up with one if you can follow.
Now we bring in a charger. A larger, heavier sealed container full of water with an outlet in the bottom going to the positive (originally full pitcher) and a line in the top that comes from the bottom of the negative (originally empty) pitcher. The charger has to be large enough to overcome the static balance of the two pitchers. to help, picture the charger being a 4' tall 8" cylinder between the two pitchers. The water from the charger, being at a level much higher than the positive pitcher starts to flow into the positive pitcher. The vacuum at the top of the pitcher (remember, it's a sealed unit) begins to pull water from the negative pitcher into the top of it of the charger so the water level in the sealed cylinder *(charger) never decreases, merely takes water from one and puts it in the other and will only stop when disconnected or it pulls all remaining water from negative pitcher and puts it in positive pitcher.

Hope you followed all that. now the charger. Most simple chargers are current sensing. Electronically controlled to limit how much current, or rate of charge is allowed. As the battery charges, the charger increases it's voltage accordingly to maintain set current...all the way up till it's cut off voltage is set, indicating a fully charged battery. here's why trickle chargers work better...fast charging creats heat heat increases resistance. With increased heat and resulting increased resistance, a charger has to apply a higher voltage to maintain rate of charge but is give a false cut off do to the temp. Slow charging, trickle charging or peak charging dramatically cuts the rate of charge creates a much cooler battery and less suseptible to a less than full charge cut off.

Most chargers I see now are smart enough to fast charge initially then automatically switch to a reduced current charge at first cut off indication and cycle again at reduced current, the battery then cools back to normal and as charger hits it's cutoff the second time, it's at a full charge.

Being that i have been out of the battery scene for a while, I can only guess that the mv setting on your charger is a programmable limmiter in some way to either allow specific charging for different size batteries or even to determine it's rate of charge. I would recommend looking on the manufacturer's website if they have one for an online manual for that particular model of charger.

I know this was a lot of hot air but I hope it helps more than just you. Or deleted by the mods...lol

http://www.modelrectifier.com/resources/batterychargers/rb960.PDF

In just a fraction of the time it took me to write all that out i was able to find your answer in the manual.
Remember that peak cut off i mentioned in my wordy description above? On your charger the delta voltage..or the difference in voltage applied by the charger at full charge indication of the battery, can be programmed. However unless you have a battery with it's recommended deltaV listed, i wouldn't mess with it and let the smart part of the charger do it's thing. As in just plug in your battery and press start. Well sorta, i'd reduce the charge rate from 3amps to a 3rd of that...unless you in a hurry and have a cheap, ealily replaceable battery. In either case, I included the link for the manual .pdf at the top of this. Enjoy the read. I hope I described enough in my previous post that the advanced settings make sense without you getting water all over your kitchen.:hehe:
 
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1-2 amps is sufficient for 5 cell receiver packs. I realize the Baja has larger cells than 1/8th scales use, it may be able to take more amps.
I charge my 6 cell 3300 packs at 4 amps, no problem.
 
On my MRC 959, I don't adjust the MV setting and it does just fine on all my NiMH and NiCAD packs/cells. The Mv setting is to adjust the drop off when the cells peak so you can fine tune it if you know your cells really well.

For a basher like me, I just let the charger figure out what's best and only adjust the charge current setting. Rarely do I go over 1A and I almost always just use .5A. I get a better/longer lasting charge out of my receiver packs at .5A as well as my AA's for my camera. I use a 4-cell holder to charge my AA's for my camera with that charger. It does a lot better job for me than those chargers that come with the cells you buy at walgreens or whatever.

As for the charge current setting, I mentioned on your other thread that I'd hesitate to go over 2A with that due to the lighter duty wires/plug since it's a receiver type pack vs a normal stick pack with fat wires and heavier plug. The lighter wires/plug can't handle high current and will get hot and possibly melt if you charge at too high of a setting.
 
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