Confused

[Phins Fan]

:no_commen Alright so I now have a bunch of electrics and am trying to figure out how to charge it all without burning my house down. I have always been a nitro guy and KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ELECTRICS! That bieng said heres what I got:

Charger - Duratrax "ICE" - From what I hear this was the charger to have about 3/4 years ago. Its my impression it will serve me fine for my bashing needs and therefore I'm not looking to upgrade..........yet cause I'm not even sure I'm gonna keep the electrics. I suppose if I worked for Apple I might be able to read the instructions but thats not gonna happen.

I bought the cars with no batteries so I picked up a traxxas 7600mah 25c 2cell lipo to run in both my slash and my T4. Everything I have read would suggest that if I'm not to careful with the charge settings that I may relocate Massachusettes to somewhere by Hawaii. Charging amps, decharging, trickle charge, quick charge, I can say them all but dont have a clue about the purpose of all of them.

I want to give electrics a best effort try as I believe the technology appears to be passing by nitro. But not at a cost of loosing some fingers or worse.

Please help or suggest anything that will allow a total noob to give electrics a try:trout:

 

[Greywolf74]

That particular battery is a parallel pack (read THIS link for more information about parallel packs and lipo charging information in general. I have a wall of text there explaining a lot of good things to know about lipos) I would charge it at about 4-5 Amps. Discharge, trickle charge, and top-off charge is better left for NiMH and NiCD batteries. I don't suggest using them for Lipos. Also you will want to set the max charge to about 100 - 110% max for lipos. I think the ICE default is 150% which is rediculous even for NiMH and NiCD. You will need a stand alone balancer to use with the ICE. I personally use a "Astro-Blinky" with my ICE charger. The ICE is old technology but is perfectly capable of charging your Lipos. I would not charge them without a balancer though. You're also gonna need at the very least a Lipo charging sack. These can be had off of eBay or some online stores for as little as 5-10 bucks in various sizes. The smaller sizes should work just fine. These sacks are designed to encase around the Lipo in the event of a Lipo fire and try to cut off the oxygen supply to the fire. I also keep an ammo can laying around (I got mine off of eBay for 11 bucks) in case I ever have this happen to me. Now your Lipos aren't going to explode and in 99% of the cases the cells will puff first and then eventually catch fire, I've read on other forums where guys have tried to start lipo fires in order to test how safe or unsafe certain brand batteries may be. Most of the time it takes 45 minutes to a couple of hours from the time they start puffing till the time they actually catch fire and this is with a continuous charge going to them the whole time. My plan is if I ever have one catch fire. the lipo sack is my first line of defense and the ammo can is the second. the minute is see a lipo puff or if I ever smelled a lipo smoking I would stick it in the ammo can and take it outside where i can pour some sand in on top of the lipo and then lock the lid down on the ammo can to further smother the lipo in the event of it actually catching fire. Once you've determined that the Lipo is either A) not going to catch fire or B) has burnt itself out there are certain disposal methods that need to be followed in order to safely dispose of your bad lipos but that's for another thread. If you have any more questions fire away!

 

[Phins Fan]

Thanx greywolf. Alot of good info! Just curious ....what would happen if I charged without a balancer? Called the guy I got everything off of and he says theres 1 inside the charger but he doesn't know what type it is????? The "relocating mass" thing - I knew i wouldnt be that bad but have seen alot of lipo fires on youtube. 1 of the reasons the wife wanted me to run just nimh batteries. Thanx again

 

[alien13]

I rarely use a balancer. Mainly because I don't have one. When I race with a buddy of mine, I use his balancer. Another friend of mine charged his batteries for over a year without balancing, and when he tested them they were only .1v off.

 

[Greywolf74]

The Duratrax ICE charger does not have a built in balancer. The newer smart chargers have built in balancers but the ICE doesn't. Now Duratrax did make a newer version of the ICE charger that has a smart charger built into it but they changed the color to black and renamed it. can't remember the name right off. If you are using a Blue ICE charger then your friend is either mistaken or pulling your leg. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but to my knowledge they never made an ICE version with a smart charger built in.

You can charge batteries without a balancer but its not recommended. You can and probably will eventually shorten the lifespan of the battery and/or end up over charging a cell that is out of balance and thereby causing it to puff or possibly catch fire. Any one that charges without a balancer simply can't afford one or isn't being very smart about caring for their Lipos properly. This isn't a knock on you personally Alien (at least you've used your friends balancers from time to time. Probably the thing that's been saving your lipos) that's just the way I feel about it and I believe most people in any forum would agree that its a bad idea to consistently charge your Lipos without balancing them. Some people say you don't have to balance it every time and that once every 10 or 20 charges is fine but I say if you have a balancer you might as well use it. Why risk it?

Yeah if they do catch fire its pretty nasty. I've seen quite a few fires on YouTube and my buddy had one catch fire in his basement....I didn't see the fire but he couldn't get rid of the smell for weeks lol. That's why when I charge my lipos I balance them every time and I try very hard to do it while I'm working at my hobby desk that way I can really keep an eye on em while they're charging. Especially if I'm using my ICE charger because of the fact that it does use a stand alone balancer its not quite as proactive about discharging an overcharged cell. My other Charger is a Dynamite Passport Ultra. Another charger that's a little older but a good charger non the less. It has an active balancer built into it so it can do a much better job of making sure the cells stay balanced better. Don't let that discourage you though....I've never really had any problems with the ICE yet and I've been using it for awhile.

 

[alien13]

You can charge batteries without a balancer but its not recommended. You can and probably will eventually shorten the lifespan of the battery and/or end up over charging a cell that is out of balance and thereby causing it to puff or possibly catch fire. Any one that charges without a balancer simply can't afford one or isn't being very smart about caring for their Lipos properly. This isn't a knock on you personally Alien (at least you've used your friends balancers from time to time. Probably the thing that's been saving your lipos) that's just the way I feel about it and I believe most people in any forum would agree that its a bad idea to consistently charge your Lipos without balancing them. Some people say you don't have to balance it every time and that once every 10 or 20 charges is fine but I say if you have a balancer you might as well use it. Why risk it?

I'n my case, I had just bought an Onyx 230, then a month later I switched to LiPo. And in all reality, I probably race with my buddy more often than not. I do plan on getting a balancing charger, I just don't have the funds for it right now.

 

[alien13]

Ok, just got my Hyperion EOS Sentry battery checker.

Team Epic 2S 40C 5000mah= voltage difference of .018. I've been using this battery since about April 2011.

Venom 2S 30C 5000mah= voltage difference of .006. Again, I've been using this one since April 2011.

 

[Greywolf74]

Those EOS's are pretty nice battery checkers. I just have a simple dynamite one. it only reads to the closest tenth of a volt. But I only use it for general checking and I like its compact size. You must have your LVC set pretty high because I know if I run my batteries down to around 3.0 or even a 3.2V under load and then I take them off the kit and check them there will be as much as a .2 or .3V difference quite a bit If I were to do that a dozen or so times without balancing the cells I would most likely either end up with a dead cell or an overcharged cell. Then again I usually run higher the 2S in most of my kits. I'm sure its easier to keep a 2S pack in balance than a 4, 5 or 6. To each his own though. If your happy I'm happy