EZ-Peak Plus Dual OVERHEATING

[eMonlger2.0]

I know. I'm committing crimes against humanity and will be an enemy of the state soon as I post this.
I charge them when I'm done playing and leave them plugged in, some times over the weekend. I do not watch them charge or am even close by. No fire box... no bs.... no nothing. I treat them like i do mu ryobi , makita, and other lipo batteries for tolls or phones.. plug it in forget it.
Nothing bad is going to happen. The world wont start on fire and I'm sure you all will crucify me for doing anything less than treating them as hazmat bombs.
I would not support traxxas any more than I have with my wallet so far. I just see it like amazon or any other conglomerate that pisses of people by doing the best thing for their company and for that I do care for or not for them. Imo they make the best rc cars in a box for the novice. I got the charger because I had $ on amazon and it was the cheapest dual charger I could trust myself to buy at the time.
If it goes in the trash... so goes life.
But I'd like to keep it working the best I can as far as I'm willing to do so.
Thanks or being clear....

 

[bill_delong]

There's nothing "unsafe" about leaving batteries fully charged all the time, though this will cause the batteries to degrade faster, more info here:
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Generally you want to minimize the time spent leaving the batteries fully charged and that's where having a high quality charger which has an IR meter will let you charge batteries faster and the IR will give you peace of mind knowing the current condition of the cells so you know when it's time to replace them.

The real danger is using any charger without an IR meter because then you have no clue when the batteries need to be replaced making them ticking time bombs at that point

Side note: a 100% fully charged battery will produce far more intense fire ball than a 40% storage mode battery of equal capacity given both packs were to spontaneously combust. Of all cases where I have heard of spontaneous combustion, not a single person knew what their IR readings were before the battery went up in flames!

I choose to store my packs inside my home with each pack separated at least 1 foot apart so there is no risk of a chain reaction should one of my packs spontaneously combust. I regularly check the IR and while I feel that 7mΩ is reasonably safe I tend to retire (or give away) any pack with an individual cell reading above 3mΩ and I feel the danger zone is somewhere above 15mΩ when I start to see unrecoverable pack swelling. Slight pack swelling can be restored by placing a pack in the fridge over night. I used to always store my packs in the fridge but this would tend to create condensation which created rust and I started experiencing internal solder tab failures too frequently so I suspended storing my packs in the fridge and have had fewer pack failures since.

-Godspeed

 

[RustyUs]

I leave for a day, and come back to some internet turmoil... typical.

People's passion for the hobby can be seen as being something else to others. Context of typed out thoughts often gets twisted around on forums/groups. I hope you don't look to deep into anything that you think is belittling/attacking you since you time in this forum. Trying to help others with little info to go on, or given explanations of some events that are not the best, impatient, narrowmindedness... throw all that into blender, and poof!

We all make mistakes, and (hopefully) learn from them. Trying to convey one's mistakes to another person can be a long winded wall of text. People trying to do that "long story short" thing may leave out stuff and then we are left with statements that can seem harsh.

When I first looked at this thread's title, I thought (the way my brain works) a misspelling took place, and we were going to be talking about an EV Peak charger.

 

[HPIguy]

This is a prime example of why most of us eventually move on to charging setups that separate the power supply from the charger itself. More room for heatsinks, fans, airflow, etc. I'm sorry your setup is letting you down.

 

[eMonlger2.0]

I solved it
Thread 'Modified traxxas ez peak dual charger (overheat solved)' https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/modified-traxxas-ez-peak-dual-charger-overheat-solved.138857/
I don't have the $ this month to spend on the hobby so I just fixed the issue.
Thanks for those who tried to help bit the issue was traxxas ofcourse.
Bad soldering joints and design.

 

[bill_delong]

well done!
Not sure what happened with your link but I had to remove the extra markup to get it work, adding another copy here just in case:
https://www.rctalk.com/forum/threads/modified-traxxas-ez-peak-dual-charger-overheat-solved.138857/

 

[Jerold]

If the FETs were not soldered proper, why not warranty it with Traxxas, assuming it's purchased new?

I'm not trying to bag on you for using Traxxas products. They do make good stuff and I own a few.

However, they are sneaky with what they publish and we need to pay attention to (as consumers) the details of what they publish and ask questions about what it really means. This is very common with just about every large company out there and it not Traxxas exclusive. For example, someone might state "30% faster". But the question is 30% faster than what? - the previous model, the competitor, a turtle traveling uphill in a ice storm?

Keep in mind that when you are doing a storage charge, you are also balancing it. Traxxas says that process is limited to 500 mAh (see below). They did this with both "Discharge current range" and "Current drain for balance ports". It makes no sense at all, at least not to me.

The "Discharge current range" is 500 mAh. Which doesn't really tell me a range, but a rate. The range would be in Amps as shown in the "Charge current range". The "Current drain for balance ports" is also 500 mAh, which is bizarre. What I think this says it that

A. it will take a but load of time to complete a storage charge​

B. it's a misprint​

C. Traxxas marketing is playing games with their specs​

D. A & B are true​

I believe the correct answer is D.

So I would just set it for the lowest amps you can and let it do it's thing. If that doesn't cure it call Traxxas ask them about it. They do respond to emails and answer the phone.