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Surprise Xmas Present

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godale03

godale03

Awesomer!! Than Rolex!!
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Well guys,

My wife blew me away this xmas when I opened up a box to find a Trak Power Lipo pack complete with Novak BEC, and a balancer. It was a complete surprise. She colaboarated with the LHS and asked what the hot item that all RC guys want, and this is what they sold her. I did not ask for this, as I had no plans to go Lipo. That was the cool part. The not so cool part is that I have no idea how to even begin working with this thing. How do I solder to it? How to use the balancer? Heck, I am not even sure I have a charger that will charge it, and even if my charger will charge it (MRC SuperBrain 989) at what rate to charge it at. How to use the BEC? I have read that Lipo batteries are extreamly volitile and could easily spontaniously combust and burn the house down. So the question is do I take this stuff back, and just get a store credit or take the time I do not currently have much of and learn how to care for these things? HELP! LOL

Tom
 
The Trak power is a sweet battery. This will tell you about charging/discharging.

Balancing is just as it sounds, making sure all cells are equal in voltage. I believe that the battery plugs into the balancer and the balance plugs into you charger. It balances the battery as it charges You will need a special plug for the Trakpower battery since it is using funny little plugs. You lhs should have all that stuff since they sold the battery.

The BEC, battery and balancer have more detailed instructions.

Should you keep it or trade it is up to you. The Trakpower is a nice and elaborate setup, I mean you could trade all that back and get a nice ESC that is Lipo compatible and you will not need the BEC. Then you could get a Lipo pack that uses more common plugs, Maxamps has a good selection. Lipo is awesome when you consider the benefits, and the risks are not nearly as bad as they used to be. Lipo's now are extremely safe (I deal with them everyday.)

Good luck
 
Congrats on the X-mas gift Tom. Your better half picked a nice pack, Trak Power has some design features which do make it safer and easier to use than some of the other brands. Its hard case makes it much more durable, and if it starts to swell even the slightest bit, the case will split open giving you sufficient time to run for the woods and call the fire dept. All kidding aside, the chance of you puffing the pack will be highly unlikely if you follow some simple guidelines. You probably don't even need the balancer since it’s a 2 cell pack (assuming here) but it’s nice to have for peace of mind.

First, make sure your esc has a low voltage cutoff circuitry and enable it for 3.0 volts per cell or higher. This will ensure that your pack never falls below the minimum 3 volts per cell which can over discharge your pack and ruin it. If your esc does not have a LVC, get an auxiliary unit OR make sure that once your pack begins to dump, you immediately stop using it and turn off your rig. Do not pass go, do not collect $500, do not attempt to drive it towards you to pick it up. Simply let off the throttle and walk over and pick it up. Continuing to discharge the pack once it has reached a low voltage will damage it and/or reduce the number of potential charge cycles.

Second, when soldering a connector to your pack, strip and solder and re-insulate one wire at a time, making sure you don't short it out. Shorting will damage the pack. Use a high current low resistance plug such as Deans Ultra.

Now before you get happy go lucky with your new pack, verify that the amp draw for your rig does not exceed the current output of the pack. An easy way to do this is by running a series of test runs with gearing changes. Choose a small pinion/large spur set-up for your rig, basically a high torque low speed set-up to keep the amp draw low. Run that with the first charge of your pack, taking it easy as this also helps to break in the pack. If the pack feels cool to the touch after a discharge cycle it is a sign that the current demand of the esc/motor is lower than the maximum power output of the pack. This is a good thing; you do not want to place a load on your pack that is higher than its rated maximum. Since it is tough to know exactly what the rated maximum truly is(labels can be misleading), it is better to go through this gearing test to verify it. On consecutive charge/discharge cycles, continue to increase the gear ratio with larger pinions and monitor your pack temperature. It should never reach 140 degrees, around 120-125 and your pack is in the "zone" in terms of amp draw.

Now to figure out what charge rate to use, you'll want to take the mah rating of the pack and charge it at 1C. For example a 4800mah (mili-ampere hours) pack will charge at 4.8 amps max. The charge cycle will take approximately 1.5 hours depending on how discharged your pack is. Allow the pack to cool to ambient temps before charging, and during the charge cycle, the pack will never warm up. If it does warm up something is wrong with the pack. Check the voltages of each cell for imbalance if this occurs.

Which brand/model of balancer did she get you?
 
Geez SweetD, Come out of the woodwork and blow me away j/k.

Great Info.
 
You beat me to it and your info was just as good. I'm a very slow typer. lol
 
Thanks for the info guys. I will have to read these couple of posts a couple of times and see if it is something I can actually comprehend. I get real nervous when it comes to working with something so volitile and specific. I will take some pics of my stuff tonight and post it, so that you guys have a better idea of the equipment I have.

Thanks again for the info, I really appreciate it.

Tom
 
Well... guys,

I ended up turning the pack in for store credit. With the baby comming I am not going to be doing any racing especially this year. So I didn't see the need in keeping a battery I was not going to use any time soon. I just don't have the time to learn how to properly take care of them and in fact have not had time to touch my cars since this past fall. So I went ahead and turned them in. Maybe someone else can take advantage of them. I know you guys are going to see this as a cop out and give me hell. Some will just give me hell just to give me hell! LOL I would have only been able to have just one pack too, which would have made racing hard since I would have to run NiMh packs all but one race. I will get into LiPo soon enough... now just wasn't the right time. It was one hell of a gift from the wife too! Thanks to all that gave me guidance and advice.

Tom
 

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