Can anyone recommend me a good routine for charging/discharging my batteries? I currently have an Energizer 15-min charger and I just picked up a Lacrosse BC-1000. As for batteries, I have 6 sets of Peak 900HV's.
the energizer 15min charger is not good for the cells. You get about 85-90% charge at the fast rate, then it trickle charges to complete the charge which takes about 2 hours. The high amperage used for the bulk charge will damage the cells in time. And refuse to charge cells frequently.
The lacrosse is a much better charger to use for racing purposes. You can actually see the data of how much energy has gone into the cell.
I typically would charge at a maximum of 700mA. So it takes a little more than an hour to charge a set of depleted. I also use 3 of the lacrosse chargers... So depending how many classes you run. You may want to get more chargers.
Rule of thumb is to store cells on a depleted state. If you store them charged, capacity will gradually drain from the cell, and the cell will run flat (lower voltage under discharge).
The lacrosse discharge will automatically charge upon completion. Something that you do not want. You also don't want to discharge the cells in series.
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EMUracing Micro RC Syndicate /DG Designs /GSR /Reflex Racing /Fast By Faqish /MurderTown Racing
there are more elaborate routines that take up many hours of time and there is the standard race day prep for me, i run my cells down on race day, and cycle them once or twice just before the next race day. i try to time it so that the cycles finish the night before race day and peak charge them on race day. this adds the step of cycling them which some don't even do. you could just race, pack it up and charge them race day, it really all boils down to how much time and effort you want to dedicate to battery preparation really. you can do anything from nothing to properly discharging, charging and peak charging and anything in between.
if you analyzed and sorted your cells previously, this takes a lot of work out of the routine as you already know what are practice and main cells. again, it all depends on what your willing to do vs. what you practically have time for. is this for casual racing, tooling around the home or competitive racing where most others are taking particular care of battery management...
What arch says is the truth. You could spend a lot of time preparing batteries to race, or you can just keep it simple and charge up before you race.
The level of competition will really dictate what methods are better suited. I used to discharge my cells race day, then leave them until I got to the track the next week to charge them back up.
I used old race cells for practice and qualify, then the newer fresher batteries for the final qualifier and Main. I would recommend getting a discharger where each cell is individual, not discharged in series. The point of the discharge is to get all cells down to the same voltage, and remove energy stored in them for storage.
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EMUracing Micro RC Syndicate /DG Designs /GSR /Reflex Racing /Fast By Faqish /MurderTown Racing
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