Peak Char-G'd!
 

I just used my high-end peak charger to charge a pair of BC-Gs w/ stock 50mAh cells, and the results were staggering! Not only was there more punch (proved by new lap records set with both) but the runtime was just unreal - over 30 minutes - with stock cells - driving flat out the whole time!!! I want to try it with a 150 cell next - I just need to find a 2 hour block of time to spend wearing the cars down!!!

High end peak charger?

Strange that you post this.

I have a second controller that I was going to tear down for the charging pad. I was planning on connecting it to my Tekin BC110 and giving the 'ol MS batts a peak charge. It's nice to know that it works so well.

i.e. that which is used for charging packs on larger RC cars; instead of timed charge, it monitors the cells and charges them properly! :)

That's exactly what I did - took the charging pad from a spare Tx, soldered on some fatter wires, and jacked into into the 1-14 cell charger. I charged at 0.5A - I'm not sure if I want to push it any higher just yet!

Wow, this is nice info. Can I know what model peak charger you use? ,, how much would it be?

hmmmmm SO the Peak charger didn't mess the batteries up??? COol!! How long did you have to charge it for???

Blue bit- peak charges can raange from $30 to $100 maybe even more for high end ones.....they're used for lager RC's like 1/10 and all. I wonder if using a normal 15 minutes charger would work, probably not, you can't set the charge- leve either, i don't think, gott go look at my charger........

thanks:) I've been looking around the net for one, but I want to know what model/make tinyrc used. I never got a chance to get one of these back in my1/10 days (about14 yrs ago). The $30.00 ones I saw I beleive had a constant voltage rating ( I may be wrong)

The charger I used is $140 :eek: - probably not worth it if you only drive Bits, but I now use it for BC-Gs, Epochs, Mini-Zs, Micros, and even the Rx pack on my 1/6th Nitro Elise! If anyone is interested in a new charger, email us at the Shop we can get you a really good one at a discount. Note that it's very hard to find one that will work with a BC-G, because you need fully adjustable charge rate; some will allow a choice of 1A/2A/4A etc., none of which are safe for this size of cell. In addition, most chargers will do 6-7, 5-8, 3-10 or some similar range, but not many go down to a single cell.

I have a super brain 959 peak charger. What amperage did you set your peak charger at, also what charge rate?

I charged at 0.5A, which is a choice on the 959, so you should be okay there - however, the 959 is intended for 3-8 cells; you may be able to use the single cell mode for the 1/3AAA cell, but I would call MRC before attempting this to make sure it's okay. :)

you are right, it's a bit too much for me at this time. But eventually I'll invest in one after i get a miniZ & epoch. But thanks for the info, this is good to know:)

Please post your results with the 150mah nimh's as soon as you get them. This is cool! :)

I've been experimenting with the 50mAH cells, and they've been taking 67mAH or so of charge. The 30-40 minute runtime is starting to make sense. I've been charging at 0.5A and it takes about 6 minutes. This makes perfect sense, since the cell is 0.05AH. In order for the controller to charge the cell fully in 45 seconds, it would need to charge it at 4A! That would explode this tiny little cell! As such, the default charge time must only fill the cell a tiny fraction of the way! I'll do the 150mAH test soon, I just need to set up a relay team because I don't have 2 hours straight to spend wearing it down! :D
bc12c

So can you reach peak capacity with the controller if you charge long enough?

With the 150mah battery users getting 3x as long run times, it may be b/c they're charging it 3x, expecting the batt to hold the charge. If what you're saying is true, you should have the same results charging the stock 50mah 3x since they never reach capacity. So the increased runtimes are just due to our expectations of increased capacity and our resulting longer charge times? :)

Can you simulate the effects of charging with the controller to find out how long you have to charge to *really* reach capacity?

I was going to try that too. I have a Tekin BC112C peak charger for my 1/10th scale. Great to hear it works so well!

hey tiny, are you using a novak millenium?

Good question - I think the thing to do here would be to have one of our electronics guru members figure out what the exact charging rate is on the controller?

Btw, I added pics here:

http://tinyrc.com/gallery/trcprojects

:)

Nope, Indi 16x4-Pro. :)

I gave this a whirl with my supernova. Wild :) Great power and runtime. I imagine the runtimes should pick up a bit too as we were only using a small portion of the battery for quite a while.

I tried the peak charge. Right on! Running a Zip Zap with the no reverse mod, red gears, red motor. It does powerslides, runs on (low) carpet, even gets up on two wheels (same side, no wheelies). Run time is a good 45 minutes with the stock 100mah ZZ battery and has more punch. The charge rate of .5 amp may be a bit high for these little cells, I charged at .3 amps with the same rusults. Higher charge rates can shorten cell life.

Test Results are In:

Using two cars, both with 1.0s (since I wasn't sure if running for hours straight might burn the motors out!), one with a stock TOMY cell, and one with a TinyRC.com 150mAh NiMH:

bc12c
50mAh NiCad
Charge Time: 10 minutes
Capacity: 78mAh
Runtime: 44 minutes!!

bc12m
150mAh NiMH
Charge Time: 20 minutes
Capacity: 174mAh
Runtime: 2 hours, 14 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

That's enough to do 6 1/64th scale 24H of Lemans in a row w/out stopping for gas!!! :D

WOW! Thanks for the detailed write up. When did you find 2 hours and 14 minutes to run the car?:D

2+ hours!!!!awesome findings.


i have a rayovac nimh/nicd charger that stops when the battery is charged(AA/AAA usually 3-4 hours..less if it still has a charge).

i will throw one of the 150ma batts in there and check it out..
if this works..then we have a 12 dollar charger you can get anywhere.

rayovac
 

I have one of these chargers too. Are you planning on making an adapter that allows you to charge just the battery, or are you going to put in a pad-type charger? all you would need is a battery sizes patform with acontact on each end. this would be really slick for the multi-cell set ups.

Rayovac charger worked!
 

i charged a spare 50mA nicd in the rayovac charger today...took 12 minutes to charge..didnt even get that warm...lasted about 40 minutes(seemed like forever)

will have to try a 150mA nimh tomorrow.
:)

great.. I have a rayovac charger too.

Clint, how did you get the 1/3AAA to fit in the charger? Just use a strip of metal on one side or what?

holy crap.....damn all of you smart scientists....

Z-car charge current 45 sec
 

I just measured the charge current from a Z-car charger (funny pod thing) at 0.88amp /45 sec time, using energizer alkaline AAA's.
That will run my car for 4.5 mins with the yellow 2.2 motor on a tile floor. If I charge twice, I get about 7-8mins, and the car has more torque too.

From my calculations, each charge would give the batt 11maH
If my Z-car ran 4 mins on that, that would mean it was taking about 165mA to finish off that one charge in that 4 min run time.
(average current drain for the run, steering being used maybe 1/4 of the time, oval course, bumpy tile floor)

So if my 100mA batt was fully charged, and I ran it the same way (using 165maH driving/steering), It should, in theory, run for 36.3 mins.

My charger would have to give 9-45 second charges (6.81mins at 880mA) to reach the 100ma capacity-- Of course the batt would probably fry from such a high charge rate if done all in one session

Maybe some of this might help others figure out what their cars draw from their batts (I did all this calculating since I couldn't directly measure the car's current drain)

I think the RF receiver circuits must draw somehere around 10 mA, since one charge will take an hour or more to "fade away".

b1spd :btm: bc12c b27m b22 bbcelbl
Sup, just thought I could do my part to help out.
I too have a Rayovac Ni-Cd/Ni-Mh/Rechargeable Alkaline Charger
(Model No. PS1, which now seems to be replaced with another charger for the same no.) Anyways this is the charger I own and
like above mine has a microprocessor and charges to the peak.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=1941358755

I took out my stock 50 mah battery for this test and I really don't
know what to think about the results compared to the other
people's findings, so here are mine.

14 min run time (didn't time the charger), unknown charge left in
the battery
13 min 45 second charge time
14 min 35 second run time

Now you can see why I'm not sure what to think, great run time,
but at a long charge time cost. So Clint I would really like to know
what type of battery and particular charger you are using, thanx.

Maybe this may help...back of the charger reads input: 115v 60hz
(8w) output: dc 2v 200ma X 4.
I took photos of the whole setup and will upload them later.

WAHHHH! (a how-not-to guide)
 

Well, i wanted to do this mode, but was too lazy to do it right, so i took a controllert i dont need (was for a bit pcb to zz car mod) and wired it so t4eh batteryies go stright to the charger, then plopped by recently tuene NiMH booster on it.....about 10-12 mins later i smell burning :( turns out hte chassis melted and warped around hte charger :O

well needless to say, im gonna buy another booster, and thank god hte pcb is swappable, so im prolly gonna place it on to another chassis (my rx-7 is screaming for a bit o boost).

My NiMH battery didnt fare so well, it was on the berge of bursting, the nipple on the positive end popped off 2 mins later with a loud pop......it was hatter than all hell too.


after thinking about it, i was feeding 3 volts into the ppoor thing...i should wire the batteries in parralell instead of series.......oh well live and learn.

jesus man! you only need to charge the nihm batteries for about 1 - 3 minutes, not no 12 minutes.

Re: Rayovac charger worked!
 

Clint,

Great idea, man! :D
I tried it with my Radio Shack charger. It discharges the batts first then charges.

It worked but....
I have to charge 2 batteries at the same time, it won't do single cells.
It took forever to charge. It still wasn't done charging 30 min. later! :mad: The batts never got warm though.
So, I took the car off the charger and ran it. I had about 30 min. continuous running time.

Good run time, but NOT worth the charge time! :rolleyes:

So Clint, what model Rayovac charger did you use? Please tell us! ;)

Barebones charger
 

I made a crude but effective charger out of 2 C cells and some resistors. I just switch resistor banks to vary the charge current.
I tried 75mA for half hour, (slow but safe approach) -- car ran for 15 mins or so, still has a good amount of charge in it too.
Next time I might try 100 or 150mA , and watch my digital voltmeter for the peak.

I also have a rayovac charger, but I think its peak detection is less than perfect ....(I dont trust it since it roasted some of my 1600mA AA cells!) It would probably blow my Z car to bits! :lol

it's the rayovac ps1 charger. the second time i charged the 50mA battery it took an hour to charge.(it must not have been drained all the way the first time).

it still lasted about 40 minutes. :)

i do have to make sure there is at least a pair of batteries in the charger for it to work..but i just throw in a normal aaa rechargable in the other slot.

I am thinking of trying...
 

this ==> http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...173&type=store

It says it can do 1.2 V at most any rate needed, plus it will automatically fully discharge the pack. Im not sure if it is a peak detecting charger though, otherwise I'll have to make up a quick timer for it. The charger looks good for other stuff, too. Ill put a charge jack in the transmitter with the 1900 mah NiMH AA's.

Question 1: So if the Rayovac PS1 charger works well and charges great at 2v 200mA per battery, then that means in theory you could find/make an AC/DC adapter with those specs and connect the wires straight to the charger pad? The main gripe I'd have with this mod is taking the batteries out of the car to charge them. You'd have to time it this way though.

Question 2: How would you alter that for a dual-cell car but charge them together with one AC adapter? Would you need 4v 200mA, 4v 400mA, 2v 400mA, or 4v 400mA? I'm assuming you'd have to double one or both of those numbers :)

Question 3: Has anyone tried using a 1-hour rapid NIMH charger? If it can charge a 1600+ mAh battery in one hour while the PS1 takes much longer, could it do a 1/3AAA in a fraction of the time, like 5 minutes or so instead of the ~40 for the PS1 charger? These chargers are only for NIMH and not NiCd.

Question 4: For those who don't have a peak charger, can we just start charging with our controller for like 10 cycles and expect the battery to hold it? Or do you have to charge slower than the controller does to fully charge without risking damaging the battery?

Answer some of those for me please!

Thanx for the NFO Clint, now I believe I know where I went wrong. Here are the pictures I took while doing this, unfortunately I have but one car and just the battery that came with it. So let me see if I have this right Clint, you took 2 50 mah NiCd batteries and placed them together in one bay, then took a AAA and placed it in the bay to the right or left of it? BTW thanx Ovgron for the url link I can't wait to see how that works. actofgod the only thing that I was thinking of doing was wiring a scrap charger post piece onto my PS1 that way I wouldn't have to bother with the way I have it wired now :rolleyes: Anyways, I hope this helps.
PS. that spring came out of an ordinary pen, had to stretch it a little though.

2nd photo

How about making jumper wires running from the charger to another car charging base? -- (never have to pull the batt from the car)

Could try to make a fake AA cell with wires attached, (so it easily fits in the charger), and then run the other end to the new charging base?

To make the fake aa cell, I actually took the end caps from a dead zinc carbon AA cell, and taped/glued them to a suitable sized cylinder. I have also used the whole aa cell (after having taken it apart and scraped out the "guts" ) --leaving a nice "shell" to attach wires to.