Best Battery???

[PaulNZ]

I am using a 4600 on my truck with a 60T motor, lights and a sound unit, I don't seem to get much run time, is it because its a cheap Battery (which it is)or do I need a bigger one?

what is the norm and what run time do you get

I am pulling 30KG (66Lbs) and I know that will use some power but what should I expect?

cheers
Paul

[mavrick0]

Are you running a nimh battery or lipo? And what do you consider no much run time.

[PaulNZ]

I am running a 7.2V Nimh, std type, I get about 15-20 mins

[mavrick0]

Yeah that seems a little low. What kind of charger are you using, what current are you charging it at and how long does it usually charge and how hot does the battery get?

[PaulNZ]

I charge it with the small charger it came with, looks like a phone charger.
Takes about an hour but it never gets hot, my aa batteries that I charge for my camera always get hot so maybe the charger is not up to the job, I will buy a better one and give that a go.

How hot should the battery get?
What rate should I charge at?

Cheers
Paul

[mavrick0]

Good rule I always went by was if you can hold it for minimum 10 seconds then it was good.

What is the mAh rating on the battery and the mAh rating on the charger?

Nimh batteries don't like fast charging. The couple of packs I still have laying around I only charge at 1amp to get a full charge in them. When I raced using nicd's and nimh's I could charge them faster but the packs were matched. Meaning each cell was identical to the rest so they would all charge the same. Problem with generic packs is they aren't matched so when one cell is charged doesn't mean the other 5 are so it can become over charged and damaged. It goes the other way too. The weakest cell will heat up the most because of internal resistance which will also give a false peak and shut the charger off before it's actually fully charged.

[PaulNZ]

Got my new charger today, had a bit of a play with it, discharged then charged battery fully, its not a bad little unit, both mains power and car battery adaptors. The truck seems to have a bit more power now, I will test it over the weekend to see what run time I can get with it but the battery was warm when it was finished charging so it must be ok.

Thanks for your Help Mavrick0

[mavrick0]

Not a problem. Does the charger show the capacity that it put back into the battery? That's your best way to see how well the battery is taking a charge. How long did it take to charger?

In the end nimh are outdated and lipos are the way to go. I use lipo's in my Cascadia with the mfu so there's no issue there. Only thing I do is use a lipo alarm on the balance port to let me know when I'm at cutoff.

[bigford]

i ran both of my trucks with trailers at the mack show
on one 5000 mah nimh
each. then killed the bats on Sunday
with the girls

While on this topic, is the higher the mAh rating, the longer the run time?

[bigford]

yes

[Lil Giants]

You could try checking the battery after charging with a volt meter too, it should be somewhere close to 8.4v & before charging it should be around 7.4v.