wedge_1

I got my Stampede and my charger (Duratrax Intellipeak). My batteries didn't ship until yesterday so I won't see them until sometime next week so I went to one of the LHS and bought some batteries.

I ended up buying some 1500mAH Sanyo 6-cell packs. I have them running the initial formation charge right now @ 100mA so they should be fully charged around 11am tomorrow (been going for a few hours already). The batteries were pretty cheap, and since Sanyo makes a good NiCd I figured they would provide a good backup pack and would do me a lot better than if I had bought some no-brand 7.2V battery pack from a big box store. I wish I had thought to include some inexpensive packs when I made the initial order...oh well.

The car will get broken in tomorrow (as well as breaking in the battery packs some more) and then I figure on Monday she'll be ready to run nice and hard, and the batteries should be ready to be peak charged nice and fast :-) Call me crazy but I kind of like doing all the prep work.

Speedmunkey

A peak charged pack is only 100% effective for about 30-45 minutes. After that, the cells begin to lose their charge and it'll feel flat. Always re-peak your packs right before running, for maximum punch.

wedge_1

Speedmunky, thanks for the tip. Still got about 3 hours of slow charge left...on battery number 1. It's okay, I'm not going anywhere.

Speedmunkey

Slow charging gives a nice long boring ride. It lacks punch compared to a high amp quick charge. Slow in, slow out.

wedge_1

I was always under the assumption that the first charge for the pack should be a slow charge in order to balance all of the cells. After this I plan on peak charging them. As I will explain the car goes plenty fast enough for me...

I took the 'pede out for her maiden voyage. Nice and slow to start, breaking in the motor and whatnot. After about 10 minutes of that I figured any wear that the brushes and comm had to make would have been finished by then so I went out front and drove it in the street for a couple of minutes to see how it did. Everything was fine so I brought it back in and decided that I should try to get it to wheelie to climb over my front step. Well that ended up being a dumb idea...

I was wearing sandals, I gunned it in reverse and before I could get it into forward it had fallen down a very small step that separates the front walkway from the front porch. Well forward was doing no good as the truck was in mid air and before I knew it it had hit my big toe with the very hard part of the motor mount/ transmission housing. Not only did it hit my big toe, but it nailed the big toenail. It hit it just right that it pretty much snapped the toenail in two...OUCH. Actually it didn't hurt too bad, but then I looked down and saw that my toe was bleeding and looked closer and saw that the toenail had broken about halfway back on the big toe.

A little alcohol, neosporin and some bandaging and my toe is good as new.

The Stampede has drawn first blood...

Stampede 1 - Wedge 0

The truck is great, I am going to go finish running down the battery now that the bleeding is under control (stupid wounds on the toes, you have both blood pressure and gravity making it bleed a lot worse than you would think it should).

IBrakeForNobody

My Feedback: (16)

Hmm...everytime I charge really fast, the power is lost faster when not in use...so for me, its all like charge-run-discharge like a firedrill.

Doahh

good thing it was your toenail

i nearly did 4,000 dollers worth of damage to my house putting my new brushless in and not having it on a stand it launched in full reverse and i cought it, in my stomach it was lucky i dodn't have it in the position i had it before because if i had it would/ve gone out our window

45mph pede

OUCH! sorry that happend, sounds painfull.
-Wes

wedge_1

Looked worse than it felt but it still hurt and is a little tender. It'll grow back...

The truck did great, I peak charged it and got about 5-7 minutes of run time. Ran it around the back patio, couple of jumps (not all very graceful) and one stuffed animal went for a ride. I had the jump set up a little goofy and my wife drove the car with a perfect jump right into a pole. I then proceeded to jump the car onto a bunch of concrete edging...the jumping ended at that point for the day.

The 'pede did not end. Nothing broke (except my toenail) and it just kept asking for more. It definitely survived the first ham-fisted attempts at driving a 'real' RC by my wife and I. It handles the grass pretty well considering it is St. Augustine that I cut around 3" high to allow the grass blades to provide shade for the roots (very thick grass, anyone living in the South knows what St. Augustine is).

I don't have quite enough experience to quote a fault with the 'pede and I think that out of the box, and for the price it is an excellent RTR. I bought from Tower so I got it for $159.00 -$25 promotion + $8 shipping for a total of $142. For someone that wants to get their feet wet in RC, have something tough that can take some tumbles and not break the bank the Stampede is great. If I had bought a kit, ESC and transmitter/receiver separately I would be looking at over $200 for a similar performance level (cheapo ESC, cheapo radio/rx, and a cheap kit with stock motor).

The jury is still out on the intellipeak pulse AC/DC charger. I like having the trickle charge function for the initial charging but the peak detection is a little goofy. The battery was drained to the point where it stopped on grass, slowed on pavement and rev'd well when free-wheeling. When I connected the battery and set it to 4A, after just 3 minutes it went into a flashing "near peak state". It never slowed and went into a trickle charge state until another 20 min had passed, which was about the time I figured it would take to recharge the battery. I'll have to see how it detects the peak charge in the future after these NiCd packs have been cycled a few times.

All in all I am very pleased with my purchase. Can't wait to get out there some more but more important matters must be attended to at the moment...like cooking dinner! Peach glazed pork loin with some olive oil roasted potatoes

SkrapIron

Trickle chargers can wreck your batteries if you're not careful.

They never shut off. From the moment you plug it in, until you unplug it, it's charging. Trust me, a good peak detection charger is the way to go. Your packs will last longer ( since they are always fully charged ).

When running Nicd batteries, such as the Sanyo, it is CRITICAL that the cells be completley discharged between uses. If you try to charge it, with resident voltage in the cells, it will develop a chemical memory, and never charge past a certain point.

Save yourself some time and aggrivation. get a couple of good NiMh packs.

IBrakeForNobody

My Feedback: (16)

Mmm...I'm hungry now

SkrapIron

At 4 amps, your 1500mah Sanyo should not have peaked for 23 minutes. Again, charging a Nicd battery with resident voltage in it is not a good idea. The battery should be drained FLAT. No voltage.

If it shows peaked after 3 minutes, you either have a bad battery, or a bad charger.

wedge_1

Already bought the NiMH packs...they just didn't arrive in time for the rest of the gear. They are Ballistic GP3300.

Okay, about the drained dead. I thought you should only drain the battery down to where it was severely slowed on pavement and stopped on something high drag like grass. I did that and then measured the battery and it measured at 7.23V. So how is it that the battery is dead but I am getting a potential difference? Should I be measuring it some way other than DC voltage? I mean I ran the battery for about 7 minutes run time before it got slow on pavement and dead on grass...this is about what I would expect from a 1500mAh battery.

Suggestions?

SkrapIron

Your NiCd (Nickel Cadmium) batteries should be drained to 0 volts. The only sure way to do that is with a discharger. Your NiMh ( Nickel Metal Hydride ) cells should NOT be fully discharged, as this could damage the cells as well.

Charging them with 7.23v left in the cell will cause a chemical memory to develop. You can build a lightbulb discharge tray with parts from Radio Shack, and the auto parts store. I'll dig around and find the plans I have and post them for you.

wedge_1

Okay, that was the problem then. I was confused as to the proper care of the NiCd and the NiMH. Well it was the only time that happened. The charger has a built in discharge/peak charge function that I can use to drain the battery and then it will automatically switch to peak charge mode when the battery pack is drained. Otherwise I will just run it in the truck until the wheels stop spinning.

I would appreciate the plans for the discharger. I have seen some pictures of them before and they certainly didn't look very hard to build.

I am also thinking of building a load voltage detector to get a true idea of how much juice I have left.