Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperasus
I agree that at the moment A123 cells are hopeless for racing because of their weight to capacity ratio. But I have no races in my area so my toys are 100% built for bashing.
The A123 4600mAh 2S2P, and the 2300mAh 4s1p are 135mm x 55mm x 28mm
The E-Revo battery compartment is said to be 156mm X 50mm X 29mm
So only 5mm too wide gives me hope. There has to be a way. Then I could run as 2300mAh 4 cell, which would give my truck plenty of nards. Not sure what the run times would be but if I could squeeze 15 to 20 minutes of good bashing it would be good enough for me. I don't think I've ever drove my E-Revo for longer then 20 minutes in a single run so I'm willing to bet I wouldn't miss all those extra mAh.
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For racing longer than 15 minutes at a time lipo is probably the only way to go. For playing around and practicing a123 charge rates can't be beat for max time on the track without having a supply of lipos batteries and two chargers to keep you going.
I go to the local tracks with only 2 3s a123 packs. One charged 3s a123 pack, and one run down form the last outing. I plug the run down battery in to a 9 amp 12v computer power supply and it charges up in 15 minutes. Thats how long a charge lasts in my rustler anyhow. Swap the batteries and repeat. Just a couple minutes of down time while swapping the batteries before I am running the car again.
I picked up an 18 amp 12v power supply today so my charging time can now be less 8 minutes per 3s pack. 18 amps is above the 4c standard charge rate for a123 but others have been doing this for 100s of cycles with no significant decline in capacity/performance. You could charge two 3s packs at a time in parallel in just over 16 minutes.
Keep in mind if you use 3s packs you can use a computer power supply and a voltage cutoff device ($15 diy kit or $40 completed unit) and have a nice way to charge 3s packs quickly. With 4s you will need to get a high amp charger but then I think 10 amps is about the limit still and price goes up considerably too.