bad batterys

[yotawheeler]

has anyone had a charger go bad and kill ther batterys? seems all my batts will only hold like a 5 min charge.

[808DA6]

First, welcome.

Second, details:

What kind of batt (NiCD, NiMH, LiPo)?
How old?
What kind of charger?
Are the batts getting hot either while charge or run?

-B

[Trubble]

It's not outside the realm of possibility.

(just out of curiosity)
What charger?
What batteries?
How long are they on charge for?
And if they're NiMh/NiCad, when's the last time they were charged?

[yotawheeler]

it was a super brain 960 charger. 6 different batts all nimh 1500 to 5300mah. 2 of them are like 5yrs old that ran fine up until they all started this the rest r under a year old. they seem to get warm when charged for awile. i swaped to a different motor and nothings changed. i have a cheap batt and 5hr charder on the way just to see if its my batts or esc

[808DA6]

Hows the temp on the batts and charger when the batts peak? Looking like the commonality is the charger. How old is it? We're going to need the experts to chime in soon.

[yotawheeler]

they get warm. charger is about 1yr. switched to a 5hr wall charger and after 5 or more hrs they last abot 5 min. maybe charger went bad and killed batts

[Trubble]

Any links you can give us on that wall charger?
Or at least, does it list an output (voltage/mAh) on it?

[yotawheeler]

radio shack class 2, 5/7.5 hr charge. says 9v... 560ma

[Trubble]

Okay, 9 volts is just barely adequate for a 6 cell pack, but should do well enough. (not high enough output voltage to charge a 7 cell,) But after 5 hours, under ideal conditions that charger will only put out 2,800mAh, so your bigger 5000+mAh batteries will take closer to ten hours.

What happens after 5 mins. of running? Is your ESC set to LiPo mode and shutting off the truck when the battery's voltage drops?

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by yotawheeler

radio shack class 2, 5/7.5 hr charge. says 9v... 560ma

"6 different batts all nimh 1500 to 5300mah"

With a 560mah charger, it will take ~3 hours to charge your small packs, close to 9 hours for your larger packs.

I hate using "wall wart" chargers, the Super Brain should have been fine.

What does your rig do, does it just get slow & stop??
Did you check the ESC & motor temps to see if they're hot. You may have the ESC shutting down due to thermal reasons.

What ESC are you using?

[ManxCrawler]

I bought a dead simple trickle balance charger because I wanted something foolproof with no options, it charged 3S at low rate, what could go wrong?

...well 4 packs in the bin later and buying an Imax Quattro I found the problem, the cheapshit 'balance' charger was destroying my cells, I put a 'balanced' pack on my new charger and found the 3 cells to be 'balanced' to the tune of 4.14V - 4.10V - 4.43V!!! - no bloody wonder I was chucking brand new packs in the bin

...oh, and the cheap crap charger to avoid like the plague...LinkMan LK-1008D

Kev

[yotawheeler]

after about 5 min it loses all torque but will drive on flat ground for awile. then slowly will die so that it wont even move.

[Trubble]

Originally Posted by yotawheeler

after about 5 min it loses all torque but will drive on flat ground for awile. then slowly will die so that it wont even move.

Yeah, that does sound like classic 'batteries never got charged' symptoms. Do you have a volt/ohm (VOM) meter? What are the voltages measuring at when the packs come off the charger? And how long are these things being charged?

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by yotawheeler

after about 5 min it loses all torque but will drive on flat ground for awhile. then slowly will die so that it wont even move.

I would have to guess either the packs are not getting fully charged, or you have 1 or more cells that are dieing.

When you charge a pack, try to measure each cell, when it dies, quickly try to measure each cell again.

I know this can be difficult depending on how they are shrink wrapped.

[yotawheeler]

thanks for all the help

[yotawheeler]

i have not tried new batterys yet but will post results when i do.

[yotawheeler]

well got new batt with its own 6hr charger in the mail. charged it up and truck ran fine, about 45min 1hr.