robwiljas

I bought a Losi 1:18 Raminator (same as a mini lst) and don't know what settings I should use to charge the battery with my MRC super brain 959. A review of the mini lst in a mag I have said not to charge it at over 2.0 amps, but at 2 amps the battery gets hot. What amps and mv should I charge it at? Thanks.

ajb1205

I have a couple 6 cell, 7.2v, 1200 and 1100 mAh batteries for my RC18T and I usually charge them at 1.0 or 1.5 amps (could safely go to 2.0) on my 960 Super Brain. Take the mAh of the battery pack, double it, and that's would you should be able to charge it at.

robwiljas

Well I tried it at 2 amps and while I could just be paranoid, I could swear I heard it make a short little whistling/sizzling sound. I immediately unhooked the battery and it was hot. It doesn't look like it bulged at all and the truck is running fine on it, it just really worried me. What about the mv setting the super brain has, what should that be set at?

ajb1205

Hhhmmm...something's not right. With my Super Brain I set the amps at 1.0 or 1.5 and then I usually switch the peak voltage to 25mV (my lhs suggested this) although it will automatically select 30mV (5mV per cell). Sounds like you might have a short or something...I can only guess from here.

The Hedgehog

Isn't the raminator single motor? I am just curious since you said it is the same as the MLST.

robwiljas

Well the battery works fine, and the charger works fine for all my other batteries, so I guess I'll just stick to 1 or 1.5 amps and see how it goes.


It's the mini lst with one of the motors removed, but it still has the dual motor mounts. The 2nd motor is an option, which I added. Other than that the only differences are the wheels, tires, body, and the aluminum chassis plates are finished in black.

BuzzBomber

My Feedback: (4)

Nimh cells sometimes vent a little when they get hot from pushing more current through them than they want to take. I haven't head any cells fail from this yet, but I always shut the charge off and re-start at a lower rate when I hear that happening.

Did you run the raminator w/ just the single motor setup before adding the second motor? I'm curious because I have a MLST2, and I'm thinking of going to a hotter single motor setup since the run times are so short powering two motors in parallel. Just curious what the performance difference is.

robwiljas

That sounds like what it did. Hopefully it will be ok. Would it make a difference that the battery was very dead when I started charging it, because I accidentally left the truck on all night?

I did run it with just the one motor and was suprised by it's speed, it didn't have enough torque for me though. I haven't really noticed a speed increase by adding the second motor, just a lot more torque.

ajb1205

Glad to hear it's working for you. As far as 1 vs. 2 engines...the 2 engines won't spin the spur any faster than 1 (you would have to throw in some hotter motors with higher revs) but you will have way more torque, like you said.

BuzzBomber

My Feedback: (4)

^^correct, on the same gear ratio. to go even further, since you have now effectively doubled the torque, you should be able to gear up somewhat without overtaxing the motors. OTOH, the batteries will suffer since they are now supporting twice the current draw.

Anyway, glad the batteries seem to be holding okay now. FWIW, I find that most of the nimh batteries I have on hand will peak early and not take a full capacity charge if I try to charge them at more than 1.5C anyway, so charging at .75C is what I usually do, unless I'm in a hurry. The MLST batteries, I usually charge at 0.8 amps--takes about 75 minutes.