RE: True RC 5000's Longevity  
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RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/25/2008 9:05:34 PM   
OhD


 

Posts: 432
Joined: 10/23/2002
From: west hills, CA, USA
Status: online 		Chad, it would be great if you tracked the IR on these cells as they accumulate flights. Scott Covey has some of these cells and will be getting some data too. I don't know how many cycles he had when I charged them on the CellPro at Hollister but his IRs were under 3 mOhms as I recall. That is the best I've seen.

Jim

By the way, on my iMac, I used an app called Grab to get an image of the Excel chart and then opened it in Preview and saved it as a JPEG.

(in reply to can773)
       Post #: 26

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/25/2008 9:09:42 PM   
OhD


 

Posts: 432
Joined: 10/23/2002
From: west hills, CA, USA
Status: online
quote:

ORIGINAL: woodie


quote:

ORIGINAL: OhD

Woodie - I have only heard of the TP Prolites getting 200 flights and they cost almost three times the TrueRC so the TrueRC looks like the winner. What other packs would you consider based on longevity per dollar?
Maybe we should buy one or two packs for performance even if the cost is higher?


Jim, that's true, only the TP Prolites seem to last that well. Probably an indication of the 'C' effect that keeps coming up.

My TP5300s are approaching 300 flights and can still get me thru a P09 FAI sequence adequately. I typically use them for warm up practice flights. However, I will also say, I stopped using them for competition at about 200 flights so I guess they were 'retired'. There is also an advantage to using the batteries life more quickly and that is you replace the batteries more often. Even if the cost is only slightly better, you are flying with fresher batteries on average.

I ordered a Cellpro just so I could track the IR of my packs. I am very curious how they act over time.

Woodie


I agree with using the batteries quickly. I'm also thinking that one shouldn't use up five golden flights breaking them in.

(in reply to woodie)
       Post #: 27

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/25/2008 9:20:24 PM   
mups53


 

Posts: 1102
Joined: 1/15/2002
From: Hoffman Estates, IL, USA
Status: offline 		I kind of think a good formula is to add 2 new packs a season and use them as top competition packs. The best 2 packs from the previous season then would be your main practice packs as well as the competition packs. That gives you a 4 pack rotation and spreads the costs out a little. I think that's what I will do for next year and of course hold off on buying untill the last few weeks before you actually need them. This is kind of the advise I got from Chad who knows a little about off seasons. California and Fla. guys won't get what I'm saying I'm sure. Tried any Chicago winters lately? Mike

(in reply to OhD)
       Post #: 28

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/25/2008 9:47:00 PM   
patternflyer1



Posts: 1366
Joined: 7/3/2003
From: Tracy, CA, USA
Status: online 		What are you talking about Mike? Some of you guys don't fly all year? Off season.. Like football? huh??
I would move...



Chris

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Team Airtronics

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       Post #: 29

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/25/2008 10:20:30 PM   
can773



Posts: 1664
Joined: 1/25/2002
From: Calgary, AB, CANADA
Status: online 		Hi Jim

I will try, my Schulze charger does record Ri of the pack, I guess I would just divide by 10 to get an average resistance per cell. I will give it a go tonite. Unfortunately I don't have an "as new" value to compare with, and our flying season is nearing the end so data will be scarce until next year.


quote:

ORIGINAL: OhD

Chad, it would be great if you tracked the IR on these cells as they accumulate flights. Scott Covey has some of these cells and will be getting some data too. I don't know how many cycles he had when I charged them on the CellPro at Hollister but his IRs were under 3 mOhms as I recall. That is the best I've seen.

Jim

By the way, on my iMac, I used an app called Grab to get an image of the Excel chart and then opened it in Preview and saved it as a JPEG.




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Chad Northeast

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       Post #: 30

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/26/2008 4:37:44 AM   
can773



Posts: 1664
Joined: 1/25/2002
From: Calgary, AB, CANADA
Status: online 		Hi Jim

I did play around a bit tonite with the charger. I am not sure I can compare my results to your's as I get values that seem significantly different. The Schulze does a single Ri calculation on discharge, and does it for the whole pack which includes all the wiring. So I can only get an average /cell output. So to make things somewhat real I did my 5200's and my 5000's. Basically on the Schulze I see Ri's of around 60 mohms for the 5200's (so 6mohm/cell), and around 180-250 for the 5000V2's (dependant on age, two of the packs have only 2 cycles on them). So there is a significant difference between these packs, obviously the 5200's are much better.

My 5000's have sat for a couple of months, so maybe a bit of exercise would reduce those values?


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Chad Northeast

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RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/26/2008 4:49:25 AM   
sc204


 

Posts: 206
Joined: 7/30/2005
From: , NY, USA
Status: offline 		I purchased 2 sets of True RC packs (shorter ones I think) and didn't have great luck with them. After only 12 cycles or so they started coming down hotter and puffing slightly. I think the puff that we are seeing that goes back down when cool is just heated gas within the pack. The expansion is more noticable the hotter they get. I initially ran them in the heat of the summer and they came down cool so I think ambient temperature has less to do with them heating up then their condition (perhaps higher internal resistance causing increased heat as they degrade)
I do not have a cell pro charger so I do not know their internal resistance, but have measured power output and they were down from an initial 2300 watts on my setup (Hacker C50 14 XL APC 22 x 12 or 20.5 x 14) to about 2100 watts at full throttle. One set was a bit worse than the other. I returned them to Dan for an exchange to the packs that just came in. Longer flatter packs. I haven't run these yet but hope they will last .

In regards to exchanging cells. I do that with my original Falcon F3A packs. 10S2P packs. I purchased 3 packs and have had issues with cells going bad. One pack has become the donor pack for the other two. Even though it is not optimal and I am still not getting great power it is better than just tossing out the packs all together. Right now I have seperated the packs into 5S2P and also use them on an Angel S 50 sized. Interestingly it was usually cell number 5 attached to the positive lead that was always going bad. The bad cell had a much higher voltage when charging which would cause the TP charger to stop.

Stuart C.

(in reply to can773)
       Post #: 32

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/26/2008 7:10:49 AM   
flyf3a


 

Posts: 85
Joined: 5/2/2006
From: Port Elizabeth, SOUTH AFRICA
Status: offline 		Hi

Can you give those of us that are not so technical a simple guide as to when packs are ready to go. Must be nothing worse than seeing an electric plane suddenly get a 4 stroke smoke trail. Till now I have only been using the TP 5000 and TP 5300. I prefer the TP 5300 and my intial pack bought in 2006 had over 250 flights. The only reason I stopped using this pack was that it was noticeably down on power. The remaining packs have all around 150 flights. On 8 minute flights I put back between 2800 to 3700 mah depending on wind. According to date logger pack voltage never drop below 34 volts in flight and after flight voltage at 37,5 volts. 42 volts to start off with.

What should I compare or monitor that will be indicative of a dramatic decrease in pack? I for one have never wanted to open packs to measure each individual cell voltage. Maybe there are some charges that now do this? I balance the packs after ever 10 flights and the balancer never balances for more than 10 minutes. I still use the older version schulze chargers (bought in 2005 ISL6 version ).

I would rather stop using packs then have them puff or go up in smoke, the question is when?

Regards
Burt


(in reply to can773)
       Post #: 33

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/26/2008 1:42:36 PM   
mups53


 

Posts: 1102
Joined: 1/15/2002
From: Hoffman Estates, IL, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sc204

I purchased 2 sets of True RC packs (shorter ones I think) and didn't have great luck with them. After only 12 cycles or so they started coming down hotter and puffing slightly. I think the puff that we are seeing that goes back down when cool is just heated gas within the pack. The expansion is more noticable the hotter they get. I initially ran them in the heat of the summer and they came down cool so I think ambient temperature has less to do with them heating up then their condition (perhaps higher internal resistance causing increased heat as they degrade)
I do not have a cell pro charger so I do not know their internal resistance, but have measured power output and they were down from an initial 2300 watts on my setup (Hacker C50 14 XL APC 22 x 12 or 20.5 x 14) to about 2100 watts at full throttle. One set was a bit worse than the other. I returned them to Dan for an exchange to the packs that just came in. Longer flatter packs. I haven't run these yet but hope they will last .

In regards to exchanging cells. I do that with my original Falcon F3A packs. 10S2P packs. I purchased 3 packs and have had issues with cells going bad. One pack has become the donor pack for the other two. Even though it is not optimal and I am still not getting great power it is better than just tossing out the packs all together. Right now I have seperated the packs into 5S2P and also use them on an Angel S 50 sized. Interestingly it was usually cell number 5 attached to the positive lead that was always going bad. The bad cell had a much higher voltage when charging which would cause the TP charger to stop.

Stuart C.


I think the long packs work better from what I've seen. Dan runs a small business out of his house part time. I think he rely's mostly on factory overruns and has some variance in his stock. He runs on a very low margin compared to the big boys thus the savings to us. I think he sells the same stuff as Max Amps and look at what they charge. I'm hoping that his stuff stabilizes and gets better. I guess I got lucky with the packs I used this season and yes I have seen some bad results from the True 10C short packs that friends have used. I think you will find the long packs better. Dave Snow is still testing the 15C packs and thinks they are great so far but again they are about $50 more and weigh a couple of ounces more.
Good news is that True see's that pattern flyers are a viable market and he will continue to improve his stuff as it becomes available to him. I think this will be good for E. pattern.
I'm trying to get him into pattern so he can start to fly with us. He seems interested. Mike

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       Post #: 34

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/27/2008 5:34:49 PM   
J Lachowski


 

Posts: 407
Joined: 9/2/2003
From: Bridgewater, NJ, USA
Status: offline 		Just received a set of the new 10C/15C packs in the mail. They are longer with dimensions of roughly 6-1/4"X1-5/16'x1-15/16" and weigh 20.8ozs. The set I have been using is roughly 5-1/2"X1-3/4"X1-3/4". Anyone have any idea who manufactures these cells? I hope they are at least as good or better than the shorter set I have. One thing for sure, they will be easier to put in the Integral and can be better separated for cooling than the shorter set.


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NSRCA 330

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RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 9/29/2008 6:59:46 AM   
f3a05


 

Posts: 440
Joined: 3/12/2005
From: Saffron Walden, UNITED KINGDOM
Status: offline
quote:

Can you give those of us that are not so technical a simple guide as to when packs are ready to go.

I too would appreciate some help with this -but it's too late for me just now!
I began electric F3A this year,with one of the two brands of commonly-used "higher-quality" packs (3 sets of 5350maH), driving Dualsky 636011T(possibly notorious as power-hungry),or 636012T(slightly lower load?)
Always used the packs in rotation,and with the exception of one accidentally over long flight, always kept the consumption within the "80 percent rule", and usually lower than that.
No problems for approx 80-90 cycles, but just recently two of the packs began triggering the 30 volt low cutoff on the CC85HV ESC, under high-current demands such as the verticals in the PO9/FO9 schedules.
These two packs began doing this within days of each otherand the same things happened in my No.2 model with its Jeti Spin 99 ESC-so almost certainly a battery thing?
The third pack had shown no problems whatever, until yesterday,when it went the same,30-volt cutoff ,route, immediately following the two snaps in the final manouevre of FO9-there was nothing there to throttle up with, after the 1/2 roll to upright.
I dropped the throttle stick to the zero position(not normally used in flight-I use an idle-up via a switch for most of the flight),but insufficient power remained to get back to the patch, and the model (Integral) was written-off "landing" in mountainous rock-hard recently-ploughed clay.
So, in the period of one week, I have gone from two 2M F3A models and three F3A packs, to one remaining model, no packs, and a loss of around $4000/£2000...not good!

(in reply to J Lachowski)
       Post #: 36

RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 11/21/2008 7:27:16 AM   
supi7



Posts: 65
Joined: 2/6/2004
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Status: offline 		Hi Guys, many of the first longer 5000mAh packs we had were and still runing great according to the feedback I get.

The shorter cells (125's and 135's) were thicker and the factory admitted they had a problem with winding them which affected the performance, later they said also they had some raw material issues which plagued us (and others that purchase from them) in July. Good news for all of us, they accepted all returns.

New 10C and 15C packs just arrived 2 days ago and the replacements are being shipped.

To clarify:

None of our packs are factory overruns or one of's. We purchase thousands of cells every month, and we wait for them to be produced, and tested, there is also a resting period that we require before the batteries are built and shipped, so that the highest quality cells can be picked from the lot, and buit with best matched IR. Each shippment is inspected randomly for quality of the build and balance (We also have the CP10S which makes my life a bit easier all though I really don't like the 2 buttons that do evrything)

Best Wishes,

Dan
TrueRC

< Message edited by supi7 -- 11/21/2008 7:34:29 AM >

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RE: True RC 5000's Longevity - 11/22/2008 1:49:48 AM   
J Lachowski


 

Posts: 407
Joined: 9/2/2003
From: Bridgewater, NJ, USA
Status: offline 		Dan, can I exchange my shorter packs (20 plus flights) for the longer ones? Who knows how long they will hold up.


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Joe Lachowski
NSRCA 330

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       Post #: 38