Quick charging question.

[honda_s2000]

Hey guys, I received my cars today, and only have a charger for the DG master, there's no way i'm going to continue to buy 6xAA alkalines to charge it, neither spend a bunch on nimh/nicad that are not going to charge as well.

So, I see there's a 7.2V input, for a wall plug on the DG master's charger, the closest wall adapter I have is "Output : 10.2V , 1.2Amps. " I decided to take a risk and charge using this, it was fine, but the batts got very warm, I could feel the warmth through the bottom of the chassis, now I understand I prolly havent done much damage to the batts just yet, but what I want to know is, is it safe to continue charging with this adapter ?

I'm worried because I dont want to kill off my batteries, and I understand charging at high amperage makes the batts false peak early, and you end up with alot less runtimes,wheras charging at something like .2/.3A would give me a much longer runtime, but longer charging time. I'd rather be kind to the batteries, as i'm guessing they have been taken care of so far. :)

Thanks in advance,
Joe

[cdog4w]

First off, I doubt the DG master charger is even remotely a peak charger. My guess would be a timed charge at fixed voltage/current. So the high current charge isn't a worry about false peaking, its a worry about killing the lifespan of the battery due to heat damage. If you could feel the batteries through the plastic, they're too hot! I'm not sure what to suggest, but hopefully someone here who has an epoch charger would be willing to donate/sell for cheap if they upgraded themselves. The epoch charger can take an AC adapter so you can plug into the wall, but I don't think the RTR comes with said adapter. Another option is to dig around for a more appropriate ac adapter. Radioshack sells them, but they're usually $15 or so, which is way expensive in my mind.

I'm not familiar with the epoch charger either as I had a peak charger when I got it and went straight to using it. I charge at .3A and its not super quick, but much more and I think you'd severely shorten battery life. At least for the stock batteries, the new 195mAh packs LBRC runs might handle more, but you'd need to mod your car to take removable batteries, or at the least swap the battery out.

Hope this helps a bit.

[honda_s2000]

Actually, the DG master charger is a peak charger, as worked out by ph2t, according to betty.k

Anyway, i've figured I can wire up a 1/10 battery pack (7.2v) and plug it into the wall adapter on the charger, giving me a nice 7.2V+ flow, and a perfect charge :D

Thanks for your help, it did solve some problems for me :D , and it's great to have the info on the forums for others to read too ! :)