NiCad Lingo and Price

[Eau Rouge]

OOoooohhhhhh, purdy.


Easily the most fragile, temperamental, expensive NiCd cell ever used in R/C racing. I hated those things. Ten bucks a cell and lasted only a few weekends before they were useless. The sister SCR was a far better cell, even if it was a lower capacity.

[highwayracer]

OOoooohhhhhh, purdy.


Easily the most fragile, temperamental, expensive NiCd cell ever used in R/C racing. I hated those things. Ten bucks a cell and lasted only a few weekends before they were useless. The sister SCR was a far better cell, even if it was a lower capacity.

So here's the deal on these things. I got these cells (300 of them) around 1992...built some 4 cell packs for my 1/12 scale car and a few 6 cell packs for the rest of my cars. I took care of them...and all of the packs are still running well today. I have a victor super IQ2 and they still measure over 1800 mAh when discharging at 20 amps....and it's a nice consistant dump for each pack.

Back in the day, you were suppose to use a linear charger vs. a pulse charger. The Victor was linear and also had the option to do the "reflex / burp" feature. When I use to race, I used each pack only once a day just to give them the ability to rest.

The red SCR's (especially the 1200) like the abuse and put out more power as they heated up...can't say the same for the SCE's...they work best when cold.

The trinity pushed cells were probably the biggest scam back then. They took an SCE cell, cycled the crap out of it using high charge / discharge rates. This breaks down the internal resistance of the battery = higher voltage = more power. Unfortunately, when this is done, you're basically killing the battery. I've heard some that some factory guys only use their pushed cells once a month...which I believe since they wanted to preserve the battery as long as they can.

The simple rule about nicads is, as you use them, the voltage keeps going up. The bad thing is, as the voltage increases, you're getting closer to the end of the battery's life.

Regards,
highwayracer

[reign79]

Some of my new stuff, I jigged up a six cell pack of those scrc's and they took 2350mah on a new digital charger