How Long Should You Run Your Battery?

[NebraskaSlasher]

Is there a time limit on how long you should run the car on one battery? Had a good time today on a new
highway they are putting in about a mile from my house. Won't open for another two or three months....
good new smooth asphlat and good off road in the bar ditches.

[Bash'n'slash]

What set up do you have? Stock? And are you running lipo? I don't think there really is a limit to how long you run a battery. I mean just drive it until it dies. The only thing you need to worry about is the temps of the motor and esc. You could even run multiple lipos in a row if they have low mah. You just need to keep an eye on the temps.

[thedreadedend]

If you run nimh, the best way to keep up its power/run time for extended healthy life is to never let it above 135°F to 140°F while running or charging....... lowwer charge settings and for long charges will also give more power/longer runtime over high amp charging for a short time. If the battery gets hot running, lower the gearing. Hot while charging lower the amps you charge at. To answer your question on how long you run it.... as soon as you feel a lack of power... the run is over! This is the best way to treat and maintain a nimh!
Lipo.... low charge rate for long life, never let it get warmer than 125°F, set a high lvc point. The most wear and tear that can occur that takes away from a lipo's life and health is at the last 20% of your batteries run. For this reason I set my esc to cut out at 3.6, this has given me long life from my packs and some of them are 2 years old and still run strong even though they only take about 90% of the rated mah after a few all this time lol. I keep many lipo's in my collection so I can get lots of time in with the high lvc cut of taking some of my runtime away.
Im guessing you run nimh by your question but wanted to cover both sides. If your running lipo and simply not using lvc, you taking a very large risk! You can get an inline alarm or cut of to set at your specific voltage for cheaper than a replacement lipo or burnt house so I'm hoping its a nimh.

[thedreadedend]

Doubled post

[NebraskaSlasher]

I am running the Lipo that came with the Slash 4x4 Ultimate. It is a 2 cell 25C 7.4v 5000. I have a little unit that you can check the % of charge left on your batteries and was wanting to know how low you can run that charge percentage.

[Bash'n'slash]

Well just make sure the esc has lipo mode on(green light) and just drive it until it gets half power then no power. The low voltage cut off on the esc will do this automatically. Never run lipo with the red light on.

[NebraskaSlasher]

Well just make sure the esc has lipo mode on(green light) and just drive it until it gets half power then no power. The low voltage cut off on the esc will do this automatically. Never run lipo with the red light on.

What happens if you run with the RED light on?? How often do you have to stop and check to see if the red light is on?
Jeeze it ought to just quit if the red light comes on!!

[JustinThyme]

Red light on means LVC is not enabled and will kill your LIPO if you run it down to far. Green light on LVC is enabled and will cut power to 50% when it gets close to minimum volts and shut off at minimum. Never run LIPOs with red light on.

Manual page 19

http://traxxas.com/sites/default/fil...X_manual_1.pdf

[Bash'n'slash]

Yeah Justin got it. The green light will always stay on when you turn it on.

[NebraskaSlasher]

Yeah Justin got it. The green light will always stay on when you turn it on.

Both of you.................Thanks. Guess I just need to check it all the time.

[vladsly]

I tried running NIMH with LVC mode on and it won't let my truck move more than 5 meters because it starts blinking red so it won't let you run it without changing it. It won't let me run the Lipos with the red light on either, it just goes 10 meters, than starts blinking red because it senses it's a different battery than what it should be running. (I did this all for fun and just wanted to see what would happen, I don't run my batteries improperly).

[larry0071]

What happens if you run with the RED light on?? How often do you have to stop and check to see if the red light is on?
Jeeze it ought to just quit if the red light comes on!!

When your charged Lipo is in and you turn it in, the light should be green indicating LVD ids enabled. As you run the truck, at some point the light will change from green to a pulsing red, indicating that you've entered the first stage of LVD with 50 percent per. You'll likely notice significant power loss at this point and if you keep trying to limp it around, it moves to to the final phase of LVD where the light is still pulsing red, but the ESC stops sending power to the motor.

On my truck, I've never seen the actual shut off. At 7.5-7.6 volts I can barely move the truck and I'm pulsing red in the half power mode. It's painfully obvious that the 2S batteries are dead as a door nail. Unless my Summit is odd, I would expect you to see similar.

Sent from a Galaxy S3, far....far away.

[JustinThyme]

I tried running NIMH with LVC mode on and it won't let my truck move more than 5 meters because it starts blinking red so it won't let you run it without changing it. It won't let me run the Lipos with the red light on either, it just goes 10 meters, than starts blinking red because it senses it's a different battery than what it should be running. (I did this all for fun and just wanted to see what would happen, I don't run my batteries improperly).

Yeah that doesnt go over very well as a fully charged 8.4V nimh is detected as a 3s lipo near the LVC cutoff point with LVC enabled. It shouldnt matter though running LIPO with LVC disabled as the truck will keep going until you drain the battery pretty much dead. Thats why there are all the warnings everywhere. "DO NOT USE LIPO BATTERIES WITH LVC DISABLED"