Duratrax Intellipeak,,,, False Peaks?

[mavrick0611]

im looking at a duratrax intellipeak charger, iv heard that it flase peals, even my friend that has one said it does. Does it affect proformance?

And what exectly is Flase Peaking?
aj

[tc3guy]

False peaking is when you charge a battery but the charger stops charging before the battery is fully charged. This will make your performance suffer by making runtimes much shorter. Find another charger that is not made by duratrax. Thats my advice.

[mavrick0611]

what other charger would you recommed in the same price range with the same features?
aj

[Ras Thavas]

I have the Intellipeak deluxe. It false peaks on all pre-made battery packs I have charged so far. I have to hit the peak charge button 2 or 3 times on each pre-built pack.

I built my first battery pack last week. It did not false peak on that.

My assumption is that the crappy connectors used in the pre-built packs cause it to false peak.

If this concerns you and you can find another charger with similar features in the same price range than you might want to avoid the intellipeak deluxe.

[Cosmo]

I use the IntelliPeak Mini Pulse. I charge my batteries (2400's and 3000's) at 4 amps - as high as it goes - with no false peaking. All my batteries are saddle packs with high quality bars and Dean's plugs.

[tc3guy]

Mavrick,
I would suggest getting the ionic charger from novak. It may not have an LCD screen but its better than the duratrax one. It may not be out yet but novaks quality is great. It might be a little over your price range depending on which model you get.

[Interceptor]

My Intelipeak Pulse charger false peaks all the time, It even blew up one time and I had to send it back. It was a big waste of money.

[mavrick0611]

ooo,,,, well what about the APEX Sigma Plus? http://secure400.automatedshops.com/cgi-bin/ams/shopzone30.cgi/~wfp16353/st_prod.html?p_prodid=536&p_catid=23&sid=2dODWE0Gb9w-6@M-23101309275.61
aj

[GoFaster]

They are the same charger. It is just uglier. lol

[mavrick0611]

ok, i see that but does that one acutlly peak packs? Integy is mainly a battery company so they should know what theyre doing.

Would that one peak a pack? any one know?
aj

[nsane]

One way of looking at it is this, if you are using it for racing you are probably checking battery temperatures, etc which means that you can easily hit the button and let it kick back on, re-peak and shut off.

I can tell you that it doesn't matter what charger I had, if the race mattered to me (and who races to lose) I'd be re-peaking anyway :)

My .02

[mavrick0611]

n sane: So what your saying, is if you had a duratrax intellipeak, after it charged, you would just hit the peak button again and it would most likekly peak that time around?

if so ill go ahead and get a deluxe.

And what you all are saying on self-made packs they peak with out any problems. I can under stand that, crappy cheao connectors keep it from peaking. Can you disasseble pre-made packs and turn them into self-mades? i have 2 self mades with deans connectors and if it works for them, i might as well turn my other pre-mades into self mades so they;; peak.

aj

[ 06-14-2001: Message edited by: mavrick0611 ]

[Dbeast71]

Can you rebuild packs? Yes very easily with most packs. Some require heatshink because the cells are bare in a cardboard sleeves, others like duratrax are really easy. I (cheap bas##$$) that I am use 3 strands of bare individual solid copper wire! Household wire, that's right, and it is easer to solder and is more rigid and easier to solder than trinity bars, not to mention I can do my whole garage and 10 battery packs for the cost of 3 "sets.

As for the intellipeak, I recommend against it on experience! It gets hot easily on 110V, false peaks, and when discharging it automactically goes to peak afterwards, very bad if you're discharging after a race.

Just my .02.

Later

[Gutter Ball]

Lots of people have the Apex Sigma Plus(Same charger as the Digital Intellipeak, different colour) and they think they're great! I have 2 myself and I love 'em! With the digital readout, false peaks are not a problem, just start the fast charge again. Yep, they go into trickle charge once the battery is discharged too, which I think doesn't do anything because the trickle charge's amperage is soooooo low. Fork over the extra and get the digital readout, you'll be happier!

[mavrick0611]

ok so the sigma doesnt false peak? great deal to me!
aj

[Gutter Ball]

Oh, it does false peak once in awhile, but with the digital readout (and if you're keeping an eye on it), you'll know it's not ready and just hit the fast charge again. I dunno what it is, but I do notice that factory packs seem to false and the matched/reassembled packs don't. That's just what I notice though.

[mavrick0611]

ok that sounds better than flase peaking all the time. Thanks for the info i think ill go with the sigma.
aj