SuperBrain969 Questions

[astainback]

Ok. I have a SuperBrain 969 that I have had for about 2 or 3 years. I mostly use it to charge up starter packs (cheap nicds for nitro engine starters) and rechargeable Rx packs.
I traded a buggy roller on here a while back and got a Stampede and some battery packs. These battery packs are considerably better than the ones that I am used to. They all have deans plugs on them, and I have one adapter to go from deans to tamiya for charging.
I received an intellipeak charger in the deal and a novak black box charger, but it needs to be checked and rewired. So I have been trying to use the superbrain.
I keep getting false peaks (since day one with these battery packs) and cannot seem to get them to take anything near the 3300 mahs and 3800 mahs they are supposed to get to.

I just tried one of the 3800 packs and it only took about 1000 mah before kicking over the charger as done.

Here are my questions...

1. How do I get these battery packs back up to par for use? I have 3 3300 packs and 2 3800 packs.

2. What is the best settings on a charger such as the superbrain for charging these types of battery packs?

I am sure I will have more questions later. I really want to play in the yard with the stampede!!!

Adrian

[SS Pede]

The 969 can be picky sometimes (I know mine was). For one thing, if the charge stops and the pack is clearly not fully-charged (you will know because it will not be warm), you can safely restart the charge and see if it will finish. You could restart the charge 2 or 3 times as long as the pack was not full. The warmth is key. If the pack is toasty warm, it is charged or close to charged. If not, it's not. Just getting a few full charges on the pack using this method may help it be more consistent in the future.

Check the charger's stop code when the it false peaks. Do this while it is still trickle charging. Don't hit "stop," just scroll through the menu screens until you come with one with a 2-digit number and I think an "m" on the screen. "00" means a normal peak. Anything else is, well, something else. The codes (I don't have any further explanation, this is from a previous thread on this forum where you actually had an earlier question about your 969):

00 normal peaked battery
01 fast peak
02 slow peak
03 voltage spike
04
05 programmed time end
06 programmed capacity end
07 timed out
08 discharge code

The code will tell you (sort of) why the charger is stopping. I always got 02, slow peak, with my 969 and I never could fix the problem. So this may or may not be helpful for you.

For settings, most any charge rate will work. You can experiment to see if some work better than others. For example, maybe a lower charge rate like 3 amps will be more stable than 4.5 amps. But this is hard to know.

I always do a peak threshold of 5 mV per cell, which would be 30 mV for a 6 cell pack. You can bump this up a little to try to eliminate false peaks, but you don't want to go much higher than 5 mV or you could overcharge the pack.