What Does all that Battery Talk Really Mean?

Voltage, mAh, C ratings, S ratings, capacity what does all this mean? I do agree these terms are some of the most confusing in the RC world.

The capacity of a battery pack is expressed in “mAh” or milliamp hours. You can easily remember this as the gas tank size. The larger the gas tank the longer the run time you get. You can also find small changes in the amount of acceleration you get. But I am going to avoid this for confusion ( or lack of) sake. This means that a 5000 mAh battery will run longer than an 1800 mAh battery.

The voltage of a battery can be thought of as the speed the battery can push your car. Voltage is not to different from the octane level of your gasoline in your real car. This is one area that you do have to be careful. If you attempt to run a battery that has to high of voltage you can do permanent damage to your
ESC and or your motor.

RC Flat battery pack

Here are two terms that are hard to get straight: Series and parallel.

Series wiring increases voltage but not the amp/hour capacity mAh. Here is the way to remember this… 3 – 2 volt/200 mAh cells wired in series, = 6 voltz/200 mAh.

Parallel wiring increases capacity not voltage. Here is the way to remember this one.. 3 – 2 volt/200 mAh cells wired in parallel = 2 volts/600 mAh.

For those of you that do use Lipo batteries there are two more terms that really get mis-understood. These two terms are the S-rating and C-rating. The “S” rating means the number of cells that are wires in series. 2S means 2 cells in series, 3S is 3 cells in series and so on. Packs that are wired in series have their voltage higher which means higher top speeds.

C ratings show the level of current a pack can output. Now I have lost you right? It just means it will spit out the juice faster, so you get more acceleration.

OK you were right ! Sometimes there is a “P” rating. And yes, it means the cells are wired in parallel. This will increase the packs capacity as you would expect. These are not common. It is far easier and more reliable just to increase the size of the pack. Cells that are wired in parallel have a lot of solder joints, this can cause the packs to become out of balance. We can discuss this in a later blog.

Now that I have cleared all this up, I am going to mention that you can get battery packs that have their cells wired in both series and parallel….So why did I have to say that

Venom Pro Charger

This small, easy to carry around, verstital charger is a a definite thumbs up in my book.  We all know that finding a charger that will pretty much charge any type of battery is hard to do.  This charger pretty much does it all.  LiPo 1-6S, NiCd or NiMH 1-15 cell, lead acid LiFe and even lithium ion batteries are easily done.

The charger comes with leads for all the popular manufacturers so soldering chores are kept to a minimum.  The included leads for Traxas, JST, Futaba, Deans, and Tamiya are all there. The charger also comes with a lead for glow ignitors and yes alligator clip leads for the lead acid batteries.  Venom also made sure that you were equipped with a temp probe and a balancing lead for 1 to 6 cell LiPos.

The charger is sold with or without an AC/DC adapter.  This is really handy if you already have a power supply.

I found that using the Venom Pro Charger is straight forward.  It is relatively problem free.  All you need to do is plug it in, select a battery type and then choose the amperage then select enter and you are off.  The menu options are easy to see on the green backlit screen.  When you are home at night after the race, this feature is the greatest.

One of the issues that I did have with the Venom Pro Charger was the fact that the charge rate does not go as high as I wold like.  The maximum rate is five amps.  This means that charging a high-capacity pack such as one over 5000mAh will take longer than it should

I also did not like the fact that the first time you program the settings for a battery type it is as easy as I would like. To top it off the manuals simulated screen shots do not match what is actually displayed.  Once you get through it a few times it is very easy to do.

So .. the final answer…..

Pros – It will charge almost anything and the leads are included.  It is small and easy to carry.  It comes in two versions.  With or without the AC/DC adapter.  It has a back lit display.

Cons – Programming custom settings is not as easy as it should be. It has limited charging amperage. (Actually this feature can extend the life of you batteries if you wish to look at it this way)

Oh, and I really love the green anodized metal.  Colors may be a girl thing, but.. I do think it is really cool.

The final answer is a definite thumbs up !!

Specifics:  Made by Venom Racing.  Street price is $130  - $160 with the AC/DC adapter and $100 without it.  The venom pro adapter can be found at http://www.remotecontrolcarsstore.com/product/VNBC-105