How do you keep your batteries charged in the field?

[Stokedcrf]

Man, I feel like this is such a dumb question!

I'm looking to get my first Electric truck ever after running my HPI baja for over 10 years! This is completely unchartered territory for me so I thought I'd vent my questions to you guys over here.

I'm looking at getting the Outcast 8S and just wondering, how many batteries do you guys have and how do you keep em charged in the field? How long do they take to charge?
I have a charger right now that will do 2 lipos at the same time with up to 5A each.

How long would it take to charge say, two 6000mah lipos? And how many sets would I need to keep my truck running?

My concern is that when we head out to the motocross track most of my friends are still running gas powered trucks, and it's not uncommon for us to spend half the day out there. I can usually run my baja on one litre of gas for like an hour without even needing a pitt stop, so I'm just trying to figure out what my afternoon would look like with electric.
I don't mind stopping for some beers here and there though, so I don't need insane runtimes without breaks, but it would suck to cut my day short when everyone else is out there still racing

Do you guys run small generators with battery chargers?

 

[jkflow]

Welcome to the hobby!
'Can charge 5A' is meaningless to a degree, total power per channel is the key. You want to be at 100-150W per channel for an AC charger.
Suggest to read through this one: https://www.arrmaforum.com/threads/recommend-me-a-battery-charger.1079/
If your charger is capable to charge at '1C' it's always in the 45-60 min range.
If you want a field charger, make sure your charger can do this, people just hook it up to the car battery but charge time will increase. Small generator would work as well but I just use multiple packs to run and charge at home.

If you are getting the 8S, suggest to get 2x4S ~6500mAh packs, not much larger as weight will become an issue. You should get 15-20 min out of it with few breaks. Buy additional batteries for more run time. 3 sets will easily get you to the full hour.
https://www.arrmaforum.com/threads/whats-your-budget-lipo-of-choice.218/

Read through the forum a little before you commit. For bashing you do not need expensive high performance Lipos, they add little or nothing to run time.

If above makes little sense, feel free to ask, but there is already tons of info on this forum.

 

[Doom!]

Multiple batteries for the win!

 

[leroychurchill]

Multiple batteries for the win!

Want the battery to last a day get this lol https://www.maxamps.com/lipo-22000-...6LGyI5FYQRrSIRqqIfD6v9MnEPiPIyHYaAk5vEALw_wcB

 

[Stokedcrf]

Welcome to the hobby!
'Can charge 5A' is meaningless to a degree, total power per channel is the key. You want to be at 100-150W per channel for an AC charger.
Suggest to read through this one: https://www.arrmaforum.com/threads/recommend-me-a-battery-charger.1079/
If your charger is capable to charge at '1C' it's always in the 45-60 min range.
If you want a field charger, make sure your charger can do this, people just hook it up to the car battery but charge time will increase. Small generator would work as well but I just use multiple packs to run and charge at home.

If you are getting the 8S, suggest to get 2x4S ~6500mAh packs, not much larger as weight will become an issue. You should get 15-20 min out of it with few breaks. Buy additional batteries for more run time. 3 sets will easily get you to the full hour.
https://www.arrmaforum.com/threads/whats-your-budget-lipo-of-choice.218/

Read through the forum a little before you commit. For bashing you do not need expensive high performance Lipos, they add little or nothing to run time.

If above makes little sense, feel free to ask, but there is already tons of info on this forum.

Wow great info! Thank you!
The charger I currently have charges 125W on each channel for a total of 250W on DC, but on AC apparently only 75w/channel. I don't have any lipos so I didn't even know there was a difference between AC and DC. Wow!

I'm ok hooking it up to my real truck to charge, but I just didn't want any dead battery surprises when I come back to go home haha.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone, looks like a great community to be part of! Part of the reason why I started looking at the Arrma vehicles to start with

 

[olds97_lss]

I take quite a few charged with me usually and I have a 2x150w/2x12A charger in my car. Pulling 24A to charge RC batteries is hard on a car battery and only takes 3-4 cycles to make your car not start... ask me how I know. I didn't even think how much it was taking, just charging away like a fool, then get in to go home and "click"... um... "click"?... stupid toy trucks! Had to get a jump.

Lately, I take enough with me that I don't charge in the car. Now that I found the grass bmx track, I'm usually broken or wiped out by the time I run what I took. I usually take at least 2 trucks and enough packs to run both of them twice.

So, outcast 6s, ERBEv2, I use 2x3S in both, so I have 4 in the trucks and 4 more in my bag. 8 packs total.

If I get adventurous, I'll throw my eJato or stampede 4x4 in, which both run on a single 3S, so they will have one in them and I'll have a second spare charged. 10 packs total then.

I used the charger in my car more when I had less inventory of packs and only ran one truck, or two trucks, but spent more time driving from bash spot to bash spot. Before the bmx, I'd drive 45 minutes to a skate park in one town, run a "pack" there in both trucks, then charge those packs as I drove to the next town (the cooler pack from the first truck I drove), take the packs off the charger, put the now cooled off pack from the second truck I ran on the charger, then go run a set through each again and drive 45 minutes+ to the next place and charge similarly. After driving for 4+ hours and bashing for 4+ hours, I was usually fried and my trucks were usually no longer operational, but I had no down time due to no packs.

The one time I ran my car battery down is when I was bashing with a couple other guys that only had one set of packs... they charged, i charged, we all charged... then I had a dead car. lol! Was a fun day until that.

My car chargers:

I have a parallel board for the isdt q6 now, so I can charge a pair on it at 14A as well. Before, I just used it to charge my remote... but now that that has a 2S lipo in it... it can go 10+ hours before it's even at storage voltage. I also use it to charge my receiver packs in my nitro's. My car has the battery in the trunk, so I have it wired directly to the battery all the time with a switch in the line. If/when I get a new car and it doesn't have it in the trunk, I'll spend the $ to get someone to install a 12V tap back there like for a car amp. It's worth the $100 that costs to me to have that convenience, especially now that I have cars longer.

 

[MrC]

Dude... This question is not even a question.

Tbh with you I think that you should charge your batteries before you go out. SIMPLE. Or you should bring a DC charger with you and power it through your car.

 

[fpvmiller]

https://www.progressiverc.com/collections/charging-cases Go wild! ?

 

[suchtragedy]

https://www.progressiverc.com/collections/charging-cases Go wild! ?

Lol I did the nuclear football look