IB 3800's Melting
 

Hi guys. Have a li'l problem with my IB 3800 cells melting. It has happenned twice now. It is only the one cell in the pack that does it.

Anyone have an idea what could've happenned?

How do you mean melting?? did they vent? was the cell in the same position the second time? Hows your gearing?
Ive had cells loose the bars before (melted solder) but never a melted cell :eek:

How fast were you going?? :005: :010:

Make sure your cells are not shorting out on the chassis. It will cause some strange stuff.

Yeah that would get them warm for sure :026:

Sounds like a bad cell to me.

Here comes answers.

Cells have been used in stock maxx chassis on both occasions, so wouldn't have shorted, and arent in a config that is possble to short a single cell.

The cells were in different positions both times. Once the third in the pack, the second time, the final cell in the pack.

Gearing, well they've shorted out on two different E-Maxx's I have. An HV-Maxx E-Maxx that was crawling mostly, 70/14 gearing. And my 9XL/9920 setup blasting around in 2nd gear, 51/16 gearing.

Vent? I'm un-sure what this means.

By Melt, I mean that they melted the intellect shrink on the cells, melted the other pack heatshrink, melted the solder, started smoking.

At first I thought the smoke was my ESC :002: :005: .

You used unbalanced cells then?

Yeah. They are the IB3800 E-Maxx 7 cell packs that maxamps sell, but the 7th cell has been moved, that's all.

There you go. That's the proof not to use unmatched cell's in truck's that need high amp's to be run. I got the same thing with some lrp 7 cell pack's. 2 of em blew 1 bad cell while the other's stayed perfeclty cool.

Ditch the pack's and get some proper matched one's.

you could break the packs down and put the cells in a side by side config.
They are easier to repair this way, and you can balance them with a discharge tray.

I've bought the GP unmatched 3300 from Mike by the box load and never had a problem with any cells....................lucky old me.

Edit: by vent I ment releasing the smoke, :026:

I don't think I have any matched cells. I had one or two go bad but it started going bad from the get go. I have a pack now that is showing resistance in it but not sure if it is going bad or not yet. I find out when the smoke fly. How far down do you run the batts? What kind of charger are you using to charge them to? I have had a cheap charger over charge them and get them to hot. It may not have nothing to do with truck but things you do as well or charger.

chc - They were always peaked at 1.2amps.

I didnt use the E-Maxx for the better part of 2 months, in which the cells werent touched, could that have contributed to this?

Did you leave the packs with any charge in them?

Well, id have taken them out of the maxx when they were nearly dead, then just left 'em.

Thats bad, before storing they should be fully charged.