TECH-HOWTONeed to Get Rid of a LiPo? Here’s What to Do.
You have a LiPo back that swelled up due to overdischarging or other reasons and you want to dispose of it safely. What are you supposed to do?Once fully discharged, a LiPo can be safely discarded in regular trash, but recycling is the preferred option. Ask your local hobby store if it accepts LiPos for recycling. If it doesn’t, visit the website call2recycle.org to find out where you can drop off your LiPo pack. Many home-improvement stores and electronics stores will take your LiPo and recycle it properly.

Before discarding or recycling your pack, however, you MUST make sure it is fully discharged. Many chargers include a discharge function, but these will not discharge all the way down to zero volts. Instead, a #1157 automotive bulb can be used to discharge the pack. A single bulb will pull about 2 amps to gently drain the battery.
Solder a plug or a pair of alligator clips to the bulb so that it can be connected to the pack. Place the pack in a LiPo-safe bag, a bucket of sand, or another fireproof container and attach the discharge bulb.
After the bulb goes out, leave it connected for 24 hours to be certain the pack is fully discharged. You can then snip off the pack’s connector if you want to reuse it. Leave enough wire on the pack to twist the leads together, creating a short circuit. This will prevent the battery’s voltage from recovering. The battery is now electronically inert, so you can safely recycle or dispose of it.

What About Saltwater?

Ask about discharging and discarding LiPos and you’ll still get the suggestion that LiPos should be submerged in saltwater (specifically, water mixed with the maximum amount of salt it can absorb) to discharge the battery. There are two problems with the saltwater method, other than the obvious inconvenience of dealing with a big bucket of saltwater: One, the pack will discharge very slowly—so slowly that the battery tabs are likely to corrode away before the cells fully discharge; two, the original instruction for the saltwater method was to cut open the cells to expose the chemicals inside to the saltwater. Needless to say, cutting open LiPo cells is NOT a thing you should do. Discharging a LiPo in a fire-safe container with a low-amperage load, such as the light bulb described above, is the safest, easiest way to render a LiPo inert for safe disposal.

Article Credit: Radio Control CarAction www.rccaraction.com/

RCcarStars is now proud to distribute the RC industries #1 Pit Station from Racecraft USA......

Racecraft USA is extremely proud to introduce the RaceCraft USA “COMMAND MODULE”!​

The “COMMAND MODULE” is an easy to carry pit solution that enables you to maximize your pit space as well as organizing your pit tools and accessories. The entire unit is made of .100 aluminum from a local vendor that is strong enough to be sturdy and light enough to be easily mobile with a folded footprint of 4’x18”. The upper/top section has slotted holes running along the entire length to fit any shop light 4’ or smaller which is also sized to fit a 1/8 scale truggy with the wheels on. No assembly or disassembly required, simply lay it down with the topside facing downward and then unfold the two sides and flip it over and you’re done!

You can also order our accessory holders that we have coined the name, “G BLOCKS”. These G BLOCKS will hold and organize your pit tools, headsets, shocks, cell phone and other accessories you want off your table by inserting the G BLOCKS with our unique side-hanging mounting system into the COMMAND MODULE. The G Blocks utilized the slotted vertical sections within the COMMAND MODULE that allow you to mount the G BLOCKS at the height you wish in addition to the ability to slide the G BLOCKS into any location on the side-panels of the COMMAND MODULE.

​The first run of the COMMAND MODULES are now available now for purchase. And we are also taking pre-orders at this time for the next batch that should be available in time for the holiday season.  The G BLOCKS will be available before the end of November and we will be taking and filling orders at that time.
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The COMMAND MODULE is sold as one unit and the G BLOCKS can be added to the order separately. The light is the only item not available for purchase at this time, but we recommend you purchase any 4 foot or smaller LED light for maximum durability.

To order today or for more information, please head-over to the RaceCraft USA Facebook page and message us your order or questions.

    At RCcarStars we are driven to help all RC hobbyist learn and understand more about our hobby of RC cars.  With that in mind we have done some in-depth research to put together the most up-to-date comprehensive chart that will show you most of the major manufactures oils available on the market.  In addition we have done our best to convert all the "Non-Standard" Weight (WT) to "World-Standard" Centi-Stokes (CST) to compare viscosities.

Please note: we have done our best to take the WT-to-CST conversions right off of the Associated and TLR bottles to assure we have the latest and most up-to-date data.  For XTR, we used some testing results from a large distributor of XTR that seemed to match our personal findings of XTR being very similar in real life viscosity to Associated silicone shock oils.​

We hope you will find this most up-to-date chart (created 10/18/20) useful in your endeavors to understand what viscosities are available by each manufacture, in addition to the WT-to-CST conversions.

​As always, we hope you enjoy our website and articles to help you enjoy our hobby!!!

   When you are racing, you tend to get to the track early in the morning and the temperatures are generally at the coolest point of the day.  We then go onto the track and begin to take practice laps, to not only get down the lines on the track but to feel how the RC car is performing based upon your setup.  One common mistake most racers make when at the track, is failing to make changes to the silicone shock oil as the temperatures change throughout the day.

Here is a good example:

In Southern California we race off-road 8 scale outdoors in very desert like conditions.  When we arrive at the track and begin our practice runs, the temperature may be at a cool and pleasant 68 degrees Fahrenheit.  The car feels a little stiff but not enough to justify any changes to shock oils.  We then begin our first qualifier around 10 or 11am and the temperature may have increased to 80 degrees and the car feels great.  By the time the second qualifying race comes around its around 1pm to 2pm and now the temps may be around 100 degrees. You now do your second round of qualifying and your car is very soft and the rear end is bottoming on the jumps, "YEP" you forgot to account for the temperature change and the effect on the shocks.

So now you are waiting for the main event sheets to be posted but you are not sure if you will be one of the first races at 4pm or one of the last races between 9 to 10pm at night.  So again, not thinking it totally through in your mind, you remember you are bottoming out on the jumps and bumps, so you change your shock oil to a thicker oil by 50cst to 100cst more.  THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE, as you have to plan better and anticipate when your MAIN race will be (meaning approximately what time are you going to be on the track) and what might the temperatures be then? With today's smart phones, you have no excuse to not looking-up the hourly temp changes for your area on your favorite weather website.

In the example above, if you changed your shock oils to a thicker CST/Viscosity, say by going up 100cst to maybe a 600cst in front and now 500cst in the rear, in hopes of stopping the bottoming out of the RC on the jumps and bumps. You probably hit the track at lets say 8pm and the temperature is now 80 degrees. This oil change now just made your main event a lot tougher. 

You will remember, your original setup was perfect at 80 degrees in the first qualifier but now you just went up 100cst (front and back shocks) on your RC.  So guess what, your Main Event is going to be bumpy ride!!!!!  

Summary:

So to help you understand how much the temperature can effect your shock oil viscosity, we have included a nice chart that shows the test results of the effects of increasing or decreasing temperatures on the CST (viscosity) of the silicone shock oils from two major shock oil manufactures. The 40wt oils are usually around 500CST at room temps of around 75 degrees.  So assuming you have 40wt or 500cst Oil in your shocks to start with, the chart shows the viscosity rate in CTS increase or gets thicker as it gets colder and CTS decreases or gets thinner as it gets hotter. 

On the right hand-side of the chart is what we recommend you do based upon the temperature changing up or down by at least 10 degrees or more.

So in closing, remember to always anticipate the temperature changes and how it will effect your shock setups throughout the day. This may be the difference of making it to the winners circle or just having a great run in the MAINs.

Good luck and we hope you find this information useful.

#RCpitTips #RCShockOilChart #TLRshockOilChart #AssociatedShockOilChart