# Information about Trinity DPD battery discharger



## tanktruck88

Has anyone had any experience with this? There is a guy that I race with that has one? He really likes it. It is a bit pricey though. Any thoughts or comments?


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## clarkwhoracing

I think this is one of the better battery conditioners on the market.

If you go side by side your batteries you get the indvidual readings on each cell and in essesence can make you weed out bad cells in your packs. Done this a few times and ran the cells on my gfx and pretty much got the same numbers.

I have one and may get another. Had the trusty old novak trya and gave that up for the DPD.

The whole package of the display, battery conditioning and runs off 2 batteries makes it easy use and maintain.

mike


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## CDW35

I have had mine for quite awhile now and love it, they are a little bit high on price but really it is worth it!!!


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## OvalTrucker

I really like mine. I don't have a CE charger. So the DPD does what I need to cover that issue.

The DPD is very user friendly. It isn't too big. You don't have to plug it in to anything - it runs on 2 AA's.
The only thing I would change - it would be nice if the user could choose when to change the screen when documenting the results of a discharge cycle. The DPD switches screens faster that I can write down all the info. Not a really big deal though.


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## Dmorris

*Trinity DPD*

I have one and love it. It numbers are very close to my GFX35 . I use mine when I want to check a pack's cells or removing the storage charge before charging if I have not charged in a while. For discharging on race day I normally use my Battery Doc 8.0. They are cheaper ($45) or so and do 2 packs at a time which is nice when running at your home track on a reg raceday. With the use of both I have noticed my packs last longer and some of my old packs have equlized there cells.


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## tanktruck88

Who makes this battery doc?


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## clarkwhoracing

Tekin


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## RCMits

on another board, there were all these "complaints" about the DPD not being "up to par". was following up that it could be from 'bad' cells, 'bad' solder joints, 'bad' this and that... but who knows.... doesnt seem like anyone here has problems....


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## gezer2u

It takes a long time to discharge a pack. The Much More is much faster. If that isn't a concern, then it works like it is advertised.


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## Mayhem

The 1st blue faced unit I got failed after 19 battery's just equalizing after I dumped them on the T-35, not even full cycles. Trinity did promptly send the new updated unit free of charge. One quick phone call and it was out the door that day. I decided to sell the new unit for a couple of reasons.

1- it takes too long to complete a cycle. i'd need 4 units to do what I needed to do in a timely fashion. It takes this long to discharge because they need to pulse the discharge, with pauses in between to prevent the unit from burning up.
2- I definetely dont want to train my packs to take 2 hours to discharge. Even Trinity says its best to cycle them once on a T-35 or something again before the pack is run right in the instructions. I also suspect it would raise the IR's doing this repeatedly.
3-If I wanted to pulse my packs I could do it on the charge cycle on a charger, in a fraction of the time. I suspect the charge cycle is where you really want to pulse, I could be wrong.
It holds heat in the cells, for a long time during discharge. Not the hot ticket for todays NiMh cells I suspect.
It is a great little unit for weeding out bad cells and could act as a low buck matcher if you trusted its numbers, I found a lack of repeatability on cells.
It does a great job at equalizing packs though, which is it main purpose. I ended up dumping to 4.00V on my T-35 then setting the packs in the DPD before I ran them again, but it just took too long when I was in a rush and I thought I noticed a slight drop in performance so I bailed on mine. Not a bad little gadget for the money but I finally bought a charger that did all that stuff in a fraction of the time. Hope this helps.


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## RCMits

i guess ill stick with the trusty method of discharging with my t30, and then equalizing on a smart tray... tried and true method... unless i shell out for a better system like the muchmore or something...


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## ta_man

I also dump my packs on a turbo 35 then take them down some more on an Indi 0-30 and use the DPD only for final equalization. My race regimen is to dump the packs the night before the race, equalize them and put 2-3 minutes of charge in them. The 2-3 minutes keeps them from getting below the critical threshhold for the one day until the race and it takes much less time to discharge/equalize on race day. An added benefit that I don't have to wait for them to cool after being equalized on race day because there isn't enough charge left in them to get them hot.


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## NCFRC

tanktruck88 said:


> Has anyone had any experience with this? There is a guy that I race with that has one? He really likes it. It is a bit pricey though. Any thoughts or comments?



I Just rec'd mine yesterday and I'm going to go with the old standby ,,,,

IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING GOOD , DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL !!!

Mines going back , keep your money


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## NCFRC

Mayhem said:


> The 1st blue faced unit I got failed after 19 battery's just equalizing after I dumped them on the T-35, not even full cycles. Trinity did promptly send the new updated unit free of charge. One quick phone call and it was out the door that day. I decided to sell the new unit for a couple of reasons.
> 
> 1- it takes too long to complete a cycle. i'd need 4 units to do what I needed to do in a timely fashion. It takes this long to discharge because they need to pulse the discharge, with pauses in between to prevent the unit from burning up.
> 2- I definetely dont want to train my packs to take 2 hours to discharge. Even Trinity says its best to cycle them once on a T-35 or something again before the pack is run right in the instructions. I also suspect it would raise the IR's doing this repeatedly.
> 3-If I wanted to pulse my packs I could do it on the charge cycle on a charger, in a fraction of the time. I suspect the charge cycle is where you really want to pulse, I could be wrong.
> It holds heat in the cells, for a long time during discharge. Not the hot ticket for todays NiMh cells I suspect.
> It is a great little unit for weeding out bad cells and could act as a low buck matcher if you trusted its numbers, I found a lack of repeatability on cells.
> It does a great job at equalizing packs though, which is it main purpose. I ended up dumping to 4.00V on my T-35 then setting the packs in the DPD before I ran them again, but it just took too long when I was in a rush and I thought I noticed a slight drop in performance so I bailed on mine. Not a bad little gadget for the money but I finally bought a charger that did all that stuff in a fraction of the time. Hope this helps.


Sent mine back also ,,,, I personnally think you'll get better equalization with a Battery Doctor or a Novak SE with the Hold function on. :thumbsup: 

My DPD stopped discharging when the first cell hit its cut off point,,,,Thats not true equalizing in my mind.


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## ta_man

NCFRC said:


> Sent mine back also ,,,, I personnally think you'll get better equalization with a Battery Doctor or a Novak SE with the Hold function on. :thumbsup:
> 
> My DPD stopped discharging when the first cell hit its cut off point,,,,Thats not true equalizing in my mind.


Are you sure it stopped discharging? Or it just changed the way it discharged the rest of the cells?

The fact that it switches from the 30A pulse mode to the 5A linear once the first cell reaches cutoff may not be what you expected, but it doesn't mean it isn't equalizing the cells.


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## NCFRC

RCMits said:


> i guess ill stick with the trusty method of discharging with my t30, and then equalizing on a smart tray... tried and true method... unless i shell out for a better system like the muchmore or something...


I've owned a DPD , Integy 0-30 ,a Novak SE , a Trinity D90 , and a Tekin Battery Doctor, and after using them all , I M O O , use the tekin and take battery out when lights go out and your fine. Our 4200's after a years use still IR @ 5.9 for a 4 cell pack . :thumbsup:


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## bojo

I have 4 of them and love them


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## GMC24

So how is the the new tekin nurse works ??


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## bojo

all I know it is going to keep a charge in them so you dont have to worry about them


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## thunder44

*Trinity DPD discharger*

*It's been about 6 months, how does everyone rate the DPD now?? I have one since about May.. I love mine and has never failed me.. What does everyone think now??*


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## RCMits

i guess it comes down to what works for you and what you keep consistant with. batteries are like kids... consistancy. if you discharge and maintain a certain way for a pack, keep it that way and your packs work great.

i hear good words on the DPD.... so... to each his own. =)


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## JDW

I use a 030 to discharge them till the lights get dim then use the DPD to take them to 1.0.Works great so far so I sold the Novak Smart tray its nice not having to plug it in fits on my CW turbo top with room to spare for the batts just one thing to plug in now my power supply. :thumbsup: 

Jake


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## RCMits

purple or black edition?


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## kevinm

My biggest complaint - They got the cell spacing wrong! How can the company that imports every cell known to man NOT know the diameter?

Pros:
The contact system is well designed (except for the spacing), with multiple gold plated contacts. I think this is actually a better design than the Turbomatcher.
It seems to produce pretty repeatable results.

Cons:
Takes forever to dump a full pack in the internal battery holder. Strangely, it seems to dump _external_ packs quickly. Maybe it's doing external packs at a constant 30 amps and internal ones at 5A with 30A short pulses on each cell in sequence? Has anybody tried to actually measure the amps it's pulling?


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## 67-4-fun

the only problem Ive had is the lcd sceen becomes blurd after a few minutes of discharging, From what was explaned to me is that the the screen bleeds of from heat to where you can't hardly read it.. other than that it works great!! {Black Edition}


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## JDW

Mine is black one.But not the 5 cell one.

Jake


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## ta_man

Seems to work fine for equalizing but I don't believe the numbers on individual cell capacities. I had two packs where 2-3 cells reported more discharge mAHrs (200 more) than was put into the pack in between cycles on the DPD (meaning: equalize on DPD, full charge, discharge on DPD).


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## KenBajdek

Kevinm,

I don't understand the spacing. I have put IB3800,IB4200,EP4200 and EP4600 and they all fit. 4cell and 6 cell packs are fine.

The reason the external pack dumps faster is that is taking down the whole pack as a whole unit. If you have a mismatched or lower capacity cell the pack will dump even faster because it is reading the whole pack voltage. Let's say you put your 4 cell pack on there and 1 cell discharges to .9 first then rest of pack could have cells as high as 1.2 volts or more and the 3.6volt cutoff would shutoff but the whole pack isn't completely. 

Equalize your cells always before recharging. Especially older packs (more than 2 months old). They will be a little mismatched no matter who matched them originally or which cells they are.


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## NCFRC

Overall , a not very thought out unit , THE BATTERIES FIT VERY POORLY , which leads to bad connections.

They tried to make a fancy Integy 0-30 and failed ! 

There R + D dept was in too much of a rush to get to market vs. trying it
in the real world first.

I guarantee that if some prototypes were used at the track , alot of these 
problems would have been fixed.

Who said they had 4 ? ,,,, either brain dead or has too much money  

Stay with a Battery Doctor or a Integy 0-30 , you'll be fine and save a ton
of money.


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## KenBajdek

I am very confused with the complaints with the poor fit. The packs fit better than most integy and novak trays. I am not a Trinity fan but this is a quality piece they made.


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## thunder44

*I have found no issues with the one I have (black case) Preforms to all expectations and does it job well.. Wouldn't hurt if I had a second, maybe later I will pick up a second one.. If you want something done right, do it right the first time.. Don't rush it with those fast discharge trades!*


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## kevinm

KenBajdek said:


> I am very confused with the complaints with the poor fit. The packs fit better than most integy and novak trays. I am not a Trinity fan but this is a quality piece they made.


Simple math: 
Cell diameter = 0.9" to 0.915"
Distance between cell holder #1 and #6 = 4.36" (should be=5 cell diameters)
4.36"/5 = 0.872"


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## Tres

I've done a ton of wraps for the DPD...

99% of all the guys I talk with say they really like it.


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## Damien

I also have one, and I really enjoy it because that's good to see what you have in you cells ! But I recently had a problem : one of the cells doesn't stop discharging, it keeps the same voltage (1.21 V), the discharging procedure continues (I suppose...) while the other cells are done. 

Is there any way to open it ? Because I tried to do it (unscrew the 4 screws) and it's still hard to open  

thank you


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## thunder44

Damien said:


> I also have one, and I really enjoy it because that's good to see what you have in you cells ! But I recently had a problem : one of the cells doesn't stop discharging, it keeps the same voltage (1.21 V), the discharging procedure continues (I suppose...) while the other cells are done.
> 
> Is there any way to open it ? Because I tried to do it (unscrew the 4 screws) and it's still hard to open
> 
> thank you


Well I strongly suggest you contact Trinity about the problem, you may have to send it back to be looked at or even replaced..


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## Damien

That's what I was thinking about, thanks !


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## Outlaw 44

Looking aroud the swap and sell section and thinking about buying one used. Can anyone tell me the diffrence between the blue version and the black one? Dust don't have time to read the whole thread.


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