# New Packs, Matching and the Turbo 35 GFX



## woodytx (Nov 5, 2004)

Couple of items for this one discusion. I cell for 4 new packs and when I assembled them I have one that has 30 AR and discharge time of 230. What is up with that? I checked each cell using my new turbo 35 GFX  and the number ok once cell at the time. Where do I start trying to find the problem?

I went ahead and purchased the CE battery holder with the GFX so I could "re-match" my older and now practice packs. I thought I would be cute and double check the numbers on the labels. I cycled the cells individually once per day for 4 days at 30 amp discharge, 5 amp charge and .1 detection because that is what my matcher uses. My run times were less and changed cycle to cycle. My AV were consistant on a given cell after the first cycle but were less than the labels. Its not like the AV was always lower by .5 than every label either. Once cell may have been 1.163 consistantly and was labeled 1.172 and the next would be 1.168 consistantly and labled 1.172. The AR was .5 higher than the label every single time so I discounted this to equipment calibration etc. When I questioned my matcher they said cells are very inconsistant and they found the same results after matching and storing cells. So here is my question. If the stupid things are that inconsistant than why do we bother matching in the first place or buying $400 chargers, computer equalizing trays etc? Why not just sort cells loosely and call it good?

Does anyone use the "off-road" or "on-road" simulated discharge on the turbo 35? Does it make any differance?


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## rctazmanmc (Oct 8, 2001)

I have a turbo 35 stealth and had the same issues but my numbers were coming out much higher. It is a good tool to check with but not concrete for numbers in my view. Power supply also may have a effect with power surges and lows - make sure you have a good supply on this.

As for off-road discharge - that is more for conditioning the batteries - I never use mine - does not work in cycle mode.

I plan on selling mine off once the new novak comes out.

Just my 2 cents.

mc


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## woodytx (Nov 5, 2004)

hmmm i thought that the settings configured in the charge or discharge mode applied to the cycle mode for a given profile. If I set my discharge to 20 amps instead of 30 amps and then cycle. The discharge rate that is recorded on my computer is 20 amps. I would assume that the discharge mode would be the same that if i set to off-road in the discharge setup screeen then cycle the cycle would be done using the off road setting. maybe not


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## JeffPatch29 (Jan 21, 2002)

you arn't going to be able to match the exact same conditions your matcher does. Room temperature and humidity all play a factor in the numbers on your packs from the matcher. The only thing turbo 30's or 35's should be used for is comparison between packs so you can see how far they haven fallen off between cycles, or to determine which pack is your best pack and which is the worst.


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## DynoMoHum (Sep 25, 2001)

I can tell you from my own personal experiance... some matchers do better then others at maintaining consistancy in their matching numbers. Based on my own experiance, there are companys I will not due business with any more due to the inconsistancys in the numbers they give, verses what I get when I do my own testing. 

Now I'm not talking about trying to directly compare numbers... I'm speaking in realitive terms. Like say I get numbers of like 1.6 when I check a cell labled 1.7... When I see two cells labled 1.7 yet I get 1.5 and other cells labled 1.7 and I get 1.7... all in the same pack of suposedly 'matched' packs...

Now I won't name any names, primarly because I know that my numbers may also be inconsistant... However I know for sure that my numbers are alot closer (realtively speaking) with at least one matchers numbers then they are with this other matchers numbers... So... well I'm confident enough in my own testing to stop buying from this one matcher, but I'm not going to try and tell you that you should not use this perticular matcher... at least not in a public forum... If you ask me in person, I'll tell you what I've seen.


Now, keep the following in mind... It's very difficault to match cells, you must maintain very close operating condtions, and well... it's difficult to do it really well.

However also keep in mind that most matchers maintain and use more then one matching machine/device. Each device must be maintained and calibrated on a regular basis. The more machines they use, the more work they must do to keep them all in close to one another in terms of numbers they give. Their rooms must be climate controled pretty closely, and each machine must have simmilar operating condtions, etc... Well, I'm confident that some matchers do better then others.


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## woodytx (Nov 5, 2004)

Now I'm not talking about trying to directly compare numbers... I'm speaking in realitive terms. Like say I get numbers of like 1.6 when I check a cell labled 1.7... When I see two cells labled 1.7 yet I get 1.5 and other cells labled 1.7 and I get 1.7... all in the same pack of suposedly 'matched' packs...

Thanks for the help. You see that is what has me puzzled. This is a brand new GFX with the battery box from CE. The battery box is essentially the same thing as the four holders on a Turbo Matcher. My test was done in a server room that has kick butt environmental controls (you guessed it i am a nerd by day). The power supply readings on the GFX are very stable also. The Actual Resistance apeared to be a liner equation coming out precisely .5 higher than my matchers lable numbers. I can chalk this up to calibration, I am using GFX and not a Matcher, or most likey I attach the battery box to my GFX with aligator clips. What has me wigged out is each cell never really got stable in the "run time" and "average voltage" fields. Had the AV or RT been lower than the label by close to the same amount on each cell, well ok buildem and run em. 

All of it is really mute since I really need to work on driving better first. Its just that I can not turn off the "nerd". I want to know why. Makes me want to do a study of major matchers products and see who is and who is not straight up. So much so I am considering dumping some serious money to get to the bottom of it all.


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## DynoMoHum (Sep 25, 2001)

I understand your concerns for the runtime and voltage... 

I'd suggest getting rid of the aligator clips first. Perticularly the ones on the large wires, since they are the ones that carry all the current. The small wires are probably OK to keep the clips on, if you make sure they are connected reasonably well, as close to the battery as possible. Idlealy you should eliminate the clips from both sets of wires, and make sure you get the small voltage sensing wires as close to the battery as possible.

It's going to be very hard to maintain anything close to 1/100th of a volt accuracy and/or consistancy no mater what you do... I would think you should be able to get the run time to stablize within 20 seconds or so, but I must admit I never did put as much effort into this as what you appear to be doing, so I couldn't say for sure that you will ever get this to stablize as you are hoping for. 

It would seem that you might be better off trying to average your results...

How and/or if matchers ever truely get these numbers to stablize is truely unknown to me... 

I do know that I have one matcher that I use that consistantly has numbers closer to the ones I get then any other matcher that I've ever tried... I keep telling myself I'll never buy from any other matchers, but my compulsion tends to get the best of me and haven't been able to live up to my own advice, and I keep getting disapointed by the numbers I see when I compare mine to other matchers.


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## DynoMoHum (Sep 25, 2001)

For what it's worth, I find it hard to even get the Actual Resistance numbers to be consistant on many cells.


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## woodytx (Nov 5, 2004)

I guess what i needed was a paradigm shift. My run times are already with in 15 seconds. Let me try the leads for the meter directly on my tabs and see what happens. Those two things may just save me from going obsesive.


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## The Jet (Sep 25, 2001)

Your GFX has long wires to get to the battery, the Turbo matcher has the battery sitting right on top, so you can see why you'll never see the label numbers.
The clips will NEVER go on the same way twice, and the contacts at the battery are changing too, that can be why the numbers vary
Random cells are just too far off to run as well as even a poorly matched pack. Random cells can have runtime from under 300 to over 440, so a pack that has cells from 380 to 400 will still run better than random cells.

Later, Bret


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## RC300 (Apr 3, 2002)

I'm not even sure the numbers I get off my GFX just to compare my packs against each other mean anything anymore. An example is I have one pack that has been consistently faster ON THE TRACK but looks worse when cycled against three other packs. More than once I have saved the so called best looking pack when cycled to run in the main and gone slower overall than I have with the so called weaker pack I wasted in a qualifier. I now just remember which pack just plain worked the best and make it my main pack no matter what the numbers on the GFX said.


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## bojo (May 6, 2002)

well i know one matcher that his numbers are real. because i was charging at 10 amps.for a bout three weeks and a cycled my packs and thy were the same if not better then when he cycle them.


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## woodytx (Nov 5, 2004)

I know that there are lots of little vairiables etc. but I am going to shop arround and test out a few more matcher just for the heck of it. I may even buy/borrow a turbo matcher and base line some new cells on it then turn arround and measure them on the GFX just to see what happens.


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## hankster (Jan 1, 1998)

Test them on the track... it will tell you more then any GFX or matcher ever could.


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## DynoMoHum (Sep 25, 2001)

I'm still stubern enough to belive that the GFX should be able to tell you what cell/pack is best... but I am openminded enough to think that maybe I'm all wrong as well...

As with dynos however the numbers may be deceiving... and well clearly the GFX or any of the CE battery evaluation boxes, do not exactly simulate the demands that get placed on a battery while in your car... So, yes, I agree that on track performance is the real bottom line.

Let me speculate about what could be happening, when we see good packs on the GFX that don't preform quite that good on the track... When we test on a battery matcher type thing like the GFX, we really are only testing at one single point in the battery's output curve... It's entirely possible that at slightly higher, or slightly lower amploads that the pack actualy does better (or worse) then what it does at that single point... so, this is most likely why you could possibly get better results on the track then you may see on your CE tester...

Idealy we should test the cells at a variety of discharge levels from say 60 amps all the way to 10 or so... The pack that performs the best over that wide range, might tell us something more then what we see at a single point of 30 or 35 amps... But this sort of thing would be very hard to do, but maybe not impossible. I could invsion a product that tested the actual IR at a series of amp loads, rather then trying to discharge at a constant load for the entire discharge cycle... but then you'd also have to test at a variety of tempertures, and well... maybe your better off just putting the pack in the car and driving.


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