beenbreto

Hey every one. my name is ed i used to race electric off road like 10 to 15 years ago and now I'm going on road. well a lot has changed since then ( **** I'm in the army now serving my country for over 4 years) but my question is i used to have a light set that used to kill my batteries (that my dad built) it was a simple set up i just cant remember it the only reason I'm asking is that I'm board over here in Germany and i want to get back into the sport. Does anyone remember that? please let me know THANKS IRON SOLIDERS.

TheTick

I remember those. I mad mine too waay back in the day. Alot more people are using lithium polymer batteries these days. They don't require discharging.

DaveG55

Bulb dischargers can still be found. http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXKTS4&P=7 but they're not great to use for your batteries since it's real easy to over discharge them. Also, most of the good modern chargers have a discharge function that will discharge the batteries automatically and then, again automatially start recharging the batteries.
The thing is, 15 years ago all you'd find, battery wise, is nicads and they needed to be discharged in order not to form a memory. Now nicads are the bottom of the heap (well, next to the bottom) in battery technology. Nimh's, between nicads and lipos, do not require discharging the same way nicads did, though it doesn't really hurt them, it doesn't help them as much as it does nicads. At the top of the heap are lipo batteries and they do not require discharge, discharging them too much is fatal to them even, not to mention dangerous.
If you're going to get back into racing then you'll probably be looking at a brushless engine set up and nimh batteries at a minimum and, more likely lipos. Lipos just give so much longer run times and very little drop off until they are almost discharged.
So I guess what I'm saying is don't bother with a bulbdischarger unless you're just doing it to have something to do because you'll probably never need to use it.