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The advances in battery technology over the past year have been an electric car/truck drivers dream. More run time and more power. Think back a few years ago and the thought of approaching 4000 mah was simply crazy! This craziness is no longer a dream, but a reality.

We picked up some of the latest and greatest newcomers to the battery world, some IB 3800 mah NiMH cells. A quick visit to Boom Boom Batteries provided us with not only the cells we were looking for but some components for our battery pack build. Our order arrived in just a few days! Very, very nice. Like you, when we order something, it can not get to our mailbox fast enough. The team at Boom Boom realizes this and takes care of business ASAP.

The batteries look fantastic in their sassy blue cell wrappers. They arrived from Boom Boom with protective shrink wrap pre-installed on them, saving us the time and money hassle to wrap them ourselves. Granted battery cell shrink wrap is cheap but hey, we thought it was nice touch that this step was already done when they hit our doorstep.

Our batteries will be serving their life in two different trucks. The first one and what we will use for our review is our Team Losi XXX-T. If you have seen our Project XXX-T, you know that it’s a very lightweight, graphite packed unit that is already pretty quick on its feet. Once we have completed the review, we will be tearing them apart (de-soldering) and building some special packs for our RC Crawler Project, Rock Ripper. Stay tuned for more information on the IB’s performance in this rock dominating rig.

The first step is to build the pack. We will not go into the details on how to do this as one of the BYT Forum Moderators, Tom F, has already done a great write-up here . Be sure to check it out! There is also a very nice write-up on building packs and soldering in the February 2006 RC Driver magazine.

ZAPPED!
Every IB3800 cell from Boom Boom is "zapped" for maximum performance. The process of "zapping" entails applying a large, current pulse (high amperage jolt) to the cell which can reduce the internal cell resistance. This will provide slightly better cell performance and is often used in "racing" type cells.

CHARGING
With the pack built, we stuck it on our DuraTrax ICE charger to give it several cycles (discharge the pack and charge them up = 1 cycle) before hitting the streets. Here are some stats we collected during our battery cycles.

Battery Cycle #1:
Charging Amps = 3 amps
Final mah = 3910 mah
Final volts = 8.3 volts

Battery Cycle #2:
Charging Amps = 3.5 amps
Final mah = 3962 mah
Final volts = 8.4 volts

Battery Cycle #3:
Charging Amps = 4 amps
Final mah = 3844 mah
Final volts = 8.5 volts

Battery Cycle #4:
Charging Amps = 5 amps
Final mah = 3821 mah
Final volts = 8.6 volts

Geez! Almost 4000mah! That is very impressive! The cells charged very well and they never got too hot. The good charge results and low heat is also a good sign that our soldering job is good and no cell damage was done during the pack building.

TEST DRIVE
Onto the test drive! From the first pull of the trigger, the punch factor was obviously there. The cells deliver solid, predictable power with every squeeze right up until they fall off HARD and it is time for a recharge. Go – go - go and then BAM…they’re dead. This is typically a sign of a healthy and happy battery pack.

As we would have expected, the batteries had a lot more "punch" when charged at the higher amp rates. Surprisingly, very little run time (so little we could not even notice) was lost when charging at the higher rates. The 5 amp charge rate gave us the most power by far.

RUN TIMES
Wisconsin winters are pretty frigid and there were several times we were wishing the batteries would just DIE! Our hands were frozen to our transmitter and the batteries were still going strong. Running in a variety of terrain (snow, road, frozen dirt, etc) the pack lasted an average of 14-20 minutes. That is pretty impressive as we were running it hard for the entire time. No coffee breaks! We could see this time going down slightly in higher load situations like hill climbing and that sort of thing.

VERDICT
These batteries are excellent and can be had at a very reasonable price. You can buy a pre-made pack from Boom Boom Batteries for only $42.99! They offer a 6 cell, zapped, “loose pack” for only $36.99! Heck, for $6 it is worth it to just get the pre-built pack and let BBB build it for you. We have paid much more for packs that offer much less.

The IB 3800 cells handily deliver great value for anyone looking for solid power and long run times. They are highly recommended by BYT and we encourage you to treat your electric ride to some new powerful and long running juice!