Bayyery charging with supplied Traxxas wall wart charger

I am new to RC and have just purchased a Traxxas Slash 4*4 truck. The first charger didn't seem to work. Traxxas replaced it (fine so far). The 2nd charger doesn't seem much better. Now, I know that I will buy a better charger soon (probably Hyperion 720i), BUT don't you think that the standard charger should work out of the box?

The first wall wart charger "seemed" to charge although the light on the charger went red initially and then went out completely on the first battery (I never saw it green) and never even came on for the 2nd battery with any color. Traxxas (when I called) replaced the charger. Tower Hobbies (when I called) replaced the 5000mah Duratrax battery as well. So far, so good. The first battery gave me about 10 minutes of run time. The supplied 3000mah gave me about 10 feet before stopping.

The second wall wart charger (from Traxxas) LED went red when the first battery was plugged in and "seemed" to charge. The second battery when plugged in showed no LED at all. The 3rd battery, the LED went red for about 1 minute and then went green.

Now, I really don't know whether these batteries are charged or not without plugging each battery in and trying the car. Lots of rain here for the last 2 days, so haven't tried it outside at all. BTW, when using either charger. none of the batteries get warm at all...just stone cold. It's my understanding that when charging these batteries that they should get warm. That was one of the tests that Traxxas asked me to do with the 2nd charger.

I know the answer is to get a charger that gives me feedback on the charge BUT I am really disappointed inh Traxxas. Their suggestion is to buy a better charger...BUT to me if they sell a charger with the car then it should work and NOT be flaky.

Anyone else out there had these types of problems?

Thanks,

Kevin

Interesting sounds like some junk batteries, have you checked your wall outlet to like see if it's grounded?

Well, one battery is the Traxxas supplied 3000mah battery and the other 2 are Duratrax 5000mah batteries. Everything is only 2 weeks old. Seems hard to believe that 3 batteries are all bad. Outlet is grounded and it's been tried on several different outlets. I'll check the outlet again though.

Kevin

Hmmm...posts are not immediate on these forums? I did post a reply but don't see it show up.

All of thgis stuff is only about 2 weeks old. The 3000mah battery is Traxxas supplied with the car. The other 2 are Duratrax 5000mah batteries from Tower Hobbies. It's hard to believe that all the batteries are bad. The outlet is grounded although I will check it again. I have tried the chargers on more than one outlet also. I'll check it again.

the first 7 or so are moderated..

you must have a crappy charger. its best to just get a new one

When my wife bought here slash we never even plugged in the wall charger(heard they were hit and miss for crap) instead we picked up a V6A3 Balance Charger(Lipo/nimh/nicd) for around $50.00.

I would have to agree with the lot of ppl here and say it's another BAD CHARGER from Traxxas. If your funds can allow it I would look into a reasonable priced charger that does it all for when you upgrade to Lipo

That was what I thought. Traxxas are going to supply yet another stock charger. This will be the 3rd one. If the 3rd one works, I have to wonder about the QA of the Traxxas chargers.

I ended up buying a Hyperion EOS 0720i charger. Once I updated the charger firmware, downloaded and installed the SILabs USB driver, then downloaded the charger PC software...everything is good. Obviously 2 bad Traxxas chargers. They sent me a third, it's just stuck in my toolbox and not even opened.

The Hyperion is capable of being driven from the charger itself or via the PC software. In the PC software, you can name the 20 memory slots in the charger with more descriptive names, setup all the parameters in the PC software (a little easier thean the charger itself although the charger is not especially difficult to program. The PC gives charging graphs (not sure I understand all of the graphs yet though). MrMel over at www.rcgroups.com was very helpful.

Kevin

If you need another traxxas charger I got about 4 of them I'll send you one as long as you pay for postage.