Battery maintenance is the single most important aspect of preventing fires. Typically the battery used in the current version of Halfscale/Jegs electric dragsters uses a 144v battery system that is made up of 6 packs of batteries with each contain 6 cells (6 cells per pack X 6 packs = 36 individual cells). It is critical that these cells be kept in a very specific voltage range, and NEVER run above or below these values.

The highest the cells should ever be charged up to for racing is 4.15v
(149v pack voltage)
The lowest the cells should ever be discharged to is 3.7v
(133v pack voltage)

Race season

You should be balance charging your batteries before every weekend of racing. The process we use, is bring the battery up to charge the night before a race by charging the individual cells directly with a 6S balancing charger.

This charger will allow you to monitor 6 individual cells at a time and charge them to your specified value (remember, never over 4.15V!!).

While at the track racing, we use an Elcon charger to charge the battery between each pass. This should be the charger that was provided with your dragster/conversion kit.

While the Elcon charger works perfectly fine, it’s important to understand the charger is dumb. It does not monitor the individual cell voltage, it is just charging and looking for a max voltage. While using the Elcon charger, you should be monitoring the individual cell voltages with a small voltage display

Winter Season / Storage

If you’re not racing for a long period of time, it’s critical to discharge the battery pack to put the cells into a storage mode. We store our battery over the winter at 3.8v each cell. The charger used above will allow you to lower the cell voltages.

If you live in a cold climate, it’s important to bring the battery into your house while it is in storage mode. Lithium cells do not like the cold, so bring them into your house where they can stay in a 55* – 75* climate until race season starts.