We do not match our cells, we believe that it is no longer required, and the results achieved by our cells prove it....  (we do supply the cells sorted into in sets of the same weight...FIND OUT MORE...)

I  am not going to slag off matched cells or the people who match them.....I want to explain what matching is for and why you need it ...OR NOT.

Matching used to be critical, That is no longer the case. 

First a little history...in ye olde days when my family started racing RC cars the typical stick packs where 1100 mAh and the saddle packs were 1200 and 1400 mAh, racing with 12 turn motors off-road was a real challenge, lasting 5 minutes was really hard, if not impossible.

Matched cells where introduced to get ALL the cells in the pack to last the same time.

No good having one low capacity cell going flat first, causing dumping. That poor cell had a very short life expectancy, as drivers tried to finish the race with one flat cell.

What the matchers discovered was that not only were the cells of different duration/capacity, but they had different Voltages as well.

In those days increased voltage was a double edged sword, with only 1400 mAh capacity, the extra voltage would cause the pack to discharge more quickly, so even with cells selected  for high capacity, you could easily dump when the cells were also selected for higher voltage. (we don't have that problem any more with GP3300's).

The mix of capacity and voltage lead to the introduction of "kilo-joules" as measurement of cell quality or POWER. (more about this another time).

The current matching environment...

The Matching Companies spend a lot of time and money sorting cells into categories , Factory - Team - Club - Practice  OR  Worlds - Nationals - Regionals - etc ,

When you buy the cells you have to pay for this effort, expense and expertise, It doesn't come cheap! 

They start by buying 100's or 1000's of cells, the minimum  you can buy wholesale is 200, but they cost too much in small quantities, and there is not enough "special" cells to merit matching with a small quantity, so they buy by the 1000. Big Bucks.!

Then they need matching equipment, a 4 cell matcher from Competition Electronics retails at around $700. Matching companies claim at least 3 cycles when matching each cell, with just one of CE matcher, expect to take a month to match a box of 200 cells, (that is only 16 packs) and take maybe six months for a useful quantity........So they need a few of these or their own expensive bit of bespoke kit.

As with most things the distribution graph of quality is the classic "bell shaped curve", most of the cells are in the middle of the graph, very few are exceptional and very few are poor.

In fact after several 1000 cells, I have had no noticeable poor or exceptional cells. I had one Gentleman (for that is what he is) that matches cells, tells me he sent a batch of cells, back to GP Batteries, because there were no exceptional ones in the batch.

Sorry I am going off topic.....

The Matchers task is to sort the cells by capacity and voltage, but other factors come into play, for instance the internal resistance (IR), and the ability of the cell to sustain the high current flows required by world class RC car racers.

The IR will have an effect on the voltage the cell is able to deliver (Ohm's law can be applied to show the loss that a high IR will cause).

Cells are routinely subjected to being discharged at higher and higher currents by matchers to find the best cells, not because discharging at these high currents reveals more about the IR of the cell, but because it reveals the cells that are unable to sustain  these high currents due to minor constructional flaws.

The cells that fail these extreme tests will be downgraded to lower categories, they wont be rejected completely. (no one else will notice)

The Matchers then sell the cells explaining how important the new high current figures are, and the old (20 amp) figures are being written off as no longer valid, but these are the extremes they have to go too to find the exceptional cells for their team/sponsored drivers.

The remaining cells are then divided into categories and sold to the general public at the highest price the market will stand or (in the case of homologation rules) allow.  They need to charge as much as possible to get back the cost of the investment they have made, that's perfectly reasonable. (That's what I would do, and you too, I think).

So the Matcher removes the best cells for his TEAM, then sells the second best for a high premium price, third best for a high price, forth best for reasonable price, and the dross for thirty quid or so.

But the difference between the best and the worst is not that big, so why pay a premium for cells that are matched for duration when you just don't need it.

Most Matching companies advertise VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT processes, these are fine if you get the cells fresh, but it wears off over (short) time and with poor cell management. The part I am not so happy about is that many of them state that they do it before matching the cells, So the figures on the cells are inflated by this process.

Paying a premium for low IR or high voltage may be realistic if you can trust your supplier and you know the cells are fresh, and you know how to look after them correctly.

Trackside TOP TRUMPS, more fun than racing...

"My cells are better than yours", how many entries do you see on chat sites comparing the numbers and asking the relevance of numbers on the cells, WOW if you want to start an argument, start there. I get the impression the reason for the questions is that the numbers look good, but the performance does not seem to match expectations. 

Very few people comparing numbers on these chat sites are reporting that they have moved up several finals by using the new great cells they have bought. It must happen when a driver is being held back by his/her old tired cells, I just haven't seen it being reported, maybe the numbers didn't make that much difference?.

My opinion, you do not need to match GP or Intellect Cells, the average cells are superb.

unless you are racing at the top level (nationally) I don't think there is any benefit in matched cells.

We have all raced Matched Cells for so long now, no one has noticed that is no longer necessary!

These days the performance of the car is dictated much more by 

(1) Driver ability (my vote for most important, I've seen it proved time and again)

(2) Choice of motor and gearing (when was yours last skimmed?)

(3) car maintenance, how free is your drive chain?

(4) choice of speed controller

(5) tires, (foam or rubber, inserts etc) 

(6) car setup springs dampers etc (if yours is really crap, move this up to position 2, a poor setup can make car un-drive-able at speed, though most quality cars work with an out of the box setup)

(7) a well maintained set of GP or Intellect cells properly charged and regularly equalized.

The further you get down the list it is arguable as to what is of the most importance, obviously any one item that is really bad, must move to the top of the list.

Buying an unmatched set of cells from us, will guarantee that you are not getting the worst cells in the batch from the matching company!

Indeed a set of unmatched cells will usually perform better than the mid range priced matched cells, and some will perform like the very best you can get on the open market, its the luck of the draw. 

All at the lowest UK price from NRGDynamics.

One criticism of unmatched cells is that, un-maintained, they "go off" much more quickly than matched cells, I totally agree, and advise that regular "equalizing" of the packs is carried out to prevent this, but show me a serious racer that does not equalize their cells these days. 

We equalize our own Cells ever few events, and they are as good as new after a year or more, We use a low cost equalizer from a Nosram (LRP), no need to spend a fortune, indeed in my opinion the expensive equalizers don't work as well as the "diode" devices.

We Select by Weighing ... We weigh the cells to 0.1 gram tolerance and select them in sets of the same weight, this is not fool proof but consistently matches the capacity of the cells fairly well. This helps overcome the problem of badly miss-matched cells causing early failure of the pack. It produces sets that are close enough match for today's racing. The few cells which fall outside of the normal range (very light or very heavy cells) are used for testing only and are not sold.

When you get the cells they will have a number on the button, i.e. 6.4, the cells are 66.4 grams in weight  (i.e. add 60). If you want light or heavy let me know  by email, heavier = slightly more capacity.

Back to top.

(and if I cant convince enough of you otherwise, I may have to join the club and start matching cells....)

Chris Chandler  MIIE