Li Po charging without balancing

[Smoothound]

Problem is that when you start to see and feel the voltage decay easily the damage has already started.


As I've said the easy test is when you charge, if you put back more than 80% of the rated capacity on a 1C charge you are already pushing your luck

[Smoothound]

li-po's are a mine field for the first timer..i keep meaning to take the plunge and stop using nimh but its the whole terminology, dos and don'ts that im having trouble getting my head round.

It's not that bad, there are a few more do's and don'ts than with NiCd/NiMh but most of the basic rules are the same.

The latter 2 will quite happily explode and burn you if you charge them wrong as well

[bandicoot]

may be its time to just take the plunge

[Leebert]

I flew the T-rex in the garden last night and, even as a newbie, the point at which the heli is loosing power is quite obvious - apart from not having as much power, the heli seems to "feel" different on the sticks.

[Fixxxer]

I always find the tail starts to go before anything else and this is the indication I use, if not the timer on the TX. Just thought I'd share this with you from my schulze instruction manual, make of it what you will.

BALANCERS

A balancer is an electronic circuit which can be used with Lithium batteries if the pack consists of series-wired
Lithium cells (not necessary when cells are only parallel-wired) .
The purpose of the balancer is to match the voltage of the individual cells to one another, so that all the cells
exhibit the same state of charge. This statement applies to A N Y state of charge / charge voltage!

THE PROBLEM

Most of the “balancers” that we have encountered, and which are intended for modelling use, are not capable of
carrying out the above stated purpose. The reason for this is that these “balancers” don’t “communicate with
each other”.
Most of the devices known as “balancers” work as L I M I T E R S. The “balancer” carries out its task of
matching the cells by limiting the cell voltage to the full voltage value of the Lithium cell, as defined by the
manufacturer of the “balancer” (when permitted tolerances are taken into account, this voltage may be quite different).