Lipo 'weird one'

[Nick B]

Just took my rx lipo off the heli from the back of my van and got it indoors to charge and it kept stopping saying 'full'...this was straight away,each cell was 3.98...i tried it a gain,same thing.....so i put the lipo in my pocket for 5 mins and now it charging as normal.I guess the lipo got very cold?

Anyone else had the same?

[Steve]

Yes, I had similar symptoms a few weeks ago and got all nervous about the state of the LiPo. Turned out it was ok in the end, and like you, I suspect the ambient temperature was affecting the charge.

[the_frogger]

Yep, the cold definitely has a big effect on lipo's. My Cellpro chargers automatically go into cold restore mode now when I bring them out of the garage so have decided to store them in the house over the winter.

[dam74]

Ambient temperature affects batteries in this way. When I do nature/landscape photography my batteries always die quickly in frosty conditions and need to be kept within their optimum operating temperature range.
That was using a D200 using 2xLION batteries in a battery grid and 5xNIMH AA batteries for the flash. Both types were affected as I noticed the cylce times on the flash were slower than on warmer days.

[Mark_T]

BladeStriker got lucky though, finding a cold partially discharged battery appears full is not nearly as expensive as finding a fully charged battery from a warm room can become overcharged as it gets cold ...