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Breathing new life into dim night blades
My align 600D night blades are getting a bit weak, only a couple of flight at most on a charge before one loses its blue LED. At least the other seems stronger.
Has anyone broken a set and investigated what lipo is inside what the circuit there is? I recently wired up my cellpro 10 to one of the blades. The measured volts on the uncharged blade was 3.8v, the charger output seems to be 4.2V, but set to either auto 1C or 100mA the cellpro errors on no cell add up. I was hoping a better charger might get more life out of it. Maybe I’ll try connecting them as a 2 cell but the cellpro10S is supposed to charge a single cell.
The other question about the circuit is that because the blade lights if you plug the charger in backwards, you can actually connect an external lipo and power them like that. Folks in USA have been shrink wrapping little lipos on the outside to revive their blades (like they do to make their own night blades) and I’m thinking of doing that. Provided the weight is near the blade root the forces aren’t too big. Apparently the lipo needs to be terminals toward the root and sealed end toward the tip for best structural integrity.
I saw an interesting setup on a 500 heli at NNFC fly-in (didn’t get the pilots name)– 3 little lipos in a little round box screwed in place of the head button, applying 11.1v to the blades making them very bright. He also had a force dependant switch that made the blades come on when they rotated.
Now applying an extra single cell in parallel to the internal lipo is fine in my book. The crappy internal lipo cannot be over charged be connecting another single cell in parallel. However applying 2 or 3x the voltage would in effect overcharge the knackered internal lipo inside the blade root, unless there is a protective diode or something. Is there a risk that there could be a little blade root explosion to add interest to the night flying experience?
Mods: how about a night flying forum section? I think I asked this before.
My align 600D night blades are getting a bit weak, only a couple of flight at most on a charge before one loses its blue LED. At least the other seems stronger.
Has anyone broken a set and investigated what lipo is inside what the circuit there is? I recently wired up my cellpro 10 to one of the blades. The measured volts on the uncharged blade was 3.8v, the charger output seems to be 4.2V, but set to either auto 1C or 100mA the cellpro errors on no cell add up. I was hoping a better charger might get more life out of it. Maybe I’ll try connecting them as a 2 cell but the cellpro10S is supposed to charge a single cell.
The other question about the circuit is that because the blade lights if you plug the charger in backwards, you can actually connect an external lipo and power them like that. Folks in USA have been shrink wrapping little lipos on the outside to revive their blades (like they do to make their own night blades) and I’m thinking of doing that. Provided the weight is near the blade root the forces aren’t too big. Apparently the lipo needs to be terminals toward the root and sealed end toward the tip for best structural integrity.
I saw an interesting setup on a 500 heli at NNFC fly-in (didn’t get the pilots name)– 3 little lipos in a little round box screwed in place of the head button, applying 11.1v to the blades making them very bright. He also had a force dependant switch that made the blades come on when they rotated.
Now applying an extra single cell in parallel to the internal lipo is fine in my book. The crappy internal lipo cannot be over charged be connecting another single cell in parallel. However applying 2 or 3x the voltage would in effect overcharge the knackered internal lipo inside the blade root, unless there is a protective diode or something. Is there a risk that there could be a little blade root explosion to add interest to the night flying experience?
Mods: how about a night flying forum section? I think I asked this before.
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