Storing Lipo, discharge or not.

[StreetDragster]

Hi all,

So you have charged up a 6s pack and you are not going flying, is it better for the Lipo to discharge it to storage and recharge a week later, or leave it charged for a week?

Thanks
Matt

[milly0812]

Storing Lipo, discharge or not.

Rightly or wrongly I've always kept my packs fully charged. I never know when I'm going to get to fly so keeping them charged works for me and can't say I've had any issues with it either

[BASS 666]

Rightly or wrongly I've always kept my packs fully charged. I never know when I'm going to get to fly so keeping them charged works for me and can't say I've had any issues with it either

me too...

[davec_7]

Its OK to leave them fully charged for a week or so, but its best to store them charged at about 70% if you are not going to use them for several months
Hope this helps

[sp4rky-m4rky]

Thats good to hear, I have recently heard how it can be very damaging to leave them fully charged. Very grateful to hear having them fully charged a week or so between flights isn't too bad.

[Varelco]

There is no real rule on the max amount of time to keep lipos packs fully charged for, but leaving them fully charged will degrade them over time. Ive had a pack or 2 left fully charged for a couple of weeks and it didn't have a detrimental effect.

I like the fruit analogy for Lipos, just imagine it as a ripe fruit, it will inveitably go off over time but you can slow the process down by following a couple of fundamentals, like keeping away from heat, storing at half capacity, don't over discharge etc etc. Always keep your apples at storage volts

[sparky 2]

Some chargers will have a storage charge setting which is normally around 3.85v per cell which would also be the same voltage as they are sold at.

[cjcj1949]

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

[Guest]

Ok so I'm on the PL8 bandwagon at the moment, but with the right setup it's trivial to storage charge after a day at the field and charge up everything quickly just before the next fly. Something to consider when choosing a charger.

Quite intrigued with the idea of always charging to 4.10v to double cycle life..

Take too many precautions and you're a slave to the battery, which is after all a consumable. Is increasing the life of the battery by, I dunno, 30%, worth the faffing about and decrease in flight time by 10% (in the case of charging to only 4.1v)?

[StreetDragster]

Re: Storing Lipo, discharge or not.

Thats how I do it at the moment ( also a pl8 user)
I'm just wondering which is doing more damage to the battery, the additional charge cycle back up from storage, or the week at fully charged.

Matt

[Guest]

My gut says a 1C discharge to 50% is kinder than a week at 100%, I wish I had the time to scour that BatteryUniversity.com site in full to see if there's a better answer! I do it for safety reasons more than battery life however.

[cjcj1949]

Ok so I'm on the PL8 bandwagon at the moment, but with the right setup it's trivial to storage charge after a day at the field and charge up everything quickly just before the next fly. Something to consider when choosing a charger.

Quite intrigued with the idea of always charging to 4.10v to double cycle life..

Take too many precautions and you're a slave to the battery, which is after all a consumable. Is increasing the life of the battery by, I dunno, 30%, worth the faffing about and decrease in flight time by 10% (in the case of charging to only 4.1v)?

I think it was 300%. But with the current cost of batteries, not many people bother. New batteries are much better than last years model.

[cjcj1949]

Thats how I do it at the moment ( also a pl8 user)
I'm just wondering which is doing more damage to the battery, the additional charge cycle back up from storage, or the week at fully charged.

Matt

The week at fully charged. It's often a lot longer than a week. It depends on the storage temperature. In the bottom of the fridge at 5-10C C at full charge will be similar to storage charge at room temperature. I storage charge now as I tend to forget.

[Guest]

I think it was Jamie Robertson on RCTodayShow #59 who said some quite interesting things that I'd not heard touted (at least so strongly) before - that so long as you're basically sort of playing by the rules, it's age and not number of cycles that was the biggest factor in his experience. Bit like Amdahl's Law, just when you think you've found a way to improve things you find you're still scuppered.