New Battery Run In
 

Gents!

I have acquired some new 2c lipo's after not being in the hobby for 10+ years. Is there any special run in procedure or do you just charge them and drive?

Additionally. If I plan to use a pack twice in one day does it need to be discharged before charging it again?

Last time I raced I used NiMH and had to balance cells :(

Any new battery I do a 2 to 3 cycle charge/discharge to wake up the battery. No special stuff with high currents and most advanced chargers can be programmed to do a number of cycles.

But what does the manufacturer recommend?

I've never done a battery break-in, I guess all the batteries I've bought were already awake. :D

Set esc to lipo mode and charge let rest after full run and charge again. Do not run lipo battery in NIMH mode on ESC or you will destroy battery and fully discharge battery. Lipo batteries do not need full discharge.

first gen LiPo originally had a break-in as discussed here:
https://www.pulsebattery.com/blogs/n...d%20new%20pack.

Most of the current generation batteries are rated to handle far higher loads than is possible for our cars to draw so the need to break in with newer tech isn't nearly as important as it used to be.

Basic rule of thumb is to never charge a LiPo above 112°F, let the pack cool if necessary between charge cycles to remain below this threshold.

Generally the cooler the pack is the longer it will last, more info here:
https://batteryuniversity.com/articl...ased-batteries

Take your time and read articles from reputable sources, don't just take some random Joe's word like a guy from me, that's why I've provided links for you to follow :)


*** The most important thing I never see discussed is to never charge your battery inside a cool house like 72°F and then allow the battery to sit for any period of time outside in extreme heat which will cause the voltage to spike and battery may fail. Minimize the time the battery is left at full charge!

You can perfectly run an ESC in NiMh mode, the battery will not be destroyed. It will only be destroyed when you run it empty to no or less performance.
More important is the question if his al least 10 year old old charger has a LiPo mode and a balancer port.

And if you are going to race with it I still would advise to do 2 or 3 cycles on the charger before hitting the track.

I don't know if you would call what I do, a "breaking-in" process. My normal everyday LiPo battery 2C charge rates are done only after a new pack has seen a handful of 1C charge rates and low amp draw usages. Meaning I don't go crazy wide-open throttle from a dead stop constantly or yanking on the throttle coming out turns. Lots of good stuff out there to read on the subject if you really wanted to take the time to do it. Airplane groups doing testing, recording of results was a good read for me. I don't remember the exact number of cycles that were done in the one thread that talked about "LiPo break-in", but the capacity of packs increased during initial cycles.

This was brought up the other day, talking about Tekin's batteries: A note from Tekin batteries,
"It is recommended to fully charge a brand new battery before using and only discharge the battery 50% for the first 5 cycles."