Hey all,

Im sure its been answered somewhere on this forum, but i ran a search and couldnt pin-point anything.

I recently made the switch from nimh to lipos, i got two new ip3800 packs from trinity. There not really that main-stream in the us yet. Anyway, im new to lipo so i was wondering whats the point in the balancer? Do i have to use it everytime i charge, or does it only help balance the pack when your discharging? Also, i was told that lipos dont drain their voltage? I charged up a pack last night, around 11pm, and i checked it today around 8pm and the voltage was around 8.25, i have the team checkpoint tc1030, also i noticed theres no-repeak option? is it not possible to re-peak lipos or do i just re-charge them? when i did recharge them the voltage stopped at 8.50? seems low? I was also told that i should charge at whatever the pack rating is, ex 3800 charge at 3.8 however trinity said i could charge at up to 5amps? Just looking to get some real answers? and perhaps save my house from burning down.


thanks for the time,

tenpins77

2 cell 4.8 v lipos btw

The balancer is designed to make sure each cell is balanced in regards to voltage. You don't have to do it everytime you charge, maybe every 5-10 charges I would think to be on the safe side. Also as for charge rate I recommend going with 3.8v for your 3800. Sure you could charge a 5.0v but that will shorten the life span of the battery.

Also does your esc have a lipo cutoff? If so I would set it to 6volts. If you don't you can get an external lipo cutoff. This ensures that your lipo doesn't drop to low voltage which in turn can cause bad things

Hope that helped a bit.

There is no need to repeak a LiPo... once at full charge it will stay that way for a long time.. i have had one charged for a race weekend and never made it out.. so I used it for the follow weekend.. no problem at all. They work pretty much as stated... a lot less trouble than NiMh..


Jerome

okay, just wondering why the voltage dropped after the charge?

so i dont need the balancer to discharge

If you're using a lipo charge protocol, voltage shouldn't have been more than 8.4v. If you're not using the correct charge protocol, you may have damaged them. If there really was a drop from over 8.4 to 8.25 in less than 24hrs, I'd be concerned. Mine don't lose that much in a month.

Balancer is not needed to discharge - you don't discharge lipo. Balancer is to even voltage across cells. If you're not balancing while charging, then balancer will discharge higher voltage cell down to match cell with lowest voltage.