looking for a lipo battery guide
 

im getting back to rc, i asked about a all around charger i will get a onyx 230. (thanks everyone!) now where do i start for lipos themselves? what dot the c stand for are there good and bad packs? are hard cased ones better(ie orion) what about charging and dis charging? can you recharge one right after you ran it? what does a balencer do? do you always need it? anything else i need to know

-The C rating on a battery will tell you how many amps the battery will put out under load. You take the amperage of the battery, and multiply this by the C number. The number you get, will tell you how many amps the battery can continuously put out.

example : 5000mAh 20c battery. 5000 mAh = 5amps x 20 = 100 amps

example 2 : 3800mAh 35c battery. 3800mAh = 3.8amps x 35 = 133 amps


-There are good a bad packs. Usually based on either the maker of the lipo cells in the packs or the brand of lipo you purchase. Orion, SMC, Thunder Power, Trinity, and MaxAmps are all good brands.

-Hard Case battery's are like the name says. Cased. This is a good thing! Lipos when damaged can fail. Hard cased ones are much more durable and are required for ROAR racing.

- You do not need to discharge a lipo. Ever. Just charge it, run it, charge it again. Run it. Over and over. You just cannot run the battery lower than 6v or thy will fail. And cant put them past 8.4v or they will fail. Usually people have cutoffs around 6.5-7v as a safety factor so they don't come close to hurting them.

-Yes you can recharge them right after running. As lipos dont get warm when you use them(Unless you're using a battery that cant supply the power your motor needs)

-Balancing makes sure that the individual cells inside the pack are at the same voltage. Higher quality packs don't need this as often but its ALWAYS a good idea to balance charge them. The reason is, as time goes on. the voltage of the cells differ. And because the charger only sees the total voltage, you can run into problems. Because if one cell in the pack gets charged to 4.5 and one is at 3.9. Your charger will see 8.4 which is good. Except at 4.5(limit is 4.2 per cell) your pack will be toast. Its also true when running the batteries. Even if the pack reads out 6.5(well within safety limits). If one cell is reading 2.6 and the other is 3.9. 2.6 is under the 3v limit and your battery will be dead. So really, you should always balance them. As balancing them makes sure that both cells are always at the same voltage.

Hope this all helps! :)

Hard cased are no diff except for the hard case and the connection. Your Onyx will handle the charging, you do not discharge lipo like you do with NiMH. Lipo in a proper setup will usually only get barely warm and you can recharge them as soon as you aer able too. There are good lipo cells and less good - price can be a good indicator of cell quality. The higher quality cells are matched when assembled and need less frequent balancing than the cheaper quality cells do. Eventually you will need to balance them all though.

thanks guys! this helped me out alot

This will help you understand Lipo battery wiring as well.

http://www.scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/_lipo.html

BTW..I recommend the Hyperion chargers and SMC batteries. :D

Can't beat $65 for a 4100 mah 24C LiPo from SMC, well, maybe, but not likely.
Go hard case, soft can work, but just be on the safe side.


Get a balancer and use it occasionally, like once a week, will help in the long run, a Blink is only $30, and could help you stave off a battery death.

i would say get he smc bt the orion is good also. i run 3 orions myelf and m next one wll be the smc 5200 24c. u can get a balancer cheap and its worth it i do it once month or so. DO NOT DISCHARGE. just peak it every time. you can use it charge it and use it again. you can do that all day long. lipo is great cause the consistant power its the same lap time and time again no power loss in a quali or race. it actually makes you faster imo.

does this have anything to do with speed....

Holy moley - a yr old thread!!



Voltage translates into rpm which translates to speed.....higher voltage, higher speed, higher speed....

Balance everytime?
 

I'm running a 7.4V 5100mah 40C Lipo and heard that it isn't necessary to balance it at every charge. I was told to balance it every 3rd run. Is that true?

I use a balancing charger and its too easy to just balance every time, that tway there's no question. Run it after balance charging and measure the cell voltages and just see how far off they are. If they're close, the maybe its ok to skip balancing. I personally wouldn't, but thats my preference.

Is there a problem for you in balancing? If you skip balancing while charging, it doesn't make it charge any quicker.

Thanks for your reply Duster360. It's not a real problem for me to balance charge everytime but its one of those things where if you don't need to do something, then why do it? I balance charge my Lipos everytime but wanted to get a feel if other people did the same. For reference, I usually use a 40C Lipo (anywhere between 5000-5200mah).

The only way to keep a lipo in optimum condition is to start with the cells in balance. I think of it as maintenence and one of those kinds of things you need to do.

If you check cell voltage after running and the cells are exactly the same (and there are some lipos that'll do this and they may do it for a while, but lipos put together using unmatched cells (most of them) are not going to be exactly the same due to IR differences.

The other side of the coin is that if it takes no extra time, costs no extra money, and could possibly make your batteries last longer, why not do it every time?

Hello All!

I know this is a really old thread so I'm removing my post and will create a new thread.

Thank you!