First set of Lipos...How to charge
 

I just got my first 2 packs of 3200 mah lipos. I got my duratrax ice charger too and I am ready to start chaging the batteries. I plan to start racing and practicing in the next week,

My questions are

how many times should I charge and discharge the batteries before use?

when storing the batteries for more than 1 week, should I top them off or not?

Lots of noobie questions.
thanks for the answers in advance.

I am not sure regarding the first question. But i do know about the 2nd question.

You should store lipo cells at 50% charge. Around 3.9 volts per cell. From what i heard and experience. Storing them too long in the fully charged state will cause then to bloat. Slightly. But it does compromise the safety of these cells.

Hope it helps

It depends on the company that makes the cells as to when they hit the full potential... Some after 3 - 5, and others can take 6 or more... But almost always less than 10.

Just charge 'em and run 'em to discharge them... It'll be more fun :D

I've read some cautions about 1st several uses - not pushing them to lvc limits or causing them to get hot, but other than that, just charge and use them. you don't need to condition them or do anything before using them except charge them. They are shipped from factory with a partial charge, so charge and run.

For more than a week I'd make sur ethey were at least 50% charged. Longer term, I use 80% - I stored some at 50% for almost 6 months and ever one them puffed a cell. I won't use 50%, just don't trust it anymore. And I routinely let mine sit after full charge for couple of weeks before running (job gets busy and I don't get to run) with no problems.

There are differences in how a cheap lipo and a quality lipo react to some of whats being discussed. The cheaper lipos are more sensitive and will tolerate less overdischarge for example than higher quality lipos. What may be fine for a Orion (Kokam cells) may not be OK for a cheap noname ebay lipo.

BTW - you need to get a balancer to go along with your Ice - it does not balance cells and they do need to be balanced, at least peiodically. Here is another place quailty shows differences - cheaper lipos seem go out of balance easier than better quality lipos (Orion) do.

i didn't realize that about the ICE charger.


This thread has been helpful. I am so use to using nimh/nicd batteries, I just wanted to make sure of how best to use the batteries.

What is a good balancer to buy?
thanks

Lots of Ice user use the Equinox balancer, but if you're charging at more than 3amps, it will need a high power adapter. This can be eliminated by buyong a Hyperion LBA10 balancer (pretty much the same thing) that will allow charging at 10amps. Here is the LBA10 -

http://www.allerc.com/product_info.p...oducts_id=2916

Both of these will balance standalone or while charging (charge thru) which will give you a little higher charge since standalone balancing is just reducing voltage of the cells to lowest voltage of any one cell.

You will have to match the type of balance tap your lipo has to connect all this together. This is the other connection beside the main power leads. There are 4 type of balance taps in use currently. Align, (or JST), Hyperion, Thunderpower and Kokam taps. You can find a little info about which style tap others are using here, these are the common ones -

http://www.allerc.com/product_info.p...oducts_id=2916

Astro Blinky is another balancer - thats diff - it works by sliding the balance tap onto its connector pins and doesn't use a balance connection. Its a little more delicate than the 2 mentioned above cause of these connector pins -

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXMRZ9&P=ML

I use the Equinox with my Ice and it works great. The Checkpoint is the same balancer just rebadged. Your Ice won't allow you to charge the cells at over 1C so it is a great charger to learn on, just make sure all of the info is correct on the memory listing and your good to go.