Does everyone balance their lipos every time they charge them or only after so many uses/notice decreased pack life? New packs shouldn't need to be balanced for their initial charge, right?

Basically, is it recommended to balance with each charge, including the initial? I thought it was good practice but I just bought an Orion 2s and they said it isn't needed until you notice decreased perf...

I have a balancing charger so I balance mine everytime whether it needs it or not. Doesn't hurt anything to balance and doesn't take any longer (at least with my 0610i Hyperion).

If that's what Orion recommends, then I would pay attention to their advice. Still I'd balance every so often anyway or use a DVM and measure the cell voltages. If they are the same and haven't changed with respect to one another, no need to balance - they're already inbalance.

You don't have to balance them after every charge. Just make sure to balance them when you first get them. And then maybe evey other week. Depending on how often you use them. Of course, you could balance them after every charge. Theres nothing wrong with that. It's just during racing, no one is going to remember doing that when they'er toping off their batteries ten minutes before they have to race. So, just balance them a day before you race, and not worry about it the day you do race.

What I don't understand is since balance charge will only be good for your battery and almost all chargers now have balance connector, why not balance charge your battery every time? I do balance charge every time, but my buddy on the track told me I don't need to do it. I remember every time I balance charge I can see volt difference in both cells. Because of that, I balance charge to ensure both cells are of the same volts.

I balance when they sit for a week or two just to be sure. Like Duster I have a Hyperion so I do it all the time because it's built in but before I had the Hyperion I would use them all day (3-4 charges) and not balance. Never saw any real difference in voltage. I don't run my lipos down real far though. If you run lipos down near their limit all the time they will tend to get more out of balance, from what I've heard.

How big of a difference?? A quality pack shouldn't get too far off, if at all, after each use.

if your ESC has cutoff set at 6 Volts (3.0V per cell)
and you drive until cutoff in practice or bashing then you should balance charge every time.

If your ESc has setting for 3.2 or 3.4 volts per cell cuttoff then this is better and maybe not needed to balance every time.

As i have noticed taking them lower to say 6.0Volts for a 2 cell pack seems to unbalence them more dramatically. well with my intellect IP3800's anyway.

I measured each cells voltage at random times to find this info out.

Cheers

Not big difference (I guess), probably like 3.83 and 3.75 for example. Is it too much? My battery is not expensive one though

Thats a big difference and your statement about it being "not expensive one" is at least part of the reason you see than kind of diff. My more expensive lipos I see typically a few millivolts diff, def less than 10, typically less than 5mv, what you shared above is a 120mv difference by comparison.

If you ran that with a 6.0v lvc, you'd overdischarge the cell with lower voltage and prob have it puff.

Remember what? Remember to plug an extra plug in? It takes the same amount of time to hook up the charge leads. Cmon guys. They don't put balance leads on these batteries and chargers to amuse us. Why would you not balance it everytime?

We push these batteries very hard. Not to mention how much we pay for them. Neglecting to balance charge doesntt make sense.

Well if that is a really big difference, I am sure I need to balance charge my pack every time. So if your pack is very expensive one (or high quality), you don't need to balance charge every time because there will not be a big volt difference between two cells after each run, but if your pack is cheap, then better balance charge it every time. Is it the basic concept?

+1

Yeah, I didn't think it was a bad idea to balance with every charge, but after the Orion sheet told me it wasn't necessary, just wanted to see what everyone else does.

ok - so another question then...

my Orion 2s is a hardcase and the balance port is a tiny female plug hole in the center of the pack between the +- posts (holes). what am I supposed to use to balance this? Orion website says nothing about this. again, I have a venom procharger.

Something like this is needed, you remove the main power wires and plug this in.

http://www.allerc.com/product_info.p...oducts_id=3702

The prob is the white connector - should plug into charger's balance port. This balance tap is for the Hyperion style plug. Your charger uses a JST type(also referred to as an Align type) balance tap. You'll need either an adapter or to find this wiring harness with a JST connection already installed.

lol - it's times like this i think i just should've went nitro. Regardless, thanks for the information. Again, this forum is extremely helpful.