Originally Posted by
emerilnut
Yeah, the more I'm reading about them here, I'm seeing all these horror stories! Starting fires, ruining them forever, can't even store them. What gives?
I want to embrace LiPo but it is very likely that I'll run them one afternoon, and then may not run them again for a few months. But apparently, that's a no no?
Lipos are really not that bad. Very few incidents happen. I've stored lipos for a year and then charged them up and they ran just like they did before storage.
Don't stab the pack with anything and you'll be fine. I'd recommend a hardcase pack to protect the cells.
In the early days of Lipos the main cause of destruction was early chargers didn't detect how many cells were hooked up and people would accidentally charge a 2s pack with a 3s voltage. 99% of lipo chargers now have cell detection on them and will not charge a battery if it thinks it has a different cell count.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you have to unplug the battery when you are done running it. ESC's continue to draw a very small amount of current even with the switch in the off position and will drain your battery to unsafe levels in a few weeks. I had a 2s pack get down to 1.2 volts because I forgot that one time. I was able to save the pack by charging it in Nihm mode for about a minute to get the pack voltage back up to 6v and then it charged up just fine. I used that pack for another 3 months of racing before I retired it.