yakfish

My Feedback: (27)

I just picked up some lipos and would like to get your opinions about how to determine the proper charge rates. I got 1 Skylipo 6s 5000mah 40c and 2 Skylipo hardcase 2s 40c 5000mah batts and I will be using a Passport Lipo charger that is adjustable between 1-5 amp charge rates I assume charging at 5 amps may be too fast and may not be a good idea but I still consider myself a newbie regarding lipos and i don't want to screw these up.
Thanks

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

Lipo's are always best charged at 1C. For a 5000mah pack, that would be 5 amps, 1000mah would be 1amp, etc. Number of cells doesn't matter as far as charge rate is concerned.

guver

My Feedback: (325)

5 amps is fine for a 5000 mah 40C pack. OR did you want the details as to how to really establish proper or max or specific rates?

yakfish

My Feedback: (27)

Thanks for the quick responses. details would be helpfull although these are all just 5000mah so 5 amps for each of them should be good from what I understand so far.

Also I think I may be hooking them up wrong (untill now I have only had a cheap RTR balance charger that just had one plugin for the balance plug). Am I supposed to just charge thru the balance plug or am I suposed to use both plugs to charge the battery with this charger? When the batts got here all cells showed 3.7v-3.8v on all 3 batts. I plugged one of the into the charger thru just the balance plug and selected 2 amps and 2 hours later the meter showed no change in the charge on each cell. The manual for the charger doesn't say how I am suposed to hook the batts up to charge. I just assumed from using my old cheapo charger that it would hook up the same way.

thanks again for helping out a lipo noob!

Goldenduff

Balance charge connect power leads and balance plug.

yakfish

My Feedback: (27)

Thank you very much!

drumduan

no worries,

No need to connect when fast charging (not balancing). Most agree to balance every 5-10times but if you have the time do it every time!

All the best

guver

My Feedback: (325)

A good general rule would be that if the pack is gaining lots of temp then it needs top be slowed down.

Beyond that there's different thoughts: Here's a few.

1 Use 1C
2 Use the vendors recommendation
3 Divide the "D" rating by 10
4 Use a certain % of the max rate listed
5 Use a certain multiplier of the max rate listed
6 Set charger to max
7 Use any rate desired and the pack will self regulate the rate
8 Use the same rate as the discharge rate
9 Use no cc only cv and let the set-up decide the rate
10 Use no cv and any of the above methods

I think I listed these in order of speed (I hope) and don't go over number 4 unless you know what you're doing please.

ckreef

You said you have SkyLipos.

If you search diligently on the hobbypartz page for sky lipos you see they should be normally balance charged at a 1c rate but can be field charged at a 2c rate. What does this mean for a 5,000 mah battery ???

1c balance charge rate = 5,000 mah / 1,000 = 5 amps charge rate for a normal balance charge - this should take around 60 - 75 mins to complete after flying.

Field charging per the battery specs (charging your skylipo batteries  while flying at the field) can be done at a 2c rate = 2c x 1c rate = 2 x 5 amps = 10 amps charge rate done in either a balance charge mode or a fast charge mode. Charging at a 2c rate (10 amps for a 5,000 mah battery) should take about 30 - 40 mins.

What I do is balance charge my batteries at night before flying. After I use the battery I fast charge  it at the field once (and only once) at the 2c rate (10 amps for your 5,000 mah Skylipos). With three batteries this should allow you to fly about 6 times in one session without having to spend the entire day at the field charging batteries. When you get home do a regular balance charge at a 1c rate.

Skyllipos are cheap enough that by field charging at a 2c rate, if that  shortens the battery life by 25% over the long haul who really cares - considering the extra flight time you get while at the field.

You did mention that your charger will only go up to 5 amps so you would need to get a better charger to do the fast charging 2c rate (10 amps)

TheWoodCrafter

My Feedback: (1)

I would not recommend "fast" charging 6S packs.

I would always balance charge them.