CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

I'm charge balancing a 2300, 2 cells pack, the charger is showing 7.03V, 1700, 3.60 on #1, 3.38 on #2, it looks like it is almost full since the charging is going very slow and it has been charging for 90 minutes, pack is 4 years old lightly used.

The question is, is this battery any good?

Thank you for your comments in advance.

bigbri

My Feedback: (287)

battery pack is not any good. LIFE Packs with wide voltage differences like that. And/or packs that take a long time to balance are going to fail soon. I found out the hard way.....twice!. Big drawback to LIFE packs are very little warning before they fail. That is one of them

CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

Thank you for the info, I agree this pack is going down! Time to change it [&:]

CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

Here is a link to the other forium.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_11562123/tm.htm

Propworn

My Feedback: (3)

I switched from NiCad’s to Hyperion G3 LiFePO packs for all my receivers. No more NiCad’s as getting Sanyo brand in the higher capacity were harder to come by. Even the individual cells usually had to be ordered.

I bought the Hyperion brand because they were the only ones who had their own complete system with chargers, all kinds of packs, battery checker (more on this later) and all of the possible adapters you might want for charging, balancing and connection to circuit. At 6.6 volts no regulator required.

I am no electrical or electronic expert. The tests I performed were what I considered common sense and what I was capable of with the equipment I had on hand.

Some of you will claim there is no difference in what charger you use and I don’t have the electronic equipment to confirm or dispute this. I will tell you that after I had seasoned several of these batteries using a variety of chargers I set up a simple test bench to compare the charges I owned against the Hyperion brand.
I used:
Thunder Power TP-1010C with TP210V balancer
Thunder Power TP 610C
Hobby King Turnigy Accucel 6
Hyperion 6060i

The packs tested were 1700 mAh, 2100 and 3000 two of each. In all cases all of the chargers worked as expected. Consistently the Hyperion charger topped the battery off at 98 to 99%. The others were anywhere from 96% to 98%.

I used the Hyperion EOS Sentry battery checker http://media.hyperion.hk/dn/sentry/ to check the batteries. I know it has been said there is no way to use voltage to check these cells however since I had the test bench set up to draw the batteries down I tried a simple test of drawing the batteries down under different loads through my Astro Flight load meter. The load meter recorded the draw the EOS Sentry plugged into the balance jack recorded the voltage allowing me to scroll through and observe the remaining usable energy in percentage. When the batteries reached a predetermined level the draw was removed and the pack was allowed to bounce back and stabilize. Then the batteries were charged and the amount put into the battery was compared to the readings of the resting battery after it had stabilized. Every time no mater the capacity of the battery or the draw placed on the battery the EOS Sentry accurately within a few percentage points matched the charge returned to the packs. Being of the belief that bench testing is good but testing in actual service is better I continued this for several months off and on as time allowed and even as the packs became over a year in service the EOS checker has always been within a few percentage points.

I have used these packs now for over 2 years randomly checking the packs and I am convinced the EOS Sentry does its job as expected. I have actively flown a few non critical models as low as 20% usable left without problems. This confirms what everyone says about a flat discharge rate but with this checker and a little attention the usable time left on the pack in my opinion becomes as predictable as any other packs including the NiCad’s I loved so much. I fly with confidence and the EOS Sentry stays in my pocket at the field and I check my planes every time. An added bonus is checking the lipo pack before installing it in my plane for a flight. Twice now I have mistakenly picked up a mostly depleted pack to put in my model but caught it first when I did a quick check with the Sentry. Others I know have not and it has cost at least one his favorite plane.

Before buying a checker for the lithium cells read the online reviews and make up your own mind.

byrne1157

I use lipos, and lipo capable ubec's in all my nitro airplanes. 8-10 flights from a 3s 1050mah 5c battery, and STILL have 10.5 volts in the battery, recharge in 15-20 minutes, putting back in only +- 600mah. I know how my batteries will perform before I use them in the air, and am finding no need for access to an electronics lab setup to "monitor" them. My accucell 6 does that job for me...

tmbatteries

LiFePO4 pack, due to its highest safety and long life span, it was introduced to TX/RX pack, the energy density is not so high as Lithium Polymer. Till today, the market for LiFePO4 in RC is really so small. Since there are still other better options such as Nickle Cadmium and Nickle Metal Hydride (NiMH).

K-Bob

My Feedback: (1)

Say What!?

Warjet

My Feedback: (327)

There are better options for the NiMH / Nicad batteries, like paperweights, 10 minute flights followed up with 1 hour charge, no electric powered planes. Granted, there will always be a place in RC for these NIXX batteries, but all you have to do is find a 15 year-old RCM or MAN magazine and look at the prices for 4.8 v or 6 v receiver batteries, about the same as what an LiFe/A123 costs today that has 10 times the capacity.

jester_s1

Oh there's still a place for the Nixx technologies. Both are still tougher than lithiums and don't require balancing. I'm a big fan of LiFe, but even I don't recommend them for beginner pilots.

Warjet, I see you're from my driver's hometown. My 5 year old daughter named he puppy "JJ" because of him. Are you expecting the see the 6 pack this year?

Warjet

My Feedback: (327)

Not big into Nascar. but he's a local legend since he started racing midgets here when he was about 10. Does public appearances fairly often for fundraisers, but never met him.