rkrig

My Feedback: (2)

As an amature at battery management , (so far Ive been luck I guess) I had a thought about weather my Loaded voltmeter will discharge my battery packs if i leave it connected. I have an MRC 959 that I use to charge but nothing to cycle with. I thought that it might be convinient if I could just leave the voltmeter attached until it reached a properly discharged voltage.

RCLIVIN

My Feedback: (46)

Yes that will work as long as you stop it @ 1.1 volts per cell. You can even draw a graph showing the minutes on discharge & the voltage so you can draw a battery power curve. You can figure your max flight time by doing this & you can do it periodically & monitor your battery's condition. as it gets older it will have a sharper curve & won't last as long.
Hope this helps
Gil

Steve Lewin

Of course you might burn out the load in your VM. They're really intended for intermittent use not to be left under power, generating heat, for many hours.

Steve

MTEXX

An analog voltmeter would be much better suited for this situation.

-Passive circuit
-Constant resistance
-Rugged
-Cheapo!

You may want to calibrate it with a digital, tho.

RCLIVIN

My Feedback: (46)

Yes on analog, Actually my hobbico esv came with a battery condition chart which is used to do this exact thing. Discharge your battery & you can get a good voltage drop curve. Do this every couple of months & you should be able to tell when a battery is about to swallow it's *****. You know what I mean!!!!

Gil