KEITH RUSH

My Feedback: (42)

I have a question about setting up my charger for a Thunder Power 1320 mA 3C pack. I just bought the Hobbico Elite charger. When I set it up, you could only choose 1300 and then 1350 mA. There are more settings than that, but those were the closest to the 1320 to choose from. I sat it up for 1300 to be safe. I charged it for the first time and it just finished. It took 5 hours to charge. The charge rate was set at .25 mA. When it finished charging, the charger said it only charged up to 1260 mA. This isn't even it's capacity of 1320. Do I need to some changes to the charger to get it closer to the 1320 mA? Also is 5 hours standard charge time? I'm only asking as I am new to these batteries and I don't want to damage a $53 battery. Any info would be greatly appriciated. Also does these batteries need to be discharged and then recharged again? The elite automatically sets the discharge voltage to 9V so that you cannot go below that and damage it.

Thanks,

Keith

Bevo

You can charge the 1320 mah at a max of 1.3 amp. The 1320's should take about 40 to 60 minutes at this charge rate. I'd continue to charge your 1320 at the 1300 setting on your charger. I don't discharge my lipo's using a charger. I only discharge them by using them.


Bevo

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

5 hours sounds about right with a charge rate of .25 Amps. You could bump up the charge rate to 1.3 Amps and have them done in about an hour, as Bevo says.

As far as capacity, 1320mAh is the RATED capacity of the cells. Every cell doesn't hold exactly 1320mAh, though. It could be slightly more, it could be slightly less. Packs are usually partially charged. If the pack is partially charged, it will take fewer mAh to charge it.

Basically, you'll never put exactly 1320mAh into the pack during a charge.

Jason W M

My Feedback: (6)

To add to Matt's post, most chargers also do not fully charge or discharge LiPo packs. They are calibrated within a range and to be safe, rarely will they push the voltage to exactly 4.22v per cell charged and 3v per cell discharged.

Industry standards for checking cell capacity vary slightly, but most tend to agree that a charge of 1C to 4.22v per cell (12.66v for 3S packs) and a discharge at 0.5C to 2.7v is common for testing cell capacity. For our needs, there is no reason to discharge the cells below 3v even when checkng capacity.

Based on the above, you will rarely be able to check the actual capacity of any LiPo pack using many of the chargers in our market today. What you can do however is utilize your charger to check the performance of a pack after a few dozen cycles to check for any degredation in capacity due to use.

Trogdor the Burninator

I think the mah rating on lipos is just like a model number and not exactly the capacity... I've owned about 15 lipo packs in the last year in park flyer sizes and none except a 2c tanic ever charged to "rated" capacity even when new and charged to 4.2V/cell.

KEITH RUSH

My Feedback: (42)

I would like to thank you guys for the input. I think I will bump the charge rate up to the 1.3. I just didn't want to damage the pack as they are on the expensive side as you know.


Thanks again,

Keith