tmcgoldrick

Hi! After a 20+ year lay off I want to get this aircraft flying again. Back then I used an external charging jack while at the field since removing large wing and struts was a hassle. Given risk of fire and balancing jack I am not sure LiPo is the way to go forward. Am I better off going back to NiCad? Do they still make them?
Thanks for any thoughts.

blw

My Feedback: (3)

You don't have to use LiPos and some NICADS have a lot of capacity. Sounds like a fun project.

jaka

Hi!
Use either a Life battery or NiMH battery. NiCad are still available though.

the pope

Jaka is spot on there . Cheers

1QwkSport2.5r

LiFe cells should be balanced just like LiPo and LiIon. If the OP doesn't want to have to worry about balancing, NiMH or NiCd is the way to go IMO.

init4fun

I would not use LIPO in a gas or glow engine powered plane myself either , I only use them in electric motor powered planes where the LIPO excels above all other cell chemistries , fire be damned . For my on board receiver/ servo power on engine powered planes I use LIFE exclusively , since they don't burn like LIPOs do , and adding the one little extra balancing jack really isn't a dealbreaker on anything I fly . With a NIMH or NiCad pack , you have no "window" to monitor the performance of each cell thus making it far easier for a NI pack to have one failing cell go undetected till it's too late . In fact , personally , I wouldn't trust a 1/4 scale sized model to a single pack of ANY chemistry , I'd go dual LIFE on something that size just for the extra safety margin offered by the second available power source .

tmcgoldrick

Thanks for those thoughts. "dual LIFE" meaning separate packs in parallel?

init4fun

Yes , dual packs , but if you want to get really fancy , there is an isolator box that both packs plug into , and then connects to the receiver . The box makes it so that no matter what happens to each or other pack , the good pack keeps ya flying rather than loosing all power . Say , for instance you have two packs in parallel , but with no isolator . If one pack happens to short circuit (rather than open circuit) , the shorted pack will drag the good pack down , resulting in power loss . But with the isolator , one pack can go short circuit and not affect the other pack . I believe the company "Electrodynamics" sells isolater units , as well I'm sure do other RC electronics retailers .

Oh , and , Welcome back to the RC hobby , and Welcome to RC Universe

tmcgoldrick

Thank you again. near term it sounds like dual LIFE's are the way to go. In an effort to start the clearing servo con webs process I bought a 6.0 volt 2000mah NiMH battery yesterday. It took less than 20 minutes at 2 amps to finish with my Hyperion charger. I came across something on line that referenced using 2000/4= 500 charge rate. Another saying 2000/10=200 charge rate. also a reference to the first charge being a very long one (too late?). What say ye?

init4fun

I will be the first to tell you I'm not "the source" for NIMH/NiCad and I will not pretend to play expert here . For your NIMH charging question you need real facts , and not "I think it may be" type answers , which would be the best I could muster . You see , the minute LIFE became available , I dumped both NIMH and NiCad and have used LIFE exclusively for everything except on board glow drivers (and of course LIPO for the electric motor powered planes) . Even my TXs use LIFE TX packs . I can tell you I've read the same thing you did , that the first charge should be a very low Amp charge (resulting in a long charge time) and that I've also read that for best performance it's best to do several charge/discharge cycles of increasing Amp rate (thus decreasing charge time) up till the "normal" charging rate is reached , but like you did , all I ever did was to charge them up on the charger that came with the TX/RX/servo set and then took them to the field . Course , this was on small .40 or .60 sized glow engine powered planes and I had gotten into the LIFE by the time I started flying bigger stuff than that .

PS , where this is glow , if there is an on board glow driver , I always prefer those to have their own batteries and not be powered from the RX/servo pack . Like I said earlier this is the only place I still use any NIMH at all , and for glow driver duty (not "mission critical" , in other words) all I do is roast the Hell outta the little single cell till it's good & warm and then that charge lasts the duration of any flying session . Likewise for gassers , I don't run their ignition system off of the RX/servo pack either , and since most ignitions work over a wide range of voltages the two cell LIFE packs (7.2 volts) are perfect for a stand alone ignition power source .

Hopefully someone who knows proper NIMH protocols will fill in a bit of the needed info here ......

tmcgoldrick

Thank you for your input. More questions will arise once conversion to LIFE takes place.