be4life182

Well, I made my first flight with my apprentice. After only using the simulator for a few hours I decided to try it out. Went extremely well, didn't crash at all and made a dozen successful takeoffs and landings. So all was good until the end, when it lost all power. Which was ok, I put it down, packed it up, while also forgetting(It's been a while) that you aren't suppose to let lipo's over-discharge. Because I knew it was low, I figured id put it on the charger tonight. Well...looks like it was too low, F**K man, so Pissed! It wouldn't charge at all, no matter what I tried.

So now, I'm out a pretty pricey Lipo. I read some ways to try to revive them all of which are means I am not capable of. I am really pissed off after an amazing first flight and not about to spend 90$ more for a Lipo.

Help[&o]

playntraffic

If you were able to fly it in under control then the servos were still working. The motor will reduce power at low voltage cut off and allow the servos to continue to work. Running the battery this low is not good, but should not kill it. Check your battery connections and charger.

If you killed it, look at some different batteries. You can get some good Loong Max or Zippy batteries for half that price.

be4life182

The motor and servo's did still work, but barely. I figured they were low so thats why I wanted to try it. However it seems like the charger didn't pick it up because it kept giving me an error message. I will try again today, but yesterday the charger almost caught on fire so we will see what happens. Hope its not gone, I sure did have fun flying it.

lejongleur

My Feedback: (10)

Your charger should be able to charge up a lipo that has been discharged to about 3V per cell without problems - in fact, the charger should never overheat because its circuitry is supposed to limit the power it can supply to charge your battery. The stock charger with your plane includes a balancer; I would be really surprised if you can plug a tired battery into it and have it overheat.

If, however, your battery is shot, look at hobbycity.com - their batteries are 1/3 the price, probably the same thing, and they quote dimensions and weights, etc., so that you can buy a functionally identical battery.

Good luck with it...Chris

Darkseacret

watch the charger/battery carefuly DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED if battery is swollen badly thats a good sign of a bum battery. A $ 60 battery is not worth a nasty house/garage fire. For what its worth try taking batt. to lhs and put it on a good charger my f.m.s. 4 cell charger has brougfht a couple batteries back from 0% capacty after using them to power my bump starter with no l. v. cut off

be4life182

Well, there was a note on my laptop from my father saying he got it to take a charge. I just got out of work, Ill look into it tomorrow. I cant imagine the charger is in good shape...it lit up very bright and started smoking luckily I was watching it when it happened, I'm not sure the problem there. I may try to send it back to E-flight, but I am hoping the batterys good and I am just going to buy a good charger anyway that will do my Nihms for my car and my Lipo's.

wpotter6

The chargers that they ship with these RTFs are pretty much junk. The one I got with my Apprentice blew a capacitor the second time I used it. Opened it up and there was paper everywhere. Buy yourself a good charger that will work on AC or DC, that way you can charge at home or out at the park. Also, get somehting adjustable, and if it is not a balancer, then just buy a blinky to balance the cells. I bought a Vision Peak Ultra for about $90 and a blnky balancer for about $15. I can use this charger for all of my Lipos and it can also be used for Nicads.