Rich404

Goldenduff

I have used turnigy and zippy and all balance well! Do you only use 70% of the capacity? Do you charge and discharge at the recommended C rating? The discharge C is apparently often exaggerated. Do you balance charge at least every 3rd charge? I balance charge every time.

guver

My Feedback: (325)

Which part are you asking to be "matched"?

Goldenduff

All

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

LOL
some of these so called cheap lipos are actually better than some high priced lipos..
just because a lipo is priced cheap does not mean its a cheap battery
and being you got a few years of use in a FE that is good!

using 40c plus in FE boats will help keep batteries better balanced and have good power
also like Goldenduff said..

guver

My Feedback: (325)

Someone better define "matched" quickly. Danny's new packs are supposedly "matched" using the old definition that I never liked when describing subC cells. Nevertheless ALL packs are matched , it is just a matter of how close. As far as I'm concerned it needs to be expressed for it to be meaningful.

Rich404

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

LOL
again when we charge our packs they are matched by the charger when we balance them out..
I have cheap priced Lipos that always charge to 0.002V per cell and lastnight, I had a pack that charged to 0.000v per cell
all because I balance them out..
and when in use they still come back at about 0.005v to 0.010 per cell, even if our cells come back at 0.050 per cell, that pretty darn good
paying more for cells does not mean they will always come back with a better balance between cells than what I'm getting

and you can't get any better runtimes than what I already get with my cheap priced lipos..
only way to get more runtime is to run in parallel or get bigger packs! [:-]

Goldenduff

Agreed. I think it is more to do with the care such as using only 70% of the specified C and capacity. Balancing charging reasonably slow (I only charge fast if it's sunny and not windy, I live in Scotland so that might account for why my batteries do well!?)

Von Ohain

All batteries has matched cells.

No manufacturers puts random cells together into a battery pack.
They put cells of the same physical dimension, same C rating and same mah rating into to same pack.
You have never seen a battery who has a 5000mah cell and a 900mah cell within the same pack, have you?
No, so they are matched. All of them.

Without any further specification on how the batteries are "matched", then "matching" remains a marketing hype.
One manufacturer might mean that they are matched to the same shade of grey colour, while another manufacturer might mean they are matched to the phase of the moon.

As long as "mathing" process isn't specified in detail nor standardized, its just meaningless marketing babble.

Personally I believe what you (and some manufacturers) mean by "matching", is that all cells within a battery is picked from the same production (high grade) batch.
But this isn't explicitly specified, so its just guesswork at best.
Who actually does this, and who sticks a "matched" sticker on the batteries because the cells is matched to the phase of the moon is impossible to say.

My personal experience remains that I had both good and bogus cheap chinese, aswell as I had both good and bogus expensive stuff.
As long as we consumers accepts the overinflated ratings and marketing bulls**t talk that ALL brands pump out, we will continue to be left in the dark.
My best advice is just to do some research and stick with what works in practical experience, and don't trust brands or ratings for a second.

Even CC has bad batches and long warrantly claim process times, so no, you DON'T get what you pay for.
You get what the seller can fool you into buying.

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

Another thing I've found is I own 4 chargers and the better one I have does charge more consistantly to 0.000v to 0.002v per cell
And that on my Turnigy packs.. one charger I see at 0.010 at times and that's on any of the 50+ packs I own..

guver

My Feedback: (325)

I thought "matched" meant that all the ink labels were turned the same way. [>:] Now we have a number of bad definitions of "matched"
I'm sure some confuse match with balance. Both are terms that leave a lot to be desired and really should be defined.

In any case all cells in a series (regardless of how close they are matched) are discharged at exactly the same rate. They have no choice in the matter.

A couple of examples that are very poorly capacity matched are the acepow packs and the nano packs that I own. They are amoung the worst I've ever seen. Some of the best that I own are my oldest vampowers and oldest TPs. I have some maxamps packs that are good match for capacity and some that are bad match for capacity.

I have some GP BP packs that are just terrible for IR match. Most all my other packs are pretty good for IR match. Again it is really a question of how close one wants the "match" to be. In my case I'd like the capacity to be matched within 10 mah on tiny packs and within 100 mah on large packs , but the match of the IR I could care less about since they're all added up anyways.

Goldenduff

Guver- not meaning to antagonise but you say match and balance mean different things then use the terms synonymously and then go on to refer to large packs (mah) and small, what I large.... I appreciate we won't define globally accepted definitions here but at least for this thread.

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

very true..

guver

My Feedback: (325)

It would be bad if I used "balance" and "matched" synonymously. I will give you my definition of "balanced" : All cells in the pack are the same voltage at the full mark. A looser definition is that all cells in a pack are at the same voltage.

I did ask the OP what He meant by the term "matched" , but if I were to ask about "matched" cells or packs I would define it like so. All cells in a given pack are exactly the same capacity and IR. Hope this clears some up.

Another good definition of "matched" really should be: cells that are tested, labeled ,sorted, organised, and then grouped with identical cells in a pack. Then we'd have a truely "matched" pack like the old battery matchers in the day of subC "matching"

Von Ohain

Balancing is a ok term, it means that all cells within a pack is charged up to the same _voltage_.
Balancing has never been a selling point to batteries either, so there is no real need for a absolute definition to it.
Matching isn't, because there is no de facto definition to it.

And even if you were to say that "matching" were to mean "capacity matching", I still believe its pointless.
As pointed out previously, if you want your batteries to last you should never drain them completely.
And if you don't discharge your pack beyond 70% capacity, your pack has to be _extremely_ poorly mah matched to cause any problems anyway.

Capacity matching the cells so you can drain the battery 100% simply means that you will ruin it sooner, and have to buy yet another
hyped and overpriced "matched" pack.

Goldenduff

I always buy "cheap" lipo like zippy and turnigy. Mainly 3cells and never had a problem.....

Von Ohain

Same here, I run everything on 1800mah 3S, or 2200mah 6S, and I had some packs for over a year aswell.
I typically write of my packs due to physical damage after a crash. Never from poor cells or poor pack in general.

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

YES
YES
and YES

the days are over to say that my $200 lipo is better than your $40 lipo

Von Ohain

For practical purposes, yes.

A Rolex is more expensive than a Casio, but I bet you ithe Casio is more accurate.
A Rolls Royce is much more expensive than a Peugeot, but I bet you the Peugeot is the better car measured by all the practicalities that the average driver cares about.

Mah matching only makes sense if you plan to run your batteries dead flat, and hence the purpose of mah matching, making all the cells go flat at the same time, makes "sense".
However, did the manufacturer tell you that by running your pack flat you'll ruin it?

For all of us who want our batteries to last, we don't run the battery dead flat, and under such operating conditions there is no difference whatsoever of a mah mathced battery and an unmatched.
If you can't tell the difference, you can't care either.

srt10

My Feedback: (20)

Ok now this makes sense about cell matching..
On Nimh packs you want that because we run them dead.. but not a good idea with lipos
So like you say, it does not matter at all with lipo packs..

guver

My Feedback: (325)

It in effect increases your pack's useable capacity. It is absolutely true that if you NEVER get close to empty level then it won't matter a bit. One could accurately say that the useable capacity is determined by the useable capacity OF THE SMALLEST CELL. Some small bits of mismatched capacity are very tolerable , but larger amounts of difference can be problematic and snowball into damage if trying to max out your times. It can also cause charges to take longer if one balances during the whole portion of charge.

ps. This reminds me to force my worst pack into an imbalance and use it that way so I can get a bit more flight time out of it. I'm gonna go do that right now, I've been meaning to.

Von Ohain

And another thing to remember is that a unmatched 2200 mah battery with a 2000mah weak cell is better than a 1800mah matched battery.
But guess which one costs more?

Mah matching costs a lot more than its worth, and no matter how you view it, its just a marketing hype.
Even if you prefer to ruin your packs by running them flat, you are still better off by buying an unmatched, bigger and cheaper pack, than a smaller matched one.

nonstoprc

My Feedback: (90)

From my experience as long as no cell is much slower to accept charger than the rest in the pack, the pack is good. Normally you can find such a bad cell during first charge. I have encountered two Turnigy packs with the slow-to-charge cell. One is repaired by swapping out the bad cell and one is replaced by the vendor. The swapped-out cell eventually loses all its charge.


If the pack can pass that test, and used and charged per spec, you can enjoy it for good number of cycles. The charger will take care of the balance during charging, and pack during discharging.