ORIGINAL: JackD
I've never considered the A123 route, but for no particular reason, just haven't too much thought behind it. However, not using regulators sounds like a big plus.
Yes and on top of this, A123 are very strong ( kind of crash proof ) and relatively resistant to charging abuses
ORIGINAL: JackD
My big learning from all this is: Use whatever battery you want, but understand how it works. Learn what the discharge curve is, and how much power you have left.
And the other learning is: Redundancy means two independent systems where each of them is capable of flying your plane in the worst conditions. In my case, my system was redundant on flight 1, but by fight 6, it wasn't.
Yes for sure. Having a proper charger that can cycle the battery and give informations on its internal resistance is for me a big plus. Only a few German chargers can do this to my knowledge.
Once again, monitoring the battery health means knowing the internal resistance of each cell composing the pack and knowing at what stage it shall be discarded.
VERY important as well:
When the internal resistance increases, the critical voltage ( voltage at which the pack will not be able to cope with the load any more ) will increase as well.
So what is true for a brad new pack in terms of number of flights and critical voltage is not true for an older pack.