ORIGINAL: raptureboy
ORIGINAL: CGRetired
You can also charge the battery after 3 or 4 or 5 flights (depending on your courage) and keep things safe.
Pushing things to the point of exhaustion is not necessarily in the best interest of neither the hobby nor the the owner of the plane, not to mention the potential victim that could be hurt by something falling out of the sky that weighs about 8 pounds traveling at about 50 miles per hour.
Why push it? What's the point? It can't be just to get another flight because with today's fast chargers, we can be back in the air in less than an hour. So, bring two planes and charge one while flying the other, or sit down with your buds and have a conversation about RC flying... or whatever tickles your fancy.
The point is to keep things safe. We say this over and over again. A Sanyo 4 cell 700 ma pack costs a whopping $11.99 -
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXFD90&P=ML as an example.
So, buy two. Check the voltage (personally, I use a voltwatch2) before and after each flight. If it's questionable, charge the battery... fly a different plane or pull the battery pack out and replace it with a fully charged pack and charge the one that you pulled out.
CGr.
Constantly recharging batteries before they get down to a cut off voltage is not good for them either. The best way to know the condition of your batteries is to use a loaded volt meter of a least a 250 mAH load for sport planes and 500 mAH load for giant scale or 3-d planes. Also you need to load test your batteries periodically on a charger to know what they are capable of. As a general rule once they deliver less than 70% of their rated capacity they get replaced. Again the best battery FAQ out there:
http://hangtimes.com/rcbattery_faq.html
I always thought the best way to see the condition of my packs was to cycle them. When they go below 80% of there rate it's time for a new pack. I do cycle my packs about 4 times a year, more often if I have nothing better to do. Having a good charger on hand that will cycle is something I think of as a must have. My loaded volt meters only show me the packs voltage under load, if there is a bad cell in the pack it may not show up. I have had packs drop there voltage after one flight, when I get home that pack gets a couple of charges and cycles so I know what is going on with it. Field charging is hard on NIM packs, they don't like the heat. I have noticed over time that if they get quick charged they don't last as long. Maybe two years instead of three. I still use the fast charger at the field, replacing a pack a bit early is a lot better then not flying that plane the rest of the day.