Originally Posted by Jason Arnold

This project has been on the to-do list for far too long. The weather here in Sydney is pretty crappy today so it gave me the perfect excuse to finish the battery warmer.

Now I must give credit to Chris Swain for the original idea of using a car fridge/warmer. The warmer is made by Waeco and its model number is TB-08G. It's able to heat and cool. The controller used is a $15 eBay special. The controller runs off 12V and comes with the sensor. Unfortunately, it only has one relay inside so I can only control the heating side. Still, it seems to work ok.

The cup holders in the warmer make a great place for the controller to be mounted. Time for a Dremel party to get rid of the cup holders. I made a trick carbon fibre plate to cover the cup holder cut-out and mount the controller.

As you can see from the photos, it works quite well.

By warming your packs in winter, you can see a 20-30% increase in power. This is because warming the packs actually lowers the internal resistance of the cells. Some LiPo manufacturers actually recommend warming prior to use to prevent pack damage under load.

Cheers,
Jason.