Yea... Cheers.

It's become clear that the consensus is that it is a very good idea to balance charge. You don't have to balance charge every time but many (most) do.

Further, your battery installation and charging challenges have become clearer.

Some number of years ago it became apparent to me that the balance leads for most LiPo batteries were frustratingly short. Even for simple bench charging, plugging in both the balance lead and main battery lead is a stretch (pun intended). Charging while the battery is installed in the aircraft - generally not a recommended practice - only makes it harder. Using a fireproof LiPo charge bag - highly recommended - is nearly impossible with the OEM leads. With this in mind I bought balance lead extensions for my most common battery packs. See pictures. In these pictures I'm using a parallel charge board and I've connected extensions to one of the 4 ports. This makes it MUCH easier to quickly plug in and balance charge a pack.

In these pictures I've semi-permanently attached these extensions to my parallel/balance board. For a one-off installation, such as your new build, you could semi-permanently install the extension to the battery.

The extension aren't expensive but they aren't free either. At $5 a pair, adding 20 different cell count, and connector type extensions to your cart can add up quickly. Still, I consider it cheep insurance.


Bill