ORIGINAL: blackshark3
During the last weeks bad receiver packs leads to lost of one and near lost of another plane.... Both are 1500mah Ni-Cd packs, failed the first flight after charging....
So makes me look at other alternative of receiver packs....
Some friends had great success with LiPo packs and regulator combo, they even said this combo give them better control resolution.... But someone had a flying fireball with this combo....
I stumbled across the newer Li-Fe cells that each of these cells are at 3.3V flat.... They are said to be much safer than their "poly bag cousins", some even said that due to their better resistance of overcharging there is no need for balancing for a 2S pack. I heard that some even use a 2S Li-Fe pack plugging directly into the receiver without a regulator to substitute a 5S 6V Ni-Cd/Ni-Mh pack. Any of you guys tried this? Will the receiver/servo take a direct connection of a 2S Li-Fe pack without damage?
Hello,
in order to really increase the the power plant robustness to failures, the best way is to add redundancy to the system - this is a general engineering principle.
Regardless of the battery type, I suggest you to deploy a dual pack with dual power cords and two switches. This really decreases the probability of a power failure. I choosed that setup, despite the increased weight, when I almost lost my plane due to a pack failure.
Considering the amount of work and price in our pattern planes, I'm willing to have a heavier but safer plane!
BTW, dual lipo with dual regulators weight not that much, after all. And there is another PLUS: more current can be drawn from the batteries!
For more info, check out this good site:
http://www.rcbatteryclinic.com/parallel.html
For the same principle, stay away from those regulators that have two batt inputs "for safety". The regulator itself is not redundant, so our plane is in the hands of some cheap circuit whose reliability is unknown.