ORIGINAL: iamman711
Hey all I have 2 questions. I just purchased the RTF version that comes with lipo, charger, radio, and receiver and have 2 concerns:
1) My battery lipo charger takes more than 4 hours.. actually I've still been waiting for it to show a solid green light to indicate charging is complete. All I get is blinking red and green lights (normal charging plus conditioning). How long does it take to charge completely? 5 hours? I unplugged it and tested voltage with voltmeter and the voltage was around 12 volts which means its good to go, but why doesnt the green light go solid for me like its supposed ta.
2) I am really concerned about my upcoming maiden flight because I don't have a quality radio and receiver. I've read the reviews on rcuniverse and I want to know if problems with interference, etc .happens to everyone or just some people. Does anyone use the radio and receiver that comes with the RTF? How does it perform for you? I don't want to spend $300 on a new radio because I'm tight on money right now. I don't want to buy a $200 radio because you know what they say buy cheap buy twice. Aye dillemna, unless of course someone can tell me they haven't had problems with the stock transmitter/receiver.
Thanks in advance!
I use a DX7 so can't help you with the radio question.
I posted this a couple of pages back concerning the charger:
"I have two parkzone lipo chargers and these are my observations using a watt meter on how they work.
The charger starts out at the current it is set to and will charge the battery up to about 90%, and then the charge rate will drop to about 250mA while balancing the battery pack. Depending on the size of the pack, it can be in this mode for an hour or more before charging is complete. So for a completely discharged battery charging at a 1C rate, the parkzone charger will take two or more hours to fully complete its charge. However, once its "fast" charge is completed, the battery is sufficiently charged and usually balanced well enough to take it off charge and go fly with it if needed. "
I rarely wait for it to completely stop doing its thing. After its been balancing for a little bit, I usually just unplug it and use a digital volt meter to check each cell voltage on the balancing plug. If they are individually within 4.0 and 4.2 VDC and all within .05 VDC of each other then I consider it to be good to go. If you do this, just make sure to wrap electrical tape around the test probes so that only a tiny part of the tip is showing to prevent any shorting if the probes slip while testing on the balance plug.