Carl,

You've had some bad luck with batteries, two batteries in a week. Yikes!... I'm the same way, I save everything I can, like you did with the jst connector. Don't push the batteries to much. Example, I know I can fly my Lama V4 for 12 minutes on a battery charge.
I set 'er down after 8 minutes. I use a small digital kitchen timer to let me know when my flying time is up.

Dave / Choppersrule