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You never really know when your getting to the edge of the cliff, the idea here is to stay as far away from the edge of the cliff as you can

With my Accu-Cycle I usually discharge about once a month, set the AC to the 250Mah discharge rate and note the total time. I try to not fly more than 1/3 the total discharge time, which in my case can be up to 120 minutes using a 6 volt 2000 Mah pack. After that just hit it with the field charger.
I made some test leads for my watt meter to test servo and RX draw, I used the ends from my Futaba charger.