Mikel-t

My Feedback: (12)

I have a TP 3s2p that survived a bad landing. Battery has a small dent ( opposite side of connectors) and my FMA charger flashes a warning that the 3rd cell is below .04V's. Is there a site, or post, that can help me repair or reconfigure this battery into something usable? I'm not a electric wizard but can follow directions...

Bill Martovich

My Feedback: (11)

I'm asking the same sort of question. I purchased 4 Lipo Turnigy Batteries from Hobby King. They are 20-30 C 1.0 Mil @11.2 V and a small 12 volt powered charger. These batteries all came fully charged and worked fine,Untill..... None of them would re charge. The charger I bought is a Balancing type that works fine on other Lipos I have and I took them to a friend with many chargers and all of them failed to re charge these Batteries.
They only cost 6 bucks apiece and the warentee is a joke requiring you to send them to Hong Kong with all the originol pakaging.

What may I do to salvage them? All have some small voltage 3-7 V and the charger just don't "See" them indicating either full charge or not connected.

Bill

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

That pack should be disposed of!! A damaged lipo cell is a fire waiting to happen. If you had another identical pack that was bad, it would be possible to remove the damaged cell and replace it with a good cell from another pack. I have done this with some E-flite 3cell packs. But it is very dangereous to perform, if you make one slip while removing a cell or while soldering the new cell back in you could have an explosion. I would highly reccomend you just dispose of that damaged pack and get a new one, $30 is not worth risking your house or health.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I have recovered some packs like this and so have some others here on RCU. I will find one of the threads that describes how and post a link here shortly. Here's that link.
[link]http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7912751/tm.htm[/link]
What JohnP describes is probably the safest way I've heard of recovering a low pack. If you can't do what Johnp describes, PM me and I will share a couple other ways that have worked for me.

Rodney

The reference given in post 3 above is very good and his advice is quite easy to follow. LiPo's are not nearly so dangerous to work with as some say, THEY WILL NOT EXPLODE. Now, if shorted, they can burst into flame so do work on them in an area that won't cause a major fire should one ignite (a very small chance of it happening but is possible). A useful tool to use, if you want to separate the cells, is a plastic putty knife or blade of a broken prop to slowly peel the cells apart if you want to remove one; you need to be careful and not puncture the plastic envelope around each cell. Also, the solder used to tie the cells together may be of the "lead free" type which will require a much hotter soldering iron than needed for typical lead/tin solder.

huck1199

To solder these cells you need aluminum flux and solder.  I bought some on the web for about $20  and got enough to last a life time.  I think the vendor is Allelectric.com.