Swager

My Feedback: (1)

I finally tried out my New Elite.

I did a cycle on a 1800mah 4C battery (AC RX battery pack) and let it run overnight at 180mah charge. I got up this morning and looked at the charge and the capacity was reading 2258mah! At 5.65V.

Did I miss something here? How can a 1800mah battery pack have a capacity of 2258? I felt the battery pack and it was just warm. I unhooked the battery and shutit down until I can get some answers. I am new to the charging of batteries except through a wall charger. The Hobbico Elite is my first charger.

Thanks

marked23

I too would be concerned if I put 2200mah into an 1800mah pack. Something isn't right.
Did you set the proper battery type and the correct number of cells? Each battery type has a different peak voltage/cell. If you set the wong type, it may just keep trying to charge forever because it never gets into the expected voltage range.

I don't have a Hobbico charger... just offering a guess.

-Mark

JoeAirPort

My Feedback: (41)

So it charged about an hour and a half longer than it should take for a completely drained pack. Doesn't sound right. Re-check your parameters and let us know what you find. I think this charger times out if it doesn't reach the peak after so much time.

Silent-AV8R

So you put about 122 percent of the capacity back "into" the pack. No worries. Think about the typical charger, we used to charge at C/10 for 16 hours. That is 160% of capacity. The internal resistence of NiCad and NiM packs require this during charging. It is normal. It is also why seeing how much was put back "into" the pack is really sort of meaningless.

Bill

Swager

My Feedback: (1)

The only things I changed from default is the capacity (to 1800mah) and the the charge was set at 180mah. Everything else I kept with the recommended settings.

I had it set to cycle once.

Kinda weird!

Rodney

There should be no problem with what your did. Measuring input MAH is quite meaningless as stated above by aresti2004. As long as you measure the milliampere hours on the discharge cycle and they are within 80% of rated capacity, you are good to go.

JoeAirPort

My Feedback: (41)

I agree that the discharge mah is more useful than the input mah but I would not consider it useless (input mah). What would make the input different? The charging efficiency and internal losses of the battery?

It's at least interesting to know why they differ. It does make sense that the input mah is more than the discharge mah. I think because this charger offers so much data that we are able to see things we didn't with our old ones.

The point is that probably nothing is wrong with his battery. I'm just asking why the input/discharge mah differ (out of curiousity).

Swager

My Feedback: (1)

It was up to 1999 mah when I stopped my last charge! This is weird.

Will it hurt the batteries if I just let it go? It just doesn't seem right letting it go go on charging past the rating. I figured it would go to trickle.

By not letting it go am I not letting it fully charge?

Oh, questions, questions!!

laryboy

My Feedback: (2)

are you know saying that the charger never peak detected? you didnt say that before.

Swager

My Feedback: (1)

I charged up a 600 mah battery pack and it went to 866 mah before it ended and started a trickle. So I guess I should just let it go.

Basically, yes. It never peak detected. I am new to this battery charging process that does not use a wall charger, so I am still learning. That is probably why I didn't say that before.

The battery pack (1800 mah) presently under charge was at 1766 mah last time I checked. I will let it go until it peaks.

Too much fun!!

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

In ALL cases, if you start with a fully-discharged battery pack, the charger will put out more charge than the capacity of the pack. That's because there are losses all along the way. The wires, the connectors, and the battery pack, itself, all have resistances that take some of the energy and convert it to heat. That energy is not stored in the pack. Depending upon the pack, it can be as high as 20+%.

The only numbers that are truly meaningful are discharge numbers...and they'll only tell you how much charge is in the battery pack at the time you start the discharge. You can only tell if a pack's holding its full-rated charge if you start out with a fully-charged battery pack.

You can discharge a partially-used pack to help you determine how much flying time you have on a full pack. Fly two or three normal flights and then discharge teh battery pack. Over time, you'll get a very accurate picture of how much safe flying time, with a reserve, your pack is capable of giving you.

laryboy

My Feedback: (2)

swagger if your charger will not peak detect ,it is an entirely different problem than too much charged stored in battery. you must get it to peak detect first. then we can work on potential overcharging.

advanceandy

My Feedback: (116)

I have read in many places that the first charge should be c/10 rate x1.4 to 1.6