If you leave the radio on can you damage the battery by draining it completly down? Will it charge back up?

It will not damage the radio, because i did it the first day of flying. And ti will charge back up when the battery drains

Granted its not the best way of discharging your battery in the TX but, there will be no real harm done to your tx. Thing to watch out is done leave the TX on when the antenna collapsed. That could cause some adverse effects to your transmitter. What happens is that the RF module in the TX will start to heat up becuase there is a differant load on it (antenna down) which could cause it to fail. Granted its very rare and it does have to be on for a LONG time. Most of the newer transmitters it wont effect it too much but it does vary from manufactor.

Agree with both posts.

rcfury -- did your Superstar survive the operation?

You should have zip problems with the battery....it seems to happen to all of us at one time or the other!

Jerry

Chances are it did not hurt the battery but: it can, one cell will always be less efficient than some of the others. That cell can be permanently damaged by being reverse charged by the stronger cells as they continue to discharge. If that happens, you may never be able to get that cell to perform properly. The only way to know for sure is to charge the battery for 15 to 16 hours at a slow charge (0.1C) and then measure the capacity with a good cycler. It may take two or three cycles of slow charge/discharge to completely recover the battery's full capacity.

Well for the superstar I had to send it to ARF heaven. It was a beautiful plane and flew very well. I was probally on my 70th flight ont he superstar until I got a "little to comfortable with it". But that was almost 2 years ago. Thinking about bashing another trainer just for the flying. It was a blast.

I can agree with Rodney on this. If the battery does get too discharged it could harm the battery. Cycle the batterys a few times with a cycler to revive them if they have been damaged from a too deep a discharge. If the cycler shows a differnet MAH really less when your battery is rated it you may want to retire it and get yourself another pack.

my transmitter will shut itself off before the battery is drained anyway, and I suspect most moder radios will do the same. I have an alarm that comes on at around 9 volts, and I think it shuts off at around 8.5 volts--so it is impossible to completely drain the battery by leaving the tx on...

Unfortunately, most transmitters (especially the less expensive ones) do not have the automatic off feature 2slow2matter mentions and you can discharge to to low a value if the switch is left on. I personally would not like that feature in any transmitter, low voltage warning yes, automatic cutoff NEVER.