Okay, tommorrow looks like a great day to get out and work out my newly received solo wings. I decided to do some checking on my batteries.

Now, I turn on my 6EXAS Futaba radio. 10.8Volts. Okay, probably top that off tonight with the wall charger tonight. I double check this with the El Cheepo Multimeter. And it shows a little over 10V. I've read the manual that came with the 6EXAS and understand the whole Tx voltage ranges regarding when to fly, when to start thinking about a charge, and when to panic.

The receiver charging protocol is where I'm getting hung up.

I can't figure out a good way to check the Rx battery using the MM leads. I have a Hanger 9 Double Vision field charger (thanks LowLevlflyer!) that has ports for the MM leads. So I plugged the field charger up to the Rx and left the charger unplugged from the battery (just using it as an interface between my reciever batteries and my MM). The charge on the multimeter is showing about 9.0V. I went ahead and plugged the field charger into the field battery and the bar graph on that shows 80% on the reciever battery.

My questions are:
1) How the heck am I getting a 9.0V reading from a 4.8V battery?
2) What is the Normal volt range/low range/panic range for a standard 4.8V battery?
3) Do I need a new Multimeter?

Also, what is odd, is that when I check the field battery Volts on the multimeter, I show right at 24Volts (on a 12 Volt battery!)

I'm lost, please help!

You need to get an appropriate connector (I think you need male, but I'm not in the shop right now) that you can splice into a set of leads for the multimeter. This will let you plug the battery directly into the multimeter.

Sounds like your MM has issues. Get down to you LHS and pick up a set of Futaba-charging leads for TX and RX, and an ESV(Expanded Scale Voltmeter). An ESV will put a load on the battery pack, abeit TX or RX. This will give you a real world voltage, much like it is when you are loading the batteries in your TX and RX. There can be a fairly severe drop in available voltage, when a load is being applied. Its also a good way to see if you have a battery going south. If it starts to show lower voltage consecutively after full 15 hour charges.,,,,,Cya tommorow

Under advisement of SoonerAce, I took out a AA battery and tested it. Wow! 2.1Volts. I'd say the old faithful MM is toast.

Why is it I have a problem with shelling out the $10-20 bucks for a new multimeter but no problem spending heaven-knows how much for a "toy plane".

Oh well, time to bite the bullet!

Before you scrap your old meter, be sure:

1. You have it set to the right range.
2. Your reading it correctly.

All of your readings are roughly double, which leads me to believe the problem is 1, 2, or both.

Dr.1

Hi!
Every one over here uses some form of diod checker. We mount them in every airplane we have! The left one in the pictures below has two diods ..one green and one red.
Green diod lights: means everything is alright, green and red diod lights...beware ...Red diod lights: do not fly!
At home I have a multimeter which I check the voltage on each cell when I'm not certain of the battery pack. 1,1-1,25 volt is OK, 1volt or under is not. I naturally do this with the battery under load (some servos connected)!

Regards!
Jan K
Sweden

Jan,
do you have the plans for building one of those diode checkers?

Ken

hi guys i did what i have on the attachment, i took the dischrage times on an esv from max voltage to what i deem ok to stop taking readings, some ar 4 cell and some are 6 cell
my dilema is can i fly a 5 cell battery until its reading is 4.8 or 4.7 volts , and since the rx are desined to be flown witha 4.8 battery down to what voltage can i use a 4 cell battery

will 4.5 or 4.4 be risky.
take a look at my excell file
regrds
david

ww.cybul.com i am a new flyer with 10 years in the hobby but very few flights

hi guys i did what i have on the attachment, i took the dischrage times on an esv from max voltage to what i deem ok to stop taking readings, some ar 4 cell and some are 6 cell
my dilema is can i fly a 5 cell battery until its reading is 4.8 or 4.7 volts , and since the rx are desined to be flown witha 4.8 battery down to what voltage can i use a 4 cell battery

will 4.5 or 4.4 be risky.
take a look at my excell file
regrds
david

ww.cybul.com i am a new flyer with 10 years in the hobby but very few flights

sorry here is the attachment`change the .jpg to .xls

Jan, nice tester, can you provide us the plans? it would be really nice. ive seen a lot of plans, but they are all very complexe with chips your sounds simple, tks

Hobbico sells an LED volt monitor called a VoltWatch for about $11 US. THis is cheaper than you could make it yourself, even if you value your time at zero. Tower Hobbies has them on their web site.

davidsai,
as 1.1 V per cell is considered discharged, you won't be able to get a 5 cell battery to drain to 4.8 v. On your 4 cell pack, 4.4 v is considered discharged. On your 5 cell packs, 5.5 v is considered discharged.

Septic,
i wouldn't trust a MM with my batteries as they don't typically load the system. You need to load it with 300 or so ma to see what the battery is going to do under a load--which is how you use it! Static batteries can have plenty of volatage. However, place a load on it, and it could go south--you don't want to find out the hard way! Get a hobbico rx battery tester--it will have the connector that you need already attached. Simply plug the battery in and see what it says!
Here is a nice digital one:

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXWW16&P=7]digital[/link]

Or, here is a cheaper, analog one that will do the same thing:

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNK81&P=7]analog[/link]

apparently, they do not come with a battery connector anymore (like mine did). I think you'll also have to order this connector for it:

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXL332&P=M]futaba[/link]

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXL335&P=M]JR[/link]

I disagree with you. The first picture that Jan show us, will cost $2 US maximum. These electronic components, like resisters, leds, capacitors are really cheap. Of course, if you dont have a soldering iron, and this stuff, will increase the cost. But actually im a electronic engineer student, and i can have all these components for free. And.... im from Portugal. Shipping cost from towerhobbies is about $15US dolars, and will take more than a month to be here [] That's why i really want to build one myself. Ive seen on the web lots of battery testers/indicators, but all uses OPAMP, and/or complex circuits[] That's why it would be really nice to have jan's battery indicator plans. I tryed to discover the plans from the picture, but hidden components still a mystery[]

There are many end-roads to solve the issue. ESV's, Voltwatch's, Home-devised(scratch-built, for you purists), etc... Bottom line is they are all cheaper than a pile of sticks in a monokote shopping sack. Using two test device, say one at home and one at the field is another way to "make d#%*ed sure, you can enjoy flying instead of enjoying building(can you say rekit?).

Here is a link to one voltage monitor that you can build yourself.

http://www.cliftech.com/

I have built several of these. The total cost for me was about US $4.00 per monitor. The LM3914 IC sells for about $2.50 from www.jameco.com and the 10 LEDs are worth about $1.50. I already had the circuit board material, resistors, and Rx connector. If you had to buy all of this retail the total would come to over $10 per monitor, not including shipping costs.

My monitor came out slightly heavier than the Voltwatch from Hobbico.

Hi!
The two diode volt watcher is a commercial unit made here in Sweden and available in every hobby store over here...cost is around 10 dollars.
It works like this: When the green diode lights ...everyting is fine!...When both the red and the green diod lights ..watch out! ...When only the red diode lights...don't fly, Go home and charge!
A friend made a copy electrical circuit diagram for it a couple of yeras ago.
...I have not heard of anyone not using one of these in a plane for the last 10 years or so.

Regards!
Jan K
Sweden