We'll be making our first flight of our EasyStar tomorrow night with an instructor. I read somewhere where the receiver battery needs to be charged for a full 24 hours before its first use. Is this true? The battery (as part of the RTF kit) came charged, to what degree I'm not sure. Should I run the battery down before charging? Is 24 hours too long to charge?

I could use some advice here since the manuals with the plane were sketchy at best and there doesn't seem to be much more information online with the manufacturer.

Thanks

16-24 hours is what I've read for the first charge. Don't discharge it first, just charge it. If you want to understand the reason behind this long slow charge, go to the [link=http://www.rcbatteryclinic.com/]R/C Battery Clinic[/link] and read the article titled "Fast Charge - Is it safe for my packs?".

Edit: the current for most of the wall wart chargers is usually low enough that leaving it on charge a bit too long, for example 20 hours when it only needed 16 hours, isn't going to hurt it. As above, there are articles at the R/C battery clinic that provide more details.

While 24 hours may be a bit long, it's definitely not going to hurt anything to charge it that long. Typically the battery should charge for 14-16 hours if you are using the standard charger that comes with the radio. You should try and charge it that long before every flying day. Even if the battery has a partial charge on it you should still give it a full charge before flying

Ken

I haven't received my receiver/radio yet... Purchased a Futaba 6EX 2.4 on Friday and it's not here yet. Should be tomorrow.

How long can one expect radio/receiver batteries to last on a single charge? I plan on doing long duration glider flights eventually and just wondering what the average length a radio and receiver battery is.