I am returning to RC after 25ish years. My experience was with glo power, but I have tried electric and really like it (plan to fly some glo too.) I purchased a Navstar Mini EP which comes with Super Tigre elec components, including a very basic DC charger. After a recent accident the LIPO battery was damaged. I ordered the identical battery from Tower Hobbies (Super Tigre 1250mAh, 11.1C, 15C, 14Wh). When the battery came,I attempted to charge it, but immediately got an error message (green and red lights blinking). I have no reason to think the charger is faulty as it worked fine with the original battery. Seems odd that a new battery would be faulty? It is not easy to get things donewith Tower Hobbies (return/replace battery) so I was wondering if purchasing a decent balancer/charger (which I'm going to need eventually anyway) makes sense. I was thinking of a Cell Pro or Balancing Pro as reviews seem very good. My thinking is that maybe one of the 3 LIPO cells has was delivered in an low capacity (less that 3V)condition and the Balancing Pro could bring it back (which it is apparently good at). My concern with this or any other charger is connection compatibility with the Super Tigre LIPO. So......

Questions:

Any thoughs on the error message and why the new batteryproduces an error message on charging(all connections are solid and have tired many times)?
Would a more sophisticated charger potentially solve the problem?
Can any LIPO charger be made connection compatible with any LIPO battery by using adapters?

Thank you.

Torvis, at the end of the day, your LiPo charger is simply delivering a positive and negative lead to the battery. Any LiPo charger should work with any LiPo battery so long as you can make the positive and ground leads connect up. You might try getting a voltage reading from the pack's output leads, or individual cell readings from the balancing jack, to make sure the battery is in the 3v ~ 4v range per cell that you should expect.

You should also try to get together with a flying buddy or club member and see what kind of results you get with one of their chargers. If you have a local hobby store handy, they should have a charger or two available in the store to check batteries as well. The conversation will seem awkward when your opening line is, "Hi, I got this battery from a mail order company and I want you to help me figure out why I'm having problems with it..." but most hobby dealers should be pretty thick-skinned about such things and will look at the request as an opportunity to win you over as a customer.

Battery chargers bundled with RTF aircraft are usually very low quality. Hopefully a better battery charger will provide you with better results. Super Tigre LiPo batteries are also the cheapest LiPo batteries that Tower Hobbies sells, so top quality isn't necessarily a given. I have a balancing LiPO charger and a 2S 800Mah battery that came with an Esky Lama V4, however, and they've both worked flawlessly for some time now. There are very inexpensive LiPo packs and chargers that work perfectly, but it sounds like something bundled with your mini Nexstar EP isn't up to par.

Good luck, and post any follow up questions that might come up.

Thanks Bigedmustafa,

An update, I took the battery to the store that sold me the plane, they tested it and confirmed a cell was dead. As it turns out they deal in Super Tigre, so I bought one from them. The cheap charger that came with the plane couldn't charge the battery, so I ended up buying an AC/DC Triton. I then contacted Tower Hobbies and told them about the bad battery and they are sending me a new one at no charge.

So, I have a good quality charger and 2 batteries (shortly). Great result and really no unnecessary out of pocket $$.

Thanks for your good advice.

Torvis</p>