battery discharger
 

Is this good to have a battery discharger to totally discharge after you have used your plane... Because that, my battery are never always dead after i am done.

you understand?

hope you do :)

thanks

RE: battery discharger
 

There's no real need to totally discharge the batteries. Just charge them to put back what was taken out.

Sometimes it nice to cycle the batteries (discharge then charge) so you can see the actually capacity and get a rough idea of the batteries health. I do this 1-2 times per year. It is for my own piece of mind though, it isn't an absolute necessity.

RE: battery discharger
 

Depending on the type of battery, different techniques are required. If you really want to understand what is best, read the following:
http://www.rcbatteryclinic.com
http://www.camlight.com/techinfo/techtips.html
http://www.whenshtf.com/showthread.php?t=2153
http://www.srbatteries.com/nimh.htm
http://dansdata.com/gz011.htm
http://users.frii.com/dlc/battery.htm
These sites are all quite good and will point you in the right direction for proper battery care.

RE: battery discharger
 

thank you very much for your advices.

RE: battery discharger
 

Just a couple more questions.

Would it be better to run the transmitter/receiver until the batteries are dead, that is to cycle them? Or is there an inexpensive electronic way of cycling the batteries?
Always on a tight budget.
Steve

RE: battery discharger
 

You could do that to your transmitter if it has a voltage readout and turn it off when it gets to about 1.1 volts per cell(8.8 volts for an 8 cell battery). But I would not do that with the receiver because you risk discharging the batteries until they are completely dead which is bad for them. I would recommend investing in an inexpensive batter cycler so you can monitor how well your batteries are holding their charge. You can find good deals for a used one on ebay or some place like that.

RE: battery discharger
 

if your battery's get below 1 volt per cell you run a risk of shorting a cell so a total discharge isn't a good idea.

RE: battery discharger
 

Cycling the battery using a cycler made for that purpose is one thing, and is good for NiCd batteries, not needed for NiMH and should never be done for LiPo packs.

Allowing the battery, any battery, to go to 0 is not a good thing. In some cases, you can polarity reversal.

Just put them on the charger when you are finished flying and restore the charge. And, the night before you go flying, put t on the wall-wart charger to top it off (NiCd and NiMh packs). Do not top off LiPo packs.

CGr.

RE: battery discharger
 

Yep, just give them a good charge the night before you go flying and don't worry about much else. Even modern Nicads don't need regular cycling like they used to. Like I mentioned earlier, I only cycle periodically to check battery capacity but I have quite a few planes now and they are getting larger and more expensive, I like the piece of mind.

Before investing in a cycling charger (which I recommend at some point if you stick with the hobby) I would get a good expanded scale voltmeter which applies a slight load for checkign battery condition between flights. This could save an airplane.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXWDZ5&P=7