Devo

Help! This is my fist expeience with li poly. I have a new 2100mah 11.1v li-po battery. I'm using a Hobbico MarkII charger. I'm having trouble initiating the first charge. I checked the battery with my voltmeter and it reads 0 volts. Should this pack already be showing voltage prior to charging? I'm assuming my charger is trying to determine cell count and proper voltage, but is unable to because of the 0 voltage. What do I do?

INeedHelp

My Feedback: (1)

Return the battery it should never read 0 volts.

bentgear

Do you have a volt meter that you can use to measure the voltage of the pack and not hav eto rely on hte charger? If so, what doe sit read? If it truely reads 0 then the pack is bad open and will hav eto be replaced. You should get an 11 volt or better reading on a new pack as it comes out of the package.

Ed M.

Devo

Knowledge is power, in this case, electrical power. Thank you. After reading your responses, I was able to achieve 11.54 volts by working the connections on top of the battery. Looks like a return. At least I can set up my ESC now.

highpines

I have same charger and it's a good one for the price......Sounds like batt....

FlightPower

A 3S LiPo should never read below 9V in any circumstances. I would certainly never expect to see a new battery register anywhere near that figure either, as the packs should be shipped somewhere near 75% charge

Devo

Again, I did find the problem was a loose connection between the cells. Also I want to add that my Hobbico MarkII charger worked fine after I fixed this problem. It was a little slow because the max charge is 1 amp when charging a li-poly battery with this charger. The battery temperature never reached more than 3 or 4 degrees f more than ambient temperature during charge. I should be able to charge a 2100mah battery at 2 amps, correct? What is the safe cutoff voltage for this size battery?

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

The absolute cutoff voltage for LiPolys is 4.2 Volts per cell, so a 3S pack would read 12.6 Volts, maximum. If it reads more than that, you either used the wrong program on the charger, or the charger is broken.

LiPolys can be charged at 1C, or one times their capacity in mAh. 2100mAh = 2100mA charge rate = 2.1 Amps charge rate.