Help me charge Duralites Please!
 

I just bought an airplane all ready to go and it has Duralite batteries in it. I have other planes with lithium Relion packs and I'm use to charging them with my Hobbico Elite and Triton chargers. Unfortunately when I attempt to charge the duralites with these chargers I get errors from both of my chargers, I believe the chargers don't recognise a battery is connected. The guy I bought it from said that he had bypassed the diode in the packs and said that is why the red wire is shorter than the black on each pack! Can I charge these packs with my chargers?

RE: Help me charge Duralites Please!
 

Not unless the batteries say "rechargeable" on them.

RE: Help me charge Duralites Please!
 

Why don't you ask the guy you bought the model from how he charged the batteries?

Duralite batteries have two leads coming out of them, a diode is installed on the ouput lead which is usually colored black and cannot be used for charging, and a yellow colored lead which is used to charge the batteries. The batteries also have cell balancing circuitry inside the packs which the yellow charge lead is hooked up to so the packs are balanced each time they're charged.

Duralite does not recommend using any other charger than the one they provide and using something else will void the warranty. This is a moot point as there will be no warranty on modified packs, but is something to consider. The max charge rate is 400 mah and while I've seen posts from folks who do use other chargers, you must take care that the max recommended charge rate is not exceeded.

Li-Ion packs are much more stable than Li-Poly and therefore less hazardous to work with, but there is quite a bit of information available from various sources including here on RCU about those type of batteries from various manufacturers. Perhaps you might want to do a few searches if you're not familiar with these?

RE: Help me charge Duralites Please!
 

Thanks Zeeb, I did ask the guy and he said he used the duralite charger. Since I already have a couple chargers capable of lithium ion charging I don't really want to buy another charger if I don't have to. Also he said the battery on the ignition probably needs replacing and I don't intend to use duralites so it would be only the two reciever packs I need to charge. I believe he said those are 2800 mAh packs (the ignition was 1800). I have done some searching on duralites but didn't find too much information on charging by other means. Are you sure about the 400mAh, at that rate I'd probably have to charge them overnight! Thanks for the help!

RE: Help me charge Duralites Please!
 

Well 400 mah per port is what Duralite told me the output on the charger was because that was the recommended max charge rate for the batteries...:eek:

For AC current operation the Duralite charger requires a walwart with a 2 amp center pin negative output to function with the 4 port charger, so 400 mah fits that requirement. They also say the batteries should not be left on the charger for more than 6 hours.

I run three of those batteries (2800's) in my 33% Edge and even when I run them down into the 7.1 volt (checked with a 1 amp load) range, they'll charge in a couple of hours. 6.9 volts under a 1 amp load is the "no fly" cutoff point.

IIRC, Duralite says the batteries should be replaced at two years and I think the warranty period is 18 months.