Hello! I am new to this. My brother is giving my 13 yo son a FeiLun FT012 boat for Christmas. It comes with 3S LiPo battery. I'm glad I did some reading and learned of the safety concerns with LiPo batteries. After doing the reading, we decided he will be getting an extra battery and some accessories from other family members - a safer charger, Lipo safe bags, and an ammo can. For the charger, we chose SkyRC iMAX BA6 V2. Hope that was a good choice. My question is about charging and storage of the batteries. We live in Wisconsin, so he won't be using this until spring. Should we charge and keep the batteries fully charged until spring? Or do nothing with them for now and wait to charge them in a few months when he is ready to use them? Or use the discharging functionality that this BA6 v2 charger says it has to discharge them for now, and then recharge them when he is ready to use them?

Thanks in advance for your helpful replies!
Jeff

I'm new to Lipo's also. In my research, the safe storage charge is 66% of full charge.

Thanks. Doing some more reading, I see that the general recommendation for storage is to charge them (or discharge them) to 3.8v per cell, and it looks like the charger he will be getting has a "storage mode" that will do that automatically? If anyone can confirm this (or disagrees) please let me know. Also, as it looks like this charger will automatically check/monitor voltage in each cell, is there any reason to get one of those little voltage checker/warning buzzer devices? They are inexpensive but I'm not sure I understand the value added.

Been racing with LiPos for 8+ years. Most battery suppliers recommend storage at 50% which is around 3.85 resting volts. Ten percent either way will likely work fine, just don't store at full voltage. I store mine at 50% and they last a long time.

One point about battery life - never discharge below ~25% capacity. Going lower, especially repeatedly, will shorten battery life. So will temps over 150*, which is often related to discharge level. Most ESCs have a low voltage cut off (LVC) to help save the battery.

Battery fires res are rare with modern LiPos, but years ago they did happen. Things have changed, but as Samsung has shown, it pays to be careful...


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Thanks. The video reviews for the boat he is getting did say the ESC has a low voltage cutoff. Between that and the charger's functionality of checking/balancing individual cell voltage, I don't see the value added for one of those little voltage checker/warning buzzer devices. Seems to me they are mostly for flying, to alert the pilot of low voltage before loss of power. I guess with the boat, the ESC will cut power briefly at low voltage but then still allow for driving the boat back in at low speed?

When you mention temp related to "discharge level" are you referring to amperage? It looks like with this charger the amount of amperage used to charge/discharge batteries can be adjusted. In the videos I watched, they were charging up to storage voltage using 1 amp. Is this the optimal amperage for charging? Would that also be the optimal amperage for discharging (if needed to get down to storage voltage), or should discharging be done at a lower rate? Also, one of the videos I watched recommended storing them in the refrigerator. None of the other videos I watched mentioned anything about storage temp, just storage voltage. Is there an optimal storage temp?

As batteries are discharged they generate heat. The more a pack is discharged the hotter it gets so over-discharging can damage a pack in two ways.

While some cells allow a higher higher charge rate, most recommend charging at 1C, for a 3000 mAh pack this means 3 amps. Less just takes longer.

Store LiPos under 80*F.


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Got it. Thanks