Author Topic: Lipo Charging  (Read 2739 times)

Offline Infinite

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Lipo Charging
« on: May 02, 2016, 06:14:40 PM »
About a year ago I bought 2 11.1v 2000 mAH 3 stick lipo batteries wired to deans for one of my only dean wired guns. I rarely used them until about a week ago I decide to shoot some beer cans because I was bored as hell. The battery started to weaken so I decided to charge it so it wouldn't drain out and die but when I plugged it in, the charger said input volt error so I set it up to charge as an NiMH battery. 30 minutes later I came back and one of the sticks expanded so I set it outside in some rocks in case it decides to blow up. So now I'm back at square one, I have one battery left and I tried to balance it and again the charger reads input volt error, I'm not trying to go out from an airsoft battery. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong and how the heck I can charge these things. I'm using an Imax B6 and plugging the white charging cord in as well, the charger is set on lipo balance and my settings are 3c 11.1v and 1.2cs

Offline XavierMace

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Re: Lipo Charging
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2016, 11:22:07 PM »
That battery is toast.  If you used it until it started to "weaken" you probably already discharged it past the safe point.

Offline Infinite

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Re: Lipo Charging
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2016, 05:05:34 PM »
Shoot do you by happen to know what I'm doing wrong in the recharging process so I don't blow my last good battery?

Offline XavierMace

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Re: Lipo Charging
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2016, 01:06:36 AM »
LiPo's are damaged by being over discharged/used.  If they get to under 3v per cell they get unhappy.  You can't run them until they "die" like you can NiCd/NiMh.  If you were noticing the gun starting to shoot slower, you were unfortunately likely past that point already.  That would explain why you got the error when you tried to charge it.  Setting it to NiMH to bypass the error likely destroyed the battery.  Step one is get yourself a tester or a balancer.

Tester:  http://www.airsoftgi.com/product_info.php?products_id=16336
Balancer: http://www.airsplat.com/kong-power-voltage-meter-balancer.html

I highly recommend the latter as it's small enough to fit in a pouch on your vest or your pocket, has a nice LCD to show you the exact voltage of each cell separately, and will manually balance and/or discharge batteries.  A lot of cheaper batteries aren't properly balanced when you buy them.  I also wouldn't recommend charging faster than 1C unless your pack specifically states it's OK. 

General guidelines are you get about 1 shot per mAh so you should be getting roughly 2,000 rounds out of those batteries assuming they have a full charge at start.  My general process is check my battery before I start playing and check again every 500-600 rounds or so.  I carry a spare battery on me so if I think I might be pushing it, I just swap the battery and check the original at the next break in action.  It also wouldn't hurt to charge your batteries up once to full charge, and then test their "endurance" in the backyard.  Just start doing mag dumps and checking the battery after each mag until you determine how many rounds you can safely get out of your battery.  A few bucks in BB's is worth it to avoid damaging your battery and potentially starting a fire. 

This is especially important on smaller batteries.  For example the LiPo's in my AEP's are good for about 900 rounds.  If I'm running my AEP as the primary, I can go through 900 rounds surprisingly fast.

This is a long article but has a LOT of good info about LiPo's:  http://www.rogershobbycenter.com/lipoguide/
« Last Edit: May 06, 2016, 01:09:53 AM by XavierMace »