Keith Bell

I've just ordered one of these from eBay. Glad to hear lots of good feedback about them. If anyone is interested, Hobbyking are selling a few accessories for this but here's a tip, go to the camera page and scroll down to where the related items are. There will be a list of accessories and if you add them from that page by clicking the buy now button you will get them vastly cheaper than if you went to the individual item page. Sometimes the savings are nearly 50% cheaper. Don't ask why this happens I just happened to notice it last night when I was picking up a few bits. Just to be certain, the discount carries all the way through to checkout too as I brought a couple of the mounts. I was planning on dropping a few screen grabs here but as I'm on my iPad it won't allow me to upload.

Apologies on the typo. You are correct I meant 0.02V. Thanks for pointing it out.

Posted by dan c 1 on 22/02/2014 18:15:29: Posted by Keith Bell on 22/02/2014 13:57:19: Yes I'd certainly reduce your flight times and check what you are getting left on your pack. You can then adjust your flight times accordingly to ensure your batt is not over discharged. With you saying you always balance and yet your cell V's are so far out I'd wager a guess that either you lipo is puffed and/or is on its way out and I would keep a careful eye on it. Good call on balancing every time, not crucial but a really good habit to get into. How far out can the cells be or be allowed to be? They are usually about the same and when I charge them they end up exactly the same. Technically speaking they should be within 0.2 of each other to be classed as balanced but I wouldn't worry if you're about 0.3. Any more than that then I'd start being concerned about the lipo's health. Initially that's what caught my attention when you posted your cell voltages as 3.30 - 3.35 & 3.40. That to me is alarm bells as they are way out of balance. Do you have an independent cell checker by any chance? The reason I ask is there is a little slop in the resistors that measure voltages in the accucel 6 and are known to give false readings. I suspect this as I'm currently having issues of the same description with my A6 which is resulting in the charger reading fully balanced after a charge but when I check them with my fluke or cell checker there is a difference between cells. 1 & 3 are within 0.2 which is fine but cell 3 is a whopping 0.6 out so I end up 4.20 - 4.28 - 4.22 but the charger reads them perfectly balanced at 4.2 per cell.

Yes I'd certainly reduce your flight times and check what you are getting left on your pack. You can then adjust your flight times accordingly to ensure your batt is not over discharged. With you saying you always balance and yet your cell V's are so far out I'd wager a guess that either you lipo is puffed and/or is on its way out and I would keep a careful eye on it. Good call on balancing every time, not crucial but a really good habit to get into.

I agree with Masher that is definitely too low. At that rate you could have a puffed/potentially dangerous lipo on your hands after a few more cycles. You should be aiming for around 3.75 per cell as the lowest to take it during a discharge cycle. Also the cell voltages you listed are way to far out of balance and really could do with being balanced as soon as you can, so you should also be aiming to keep individual cells within 0.2 of each other so cell readings of 3.75 - 3.75 - 3.77 would be more than adequate. Do you have a charger that has a balancing function?

Welcome Paul from a fellow new member.

Thanks all for the kind welcome. I too have spent many an hour on the Trent (in a former existence) fishing for barbel and Chubb off the weir side at gunthorpe. Alas my gear was packed away some years ago now and resides in storage in the garage. Being an engineer just fuels my curiosity for how stuff ticks so most of my time is spent tinkering and finding new ways of doing things. I'm more of a technician engineer so the dark art is my barrow. I'm cannot help but be impressed with the speed this hobby has progressed over the last few years in both availability and price. I would often watch the RC planes flying near beeston weir and was tempted back then (1980's) to take the plunge but being the age I was there was no way I could ever dream of being able to afford it. Technology (and china) has allowed many more enjoy this excellent hobby for a fraction of the price of yesteryear. I've seen a lot of debate on the effect that the far eastern markets are having on our hobby and some traditionalists are dead set against anything that doesn't come out of the local hobby store at 4 times the price. The way I see it everyone is entitled to their opinion and as long as we are still free enough to be able to voice it then that's fine by me. My opinion is that whilst there is a reasonably priced way of entering this hobby of ours then the numbers will keep coming. It's no coincidence that there has been a surge of popularity over recent years and most of that is down to availability of info (like this great encyclopaedic forum) and the price of entry.

Thanks David, it's good to be here.

Hi fellow flyers After lurking for quite a while now I thought it was time to stick my head above the parapet. A quick intro: Well, my name is Keith and I'm rapidly hurtling towards the big 4-0 (this April  . I'm an engineer from Nottingham who is married with two great daughters. Basically I've been flying for roughly 3 years (all electric foamies) and am completely self taught and I'm now taking the plunge and joining a club. The reasons for this are varied but mostly it's because myself and my fellow flying buddies (brother and bro-in-law) have grown out of our usual location and are in the need of a fixed abode. We are lucky enough to have two close-ish clubs where we are (Annesley & Goosedale) and have visited one already and are looking to get signed up ASAP. I would definitely consider myself a total addict and have a workshop (otherwise known as my mancave) all set up which houses everything from my planes (7 of them) to my tools. I'm also a newly paid up subscriber to RCM&e and so far am very impressed with it. Anyway thanks for reading and I look forward to chatting with you all over the coming months. Blue Skies.