2200mah 3s lipo charger

[Simon Chambers]

Posted by Pete B on 17/11/2012 21:13:25:

Arrrggghhh! Missed out a '0'........of course it should be 0.07A........

Nice of you to subtley push me in the right direction, Simon......

Pete

lol, it wasn't intentional! You clicked the add post button before I managed to finish writing my response! Takes me quite a while to write a post you see...

Si.

[Nick Williams]

Thanks for the replys! I've got the lead now and charged one of the cells at .07a but it took half an hour? The cell was at 3.88v when the cycle started? Does this not seem a little slow? It's a 14c rated discharge, but no charge rating is supplied. How high a rate would you deem to high? I was thinking of trying one possibly at .14a?

Nick

[Pete B]

Sounds about right to me, Nick. The battery was at somewhere near half-charge at 3.88V and the 1C charge rate should replenish the whole pack in 1 hour, ie 70mA.

Did you notice how many mA the charger had put in? Normally it's the lower right number on the screen and I suspect it would have read something around 35mA.

Unless the battery clearly states that it can be charged at a greater rate than 1C, I'd stick to 1C, ie 0.07A.

0.14A is 2C which may be too much for the battery.

This link may help to explain C ratings

Pete

[Simon Chambers]

+1 on the charge rate. If it doesn't state on any literature that it can handle more than 1C charge then only ever charge at 1C. It may take it, but it's not worth risking burning the house down over it!

Si.

[Nick Williams]

I've got some other cells here now that I'm going to be using and there rated at 'up to' 10C. There 160mah 1s Nano Tech from Turnigy. I'm not going to start charging at 1.6a but I should be fine with 0.5a to save a little time until I get a multi type lead? I'm not really bothered about lifespan provided I get 15ish cycles as there very cheap.

With the multi lead, it has a set of bullet connectors to plug into the charger which then splits into 6 separate leads that go to each cell. What should I be reading on the screen and should the charger still be set to 3.7v 1S?

Thanks in advance

Nick

[Simon Chambers]

Posted by Nick Williams on 03/12/2012 18:29:54:

I've got some other cells here now that I'm going to be using and there rated at 'up to' 10C. There 160mah 1s Nano Tech from Turnigy. I'm not going to start charging at 1.6a but I should be fine with 0.5a to save a little time until I get a multi type lead? I'm not really bothered about lifespan provided I get 15ish cycles as there very cheap.

With the multi lead, it has a set of bullet connectors to plug into the charger which then splits into 6 separate leads that go to each cell. What should I be reading on the screen and should the charger still be set to 3.7v 1S?

Thanks in advance

Nick

Do you know if the lead connects all the cells in parallel or series? If you've got a link it may help here.

If it's connected in series then you charge it as the number of packs you've got connected.

More likely (from the ones I've seen), it's probably connected in Parallel. If so, then yes you charge it as a 3.7v 1S pack. As the current will be shared between them, you will need to increase the charge rate.

I.e. for 0.5A per cell charge rate, and 2 cells connected, charge at 1A. 6 cells connected, for 0.5A per cell charge rate, charge at 3A.

I don't know if it makes any difference, but I like to give the first 2 or 3 charges at 1C to break them in a bit. I have noticed that, like NiMh/NiCd, LiPo's do improve after the first couple of charges - especially the cheaper ones (I guess the cheap ones the factory doesn't cycle charge them at the beginning). However if they're cheap and they're bin-able after the season (which a lot of these tiny cells seem to be), I wouldn't then bother.

Cheers,
Si.