Leisure or standard car battery for charging lipo's

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Richard Clark 2]

Posted by Jason Channing on 17/06/2020 12:27:50:

Im a petrol boy too.....so long as there big and powerful.

Good for you

Though mostly I still use glow (except for small planes) as I rarely build anything over '90' size.

[Christopher Morris 2]

Some interesting theories on what to do.

1. Change to ic/glow engine & fuel? Like the plane's sound, but my club has noise limitations at certain hours, but not with electric. Also,, the fuel smells & cost £25 a gallon. + the conversion of at least 4 planes. Pass
2. Generator? got to agree with others about the noise. Surely, not from the ones flying noisy fueled engines.lol
3. Solar is a great idea's, but think i would need a few panels to get a quick charge on my 5000mah 4s ones.
4. Batteries are another good idea along with solar as i would also have another use & could use it to charge the batteries for free at home. My trailer would be nice for adaptation for this use. Just depends if i can find cheap batteries & panels.

The other alternative? is i just buy some more lipo batteries for my planes. lol

[SIMON CRAGG]

Posted by Christopher Morris 2 on 18/06/2020 14:12:22:

Some interesting theories on what to do.

1. Change to ic/glow engine & fuel? Like the plane's sound, but my club has noise limitations at certain hours, but not with electric. Also,, the fuel smells & cost £25 a gallon. + the conversion of at least 4 planes. Pass
2. Generator? got to agree with others about the noise. Surely, not from the ones flying noisy fueled engines.lol
3. Solar is a great idea's, but think i would need a few panels to get a quick charge on my 5000mah 4s ones.
4. Batteries are another good idea along with solar as i would also have another use & could use it to charge the batteries for free at home. My trailer would be nice for adaptation for this use. Just depends if i can find cheap batteries & panels.

The other alternative? is i just buy some more lipo batteries for my planes. lol

Easy to get a really good high capacity battery from your local car breaker. Amazon is your friend for a good deal on a solar panel, or Facebook Marketplace.

[Richard Clark 2]

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 17/06/2020 01:11:23:

I have been using the same car battery (from a breakers for £20), for the last five years. I keep it topped up at the field via a small solar panel. Works a treat.

Some do lat a long time. My totally neglected 12V 7Ah Yuasa sealed lead acid battery I use for the glowplug and starter is 12 years old and still fine.

Because of the Yuasa's performance I bought a Yuasa 12V 110 Ah sealed leisure battery (also totally neglected, like the small one above it's never 'maintenance' charged) about 5 year ago for on the field charging and that's still fine too. Additionally I usually have at least one Lipo on charge from my car battery while driving to the field - my car is a station wagon and has a convenient power outlet in the back. .

[Nigel R]

"is i just buy some more lipo batteries for my planes."

My approach was to standardise on three sizes, buy quite a few of each, and forget about field charging arrangements. If I run out of packs, I've had a very good day.

[Andy48]

Posted by Richard Clark 2 on 18/06/2020 15:33:30:

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 17/06/2020 01:11:23:

I have been using the same car battery (from a breakers for £20), for the last five years. I keep it topped up at the field via a small solar panel. Works a treat.

Some do lat a long time. My totally neglected 12V 7Ah Yuasa sealed lead acid battery I use for the glowplug and starter is 12 years old and still fine.

Because of the Yuasa's performance I bought a Yuasa 12V 110 Ah sealed leisure battery (also totally neglected, like the small one above it's never 'maintenance' charged) about 5 year ago for on the field charging and that's still fine too. Additionally I usually have at least one Lipo on charge from my car battery while driving to the field - my car is a station wagon and has a convenient power outlet in the back. .

Until the day comes when you suffer from the same problem I had recently where the charger sensed one of the cell voltages incorrectly due to a poor connection, and the charger then started overcharging that cell. Your station wagon may then become a fire wagon.

[Richard Clark 2]

Posted by Andy48 on 18/06/2020 15:38:34:

Posted by Richard Clark 2 on 18/06/2020 15:33:30:

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 17/06/2020 01:11:23:

I have been using the same car battery (from a breakers for £20), for the last five years. I keep it topped up at the field via a small solar panel. Works a treat.

Some do lat a long time. My totally neglected 12V 7Ah Yuasa sealed lead acid battery I use for the glowplug and starter is 12 years old and still fine.

Because of the Yuasa's performance I bought a Yuasa 12V 110 Ah sealed leisure battery (also totally neglected, like the small one above it's never 'maintenance' charged) about 5 year ago for on the field charging and that's still fine too. Additionally I usually have at least one Lipo on charge from my car battery while driving to the field - my car is a station wagon and has a convenient power outlet in the back. .

Until the day comes when you suffer from the same problem I had recently where the charger sensed one of the cell voltages incorrectly due to a poor connection, and the charger then started overcharging that cell. Your station wagon may then become a fire wagon.

Yeah. I read your post about that. But I was a very 'early adopter' of Lipos. Thunder Power ones which I believe were the first ones publicly available, and long before balance charging was developed.

Balance charging is not needed often and I do it rarely and only at home. Thus the 'problem' goes away.

(And being a nerd I've got a fire extinguisher in my car. And car insurance. Charging Lipos is one of the hundreds or thousands of things not excluded. It was my 'perk' company car I eventually bought very cheap anyway )

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Richard Clark 2]

Posted by Jason Channing on 18/06/2020 17:01:34:

Glad you have a halon extinguisher in your car as co2 certainly wont do anything ..As for balance charging most of the time its not needed, it when its needed you havent got it,

Actually it is a halon one. I got it from a mate in the industrial safety business. (I don't think you can buy them on the 'consumer' market any longer.)

Will halon extinguish a Lipo? Probably not, but they will extinguish everything else. And Lipo fires, though hot, are not as exciting as many people think. And as I said, if you don't balance charge you can't get the problem you had.

In my small planes I NEVER balance charge them. Neither my 3Sx4000 Flair Atilla nor my 3Sx2200 Sig Rascal batteries have ever been balanced charged and they are still fine after several years of use.

I balance charge the 2x5S or 2x6S 5000 70C ones in my EDFs about every ten flights. Simply because such batteries are expensive.  But the display on connecting them for the tenth charge always shows them to be still fairly well balanced. My Thunder Power 1430C, though it is a single output charger, has balance boards that lets me balance charge two identical batteries connected in series up to a total of 2x7S. or one up to 14S battery.

We shouldn't really ever need to balance charge any of them as the usual charging protocol changes from constant current to constant voltage at about 80% of the 'fully charged' voltage (usually  4.2 volts), so the higher voltage cells won't get overcharged  anyway.

All quite interesting even though it is somewhat off topic .

Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 18/06/2020 19:47:53

Edited By Richard Clark 2 on 18/06/2020 19:50:49