Episode 11: What Powers Your Radio?

Announcer: Welcome to RC Plane Lab, a podcast for anyone interested in RC airplanes. We share tips and tricks for building models and talk about successful flights, epic crashes, and everything in between. Visit RCPlaneLab.com to join our email list and ask questions. You can also text us or leave a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please rate and review us in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for spending time with us today. Now, here are your hosts, Ron and Tom.

Ron: Hosts Ron and Tom hello everyone welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast I’m Ron and I’m Tom today we’re going to be talking about something that we have all dealt with, something that we have all used and had to charge and had to discharge no matter what kind of airplane you fly whether it’s electric or nitro or gas, we’re going to be talking about batteries some of the batteries we’re going to talk about are, the NiCads the NiMH old school. We’ll talk about the LiPolipos, and we’ll also cover some. Of the, like the newer A123 cells, and we’ll kind of go over some of the, the connectors too that you would use to, to connect those to, each other or to your charger or to your airplane. So right, I think we ought to get started probably with the oldest of the bunch. Okay the NiCads I don’t remember using NiCads, yeah I think there’s probably a couple planes that I’ve bought at, at like swap meets that have had those in there,. But I’ve replaced you know the. Receiver packs and and those kind of things so maybe you know a little bit more about than I do do you.

Tom: Want to kind of talk about it sure yeah because. Because they’re old like me, I I have quite a quite a bit of experience with NiCads, and. But to be honest, we used to treat them pretty much, or very similar to how we how we treat the, nickel metal hydrods which we’re going to talk about later. Yeah, so I mean they were they were good at you know what at what they did in their time they, they were the hike you could get high capacity and you could you could they could. Support high discharge rates, we could we could hit them pretty hard, with with high charge rates as. Well, they were they were prone to developing a memory, which you know NiMH batteries are also. But, the NiCads didn’t seem like, or at least my experience with NiCads, didn’t seem like the memory was all that hard to overcome, you know hit them hard a couple times you know especially if they’ve been in storage that would seem to be the worst thing for them. Because they they self-discharge. You know over time, so you know you hit them hard a couple times with the charger and and discharge them a couple times you’ll cycle them, we had chargers back. Then that were capable of high, high charge rates and discharge rates and it would cycle the packs automatically and usually that was enough at least in my experience to sort of bring that or or bring them out of that memory loss phase if you will,. But it did seem like there was always some sort of permanent damage and you know once once you started down the path of memory loss, just like with aging, they they.

Tom: Kind of they kind of just progressed you know there was never you were never really going to fully bring them back and you definitely would shorten the life of the battery with those high discharge rates and they they don’t seem to be as durable as the as the NiMH batteries seem to be. Yeah,.

Ron: So I I looked a little bit of things up on them too. Because like I said I’m not familiar with these as much. So you you said that they do lose a charge while they’re kind of in storage, what I found is that. Yeah it’s about 10 percent, in a month just when it’s when it’s sitting there not being used,. Yeah that sounds about right actually yeah and and most of those, were in like the double a size kind of thing right,. So these were used more for receiver packs not necessarily for flying your.

Tom: Airplane correct right yeah yeah and because of the because of the high self-discharge rate, back back in the day we used to keep, niacad especially our receiver batteries, we used to keep them you know when we’d put the airplanes away for the winter, we would take the receiver pack out of the airplane and put it on our bench and put it on a trickle charger and, ace, ace rc used to make them and sonic tronics made them and a bunch of other companies made them. But it was like a it was just like an add-on you would you would plug your regular charger into the wall your your regular wall. Charger that came like with like your radio and then you would plug in line with the receiver lead this little add a trickle device and what it would do is it would step down the voltage and from coming from your wall charger, to about two tenths c roughly you know about 200 milliamps let’s say, and that was enough to keep the battery topped off and enough to kind of stay even with the self-discharge rate. So that’s you know 10 percent per, per month is that what you said. Yeah that’s. What I what I found yeah so that that you know if you do the math that’s probably what what those you know small little add a trickle devices would do is it would just barely keep ahead of that self-discharge rate? So it would maintain your battery over the winter, which is why those things don’t work with nickel metal hydrides I guess. Because those probably don’t self-discharge.

Ron: As, as, steep we will get to that because that is actually the opposite of being true. Really okay, all right so the thing okay so both NiMH and the NiCads, you know each each cell is 1.2 volts,. So being yeah correct so being the the double a size you know a normal double a battery that’s not rechargeable is one and a half volts 1.5 volts. So that’s that’s really close you know when it’s fully charged it’s going to be close to that 1.5 1.6 volts, which makes it you know a direct, replacement not only for RC airplanes. But like for using it in in things around. The house but the only problem with that is you don’t want to use it in, or you didn’t want to use them in things that would, that would, kind of be stored for a long time. Because of that discharge, nice thing about them do I found is that they will they will have about 2 000 charge cycles before they, kind of wear out and out of all the batteries we’re talking about that is the highest cycle count that I could find,. So yeah yeah that is actually kind of nice and you know they’re they’re not too expensive, the the cool thing about them too though is that they can be stored.

Ron: In a discharge state without really having issues being charged later, a lot of the other batteries that we deal with today you’re very specific on how you charge them, these kind of just seem like they were, you know use it and forget it kind of thing it’s not something where you had to take a lot of special care, of a of an icad battery. So, right and that you know would be nice to kind of get back to with some of these batteries. But you’ll you’ll see with some of the ones that we use. Now they have a there’s a lot, that they provide that the NiCads didn’t,. Okay so the the other things that, you know was kind of bad that kind of got people away from NiCads was that they were, really considered to be toxic, they had cadmium, in them that’s kind of what made the, you know the battery being nickel cadmium,. So they couldn’t be disposed of in a landfill, the or the other problem too is if you needed a higher capacity battery you really couldn’t get those. Because they were limited to you know the capacities that they could fit in that cell size,. So you didn’t really have a lot of a lot of options when it came to that. So that’s kind of that’s.

Tom: Kind of the the NiCads battery yeah I think I think the highest capacity, NiCads that I think I ever used was around 2000 milliamp per you know per cell subsea size. So yeah see going going back I think.

Ron: Like the first rc car or truck I bought, actually came with a NiCads pack the more I’m thinking about I wanted to say it was a seven cell maybe is that does that sound right? Yeah that’s yeah that sounds right and I want to say that was, that was like 1600 milliamp hours. Yep that sounds right so yeah not a lot of, not a lot of, not a lot of battery that you could use for a long time. So those died pretty quick yeah, that takes us on to the nickel metal hydride that’s kind of what took. Over for the NiCads, yep they really didn’t come out, until the late 80s. So they’re kind of a newer type battery compared to the the NiCads I mean the NiCads go all the way back to like the late 1800s early 1900s, not obviously for RC airplanes. But in in different uses, they also are the you know 1.2 volts per cell when they’re fully charged they’re 1.5 to 1.6 volts give or take somewhere,. Okay and I found like with cycles you know I said 2 000 cycles for the NiCads with, with an NiMH. You really depending on size can get between like 500 to 1 000 cycles out of them, it seems like the higher the higher the capacity battery the less cycles you get. So there’s there’s something with quite a dramatic difference it is quite a quite a difference actually, the nice thing about them though is they will hold between like 30 and 40 percent higher capacity than the NiCads. So you know I think like of a similar size you mean. Yeah so you like your your double a size whatever that’s.

Ron: Called I think you can get them in like 2600 milliamp hours is what I just bought for the, the receiver packs I got for for the telemaster,. So that’s quite a bit higher than what the NiCads were,. So this we kind of touched on it before this still, the NiMH battery still has the memory issues, that the NiCads did. So, they, you can bring them back easier than the, NiCads. So. And really to kind of reset that memory what you need to do with your NiMH batteries is make sure you drain them all the way down and. Then charge them back up and do that you know every 10 15 cycles it’s not something you have to do all the time. Yeah but when you’re dealing with with half the.

Tom: Number of cycles that you could do with the NiCads those extra cycles to bring it back add up quick.

Ron: That’s true I never thought of that, yeah it’s I guess the good thing about those is they’re cheap I think the the receiver batteries I just bought were, nine bucks or ten bucks a piece something like.

Tom: That so really that’s I yeah off amazon I just bought a couple of, six, six volt NiMH packs and I think.

Ron: There were seven dollars each maybe that’s what mine was too I don’t remember right off hand. But it was it was very cheap yeah it was sub 20 bucks for both of them delivered, and. Yeah I mean you can’t I don’t think you can beat that really for brand new batteries that’s a pretty good deal and new.

Tom: Batteries know it’s cheap insurance right oh absolutely even if they’re just 10 bucks you know.

Ron: Yeah yeah I agree, so the nice thing about the nimh2 is you know they work in in a wider temperature range than the NiCads’s did. So you will be able to oh that’s right yeah. Yeah you’ll be able to pull out more power from them right, and I forgot about that I do remember you know.

Tom: Back in the day with the NiCads batteries we had to be really really careful on hot days, especially when when, when charging them,. Because they would either you know not want to charge or they would get really really hot and they would fall’s peak and do all these nasty things.

Ron: Yeah I forgot all about that yeah so I mean that’s I guess kind of why we went with them instead of NiCads’s too,. Yeah and some of the other things nice having that extra capacity. Well that too and, so when everybody changed to NiCads’s or I’m sorry to, NiMH over NiCads’s though the chargers changed. So they had to right so they don’t charge as easy, as the NiCads’s do, I know that they’re sensitive to being overcharged if you overcharge them that really. Kills the batteries quickly, and they get really hot yeah and I. So I don’t know exactly how the chargers work but I know there’s a whole whole thing that chargers go through to to charge these batteries, actually the chargers we use today are really kind of amazing pieces of equipment when you look at them, it’s true there’s a lot a lot built into them,. Yeah but, do you I mean do you kind of have any idea how the how the nih batteries get charged. Yeah I mean we we charge them same sort.

Tom: Of,, profile if you will as we would charge a NiCads the difference is in the is in how the charger detects the peak you know when the battery has reached a a peak state of charge you know in the old NiCads days when when a battery you know would if you were to look at it as as like a graph you know you would see the steep curve as you’re dumping voltage into the battery as you’re charging it and. Then when the battery would reach its peak it would simply reverse that that, that path if you will and it would drop the voltage would drop off really steeply and the chargers were very you know. It was very easy to pick up that change in voltage, the NiMH batteries on the other hand, same deal they sort of have a steep you know curve on the initial, ramp up for the charge. But as it gets closer and closer and closer to to maximum capacity or the point at which it won’t accept any more voltage it doesn’t it doesn’t reverse directions very quickly it it kind of hangs out up there at the peak of that of that curve and it comes down actually very very slowly, and if you continue. Dumping voltage into it you know that it’ll eventually come down and and the part, the charger can detect it. But by that time usually the battery’s hot and you’ve done some damage with the new NiMH, battery, that that came on, they sort of had to change the way chargers detected that that that delta peak change, in voltage that had to be much much much more sensitive. So you know whereas you know on the old NiCads chargers let’s say that the delta peak detection was.

Tom: Say 0.1 you know a tenth of a volt because and that was safe. Because it would drop off so quickly you know it would go it would change a tenth of a volt on its way down really really quickly you know within a couple of seconds and the chargers had no problem picking that up the the NiMH batteries aren’t like that like I said. So that you know we’re we’re dealing with delta peak settings of you know 0.03 or 0.04,. So you know three one hundredths or four one hundredths of a volt,. So that they can so that. The charger can really really see that peak and shut off in time before it damages the pack and that was the the biggest change, in the chargers and the charging profiles that we used for NiMH batteries.

Ron: So the the what they were looking for they just kind of had to be a little bit smarter and and detect a smaller voltage drop and that’s really the only difference in charging them. Then pretty.

Tom: Much yeah I mean it’s the same it’s the same you know we’re just dumping direct current voltage into the battery at a at a preset,, gosh what’s the word I’m looking for just gave me thank you, just like we did with nycats, the only difference really is that is that is the delta peak detection.

Ron: Yeah so then with, with the new batteries the the charger just kind of had to keep up you know they had to get a little bit smarter, as the batteries progressed also. So and we’ll kind of we’ll notice that that is a a trend with all batteries you know as you get new batteries there’s got to be a little bit different way to charge them, to keep them safe and make them long time right? So the other thing with with NiCads though so I’m sorry with NiMH that we talked about a little bit before the high self-ditch or discharge rate, the NiMH battery discharges while in storage. What I found was 20 self-discharge in the first 24 hours after charge, wow? So you have a huge drop you know in the. First day after you charge it and then it it kind of levels off the same as the NiCads did with 10 or. So a month afters, so that’s you know about twice as fast as the NiCads batteries,. So the best practices you know with with the NiMH batteries is make sure you charge. The night before you go out to the field, one of the worst things to deal with is is getting out to the field not having a charged battery or you know losing a plane. Because you didn’t do your proper checks to make sure that you have the voltage that you were supposed to have. So right where you really don’t notice this though is. Because you know the the the NiMH batteries can hold a lot more, their their bigger capacity. So they’ll hold more milliamp hours, which the milliamp hours is kind of the size of your fuel tank the the bigger the bigger, milliamp hour capacity you have for the.

Ron: Battery the bigger the fuel tank and the longer it will run, whatever it is running. So since you do have that 30 to 40 percent you know amount of headroom over the NiCads you really don’t necessarily notice that the drop, going from an icad to an NiMH just in capacity. Because it’s so much more, so make sure you always charge those batteries the night before you go fly. So you don’t lose an airplane yeah right that’s good advice I mean I you know most of the time when you’re when. You’re just flying a little,, nitro plane or something like that around you’re not using a lot of power running your servos they don’t do a lot when you’re in the air you know you’re not pulling a lot of power out of it. So those receiver batteries last a good amount of time, which is why you know 2600 milliamp hours is enough for an afternoon of flying with some leftover usually. Yeah yeah depending on what you’re doing but most of the time,. So still getting to the habit of checking them between flights, you know just make sure you have the the voltage in it and and do a. Load test and all that stuff and you should be just fine and if worse comes to worse throw on a charger you know halfway through the afternoon to kind of peek it off before you, before you fly again.

Tom: Well and the chargers today are so convenient that you can you know a lot of them will run off a 12 old battery you know you just hook them onto the battery of your car while you’re at the field and you know charge one while you’re flying the other one not a big deal usually do you have anything else on NiMH or should we just move on no I was gonna I was gonna mention that, you know getting getting to that, self-discharge I seem to remember when we when we made the conversion or shortly after we made the conversion to NiMH batteries or when they became popular I should say somebody somebody compared it. To me, as like a faucet so a NiCads let’s say you’ve got a faucet and it’s half turned on. So you’re only getting half the power so there’s more restriction to losing power. So to speak, whereas the NiMH batteries were so you know everybody was saying at the time. Anyway they were so much more efficient at transferring power and stuff that they self-discharge. Because there were just no resistance to prevent it I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. But that was I don’t know something.

Ron: I thought worth it was worth mentioning yeah I don’t know actually, I know like there are actually some people that will still recommend the NiCads batteries and you can still buy the NiCads batteries, for like a like bigger planes that will have more of an amp draw than the nickel metal hydride. So okay, like the NiCads’s handle amp draw of a higher you know higher amp draw better than the NiMH do. So I I yeah I’m not sure I I don’t know how that would work maybe somebody if they know what they’re. Talking about more than we do can reach out and set us straight on that. Okay no that was, that was.

Tom: Really that was all I all I had left for NiMH. Well then we’ll move on to my favorite battery.

Ron: The the LiPolipo lithium polymer boy what a revolution these things were huh right this is the battery that really opened up electric flight. Because of the amount of power the amount of energy you could store in such a small, in such a small battery I mean really the size on it it’s amazing it truly is. But not only that but how fast you can take it out,. Yeah you can you can really pull a lot of a lot of amperage a lot of power out of these batteries in a very short amount of time. Without damaging them, so it wasn’t until actually it was about the same time really that they came out, that they were commercialized as the NiMH did it was only you know five years after that something like that, right? But where they’ve made a a big step forward, like I said in capacity and how fast you can take that power out not only that. But you can, you know the self-discharge is really. Really low compared to any of the other batteries we’ve talked about. So far with a LiPolipo you get one and a half to two percent discharge a month just from for or just from sitting, gosh that’s almost nothing. Yeah really I mean so if they’re going to sit for a long time keep them at storage charge you’re going to be fine you’re not going to have a lot of degradation, that’s one of the nice things about them. So charge cycles that’s that’s problematic so the charge cycles how many you get.

Ron: Out of it really depend on how you treat your battery. So you I mean there are batteries that if you if you abuse them really within two or three charges you can kill the battery completely oh. Yeah most of the time you get like between one to three hundred five hundred charges out of them maybe,. But it depends on how how close you are to pulling out the, pretty much to turn the faucet all the way on the the closer you are to pulling as much of that power out quickly as it, it will. Give you the faster you’re you’re damaging that battery or the LiPolipo batteries all have labels and the labels are very important to know what the battery is you need to pay attention to those, they they all tell you, the labels tell you the capacity. So it will tell you how many milliamp hours that, battery holds they most of the time will tell you the cell count whether it’s a 2s or 3s,. But they will also why shouldn’t say also they will tell you for sure the voltage. So, whether it’s a so like a 2s battery, is going to be a 7.4 volt a 3s battery will be 11.1 volts. So what the way they figure that out is, on a LiPolipo you know for the other batteries we talked about the NiCads and the NiMH they were 1.2 volts of cell LiPolipos are 3.7 volts of cell. So the the voltage is higher per each cell and the nice thing about LiPolipos too is they don’t have to be formed, into.

Ron: A specific shape they will work I mean you can even curve them around you can pretty much put them in whatever shape, you want not you as in like us. But when they’re manufacturing the battery so the other thing, you’ll find on the on the label will be the. Yeah sometimes not always on this one the c charge for or the c rating for charging what c rating is is how fast you can either charge it or discharge it. So one c is going to be charging it at the capacity times one. So a 5000 milliamp hour battery is going.

Tom: To be charged at five amps does that make sense. Yeah because a thousand milliamps is one amp so.

Ron: Five thousand milliamps is five amps right so if you have like a 1300 milliamp hour battery you charge it at 1.3 amps right unless it says 2c or 3c. But really like for me even if it says you can charge it two to three times the capacity I don’t like to do that. Because that will while it will take it it will degrade the battery faster. So absolutely yeah the best practice for charging is always going to be just charging at 1c, or less than that right? Yeah it doesn’t have to be exactly 1c you know if. You if you have time you want it to go for a couple hours and. Then just let it go you know for half of that. So charge it at two and a half amps if it’s a 5 000 milliamp hour battery. So with you know with saying that also when you’re charging normally what you’re charging at 1c is going to take one hour to put in. Because you know it’s 5 000 milliamp hours so to charge it you go to the five amps and putting five amps in is going to take one hour to charge. So whenever you charge at 1c you’re going to be. Right at that one hour mark give or take a little bit you know there’s going to be some fudge factor in there. But you’re going to be right about one one hour to charge,. Well and usually you’re not starting from zero milliamps that’s correct? Yeah you’re right that’s it’s not usually right at zero.

Ron: So the other thing, on the label that you’re going to see is the c rating for the continuous just or discharge,. So that’s going to be how many amps you can draw continuously out of that battery a lot of times you’re going to see like 20c 30c, I mean some of the new ones are even like 60c. So what that means this one I’m looking at here is a 50c oh. Okay the one I have on the charger right now is actually a 30c I think,. Okay but it’s I’ve had it for a couple years,. So the okay to figure out how many amps you can pull out of that is simple math. So if it’s a 5000 milliamp hour battery and it’s a 20c battery. Then that’s going to be 5 amps because we change that to amps and. Then multiply it by 20. so you will be able to pull out 100 amps from that battery continuous without technically harming that battery. So that’s what it’s designed to do so you can 100 amps is a lot out of a battery I mean really yes and it goes up from there. So what’s yours how about. How big is the battery, this is a little 2200 three cell? Okay it’s rated at 50c so 2200 so 2.2 amps times 50 and that’s a small, small battery. Then and you can pull out over 100 amps out of that little battery without hurting that’s impressive that’s very impressive,. Yeah so you don’t have to take the power out that fast and it’s always a good idea if you want your batteries that last a.

Ron: Little bit longer to kind of overbuy on your batteries. So your esc is going to tell you what its amp draw is and that’s pretty much what you’re going to want to be look at or what you’re going to want to, what you’re going to want to look at. So if you have an 80 amp esc and you have, you know it’s going to be a 5000 milliamp hour battery you’re going to be better off buying a 30c battery than a 20c battery. Now the 20c battery will technically work and it’s not going to give you any problems. You’re not going to have anything happen, because of the the current you’re pulling out of it. But it’s always good to have some headroom so that the battery kind of is not working at its its full power full capacity does that make sense yes any. Yeah anytime you push something to the limits on what it’s designed to do you’re going to be, hurting that more than if it’s working at half power or something like that. So you’re going to get more, you’re going to get more charges out of it you’re going to get more, life out of this battery if you take care of it and don’t push it to its you know. It’s it’s rated capacity for withdrawal, okay other thing that you’re going to find on a label most of them I should say not all of them. Because I looked through all mine to see if these all had this, peak discharge c rating. So that’s going to be like how many amps you can draw for short burst five to ten seconds something like that. So, with the same like 5000 milliamp hour battery let’s say it’s 20c continuous 30c burst that means continuously you can pull out 100 amps without issues you can.

Ron: Also, pull out 150 amp out of that battery for short bursts of five to ten seconds without damaging the battery. So incredible yeah you’ll you’ll see that in in different batteries, like I said not all of them are going to have the the peak, c rating for peak discharge some of mine don’t some of mine do. So it’s just look on the battery but all of them for sure are going to tell you what the voltage is, or tell you the cell count that’s very important to know if it’s a 2s or a 3s. 4s 5s 6s you know whatever yeah especially if you have a charger that doesn’t auto select the cells right which detects it when you plug it in. Yeah which I don’t so I I still have the old style where you have to tell it what you’re charging,. So it knows how to charge it, but you know the nice thing about LiPolipo batteries they don’t have any memory. So it doesn’t matter what you pull them down to they will not, will not remember, you know what they what they can take out of them. So you don’t have to worry about the memory effect that you had to worry about with, nikads or NiMH batteries they also you know one of nice things is the like I said before the the high discharge rates you’re not going to get those discharge rates out of the nikads or NiMH it’s just not the batteries aren’t designed for that. So it’s not going to happen, and the the capacities like I said are just huge compared to some of these other batteries too. So you can you get much bigger fuel tanks if you will for your airplanes. Yeah so the other thing that, that is nice about these batteries.

Ron: So your your usage in these batteries is in a narrow band of voltage you have, like 4.2 volts is fully charged. So on a 3.7 cell 4.2 volts is fully charged you never want to go under three volts per cell. Right right I always like to stop at like 3.3 you know depending on what you, what you go to, I know like with rc cars some of the ones I have you can actually set the low voltage cut off for 3.0 3.1 2 3 4 3.5 volts, I always went to 3.3 on those with airplanes it’s a little bit different I don’t, I don’t let the the voltage cut off do the work for me I just set a timer,. Yeah because most of the time with the timer, you’re going to be safe not draining it too far, and it’s also. Going to not get to the point where so what happens with airplanes is when you’re flying around and you hit that little voltage cut off you lose power. So it will turn off your propeller and that’s how it tells you that hey it’s time to come in and land. Yep so you can reset that you know you go down to to idle and. Then you can slowly give it some power but if you start pulling out too much again it goes to the low voltage cut off it’s going to happen again. So the best thing is you know just set.

Tom: A timer letting it go to the to the low voltage cut off kind of plays into what you were talking.

Ron: About about operating at its maximum limits that will kill him much faster right,. But so what I was kind of getting at though is what’s nice is you have you know between three to three and a half volts all the way at 4.2 volts. So there’s not a lot of difference in voltage between a fully charged battery and an empty battery. So you don’t lose a lot of power when you’re flying you know you’ll you’re going to lose some RPM. Because obviously the voltage is dropping a little bit but it’s not going to be a huge difference between the beginning of the flight and the end of the flight oh. Yep yeah I see. What you’re talking about the discharge curve right yeah sorry? So when it like I said fully charged 4.2 volts fully empty three volts to three and a half if you’re being safe. So you’re not you’re not going to be running all that or running that down to like under a volt per cell to where you’re going to notice a huge difference in power, and performance. So the nice thing about those is like I said that the band is very small in what you take out. So you don’t see a difference in, in performance between the the beginning and the end of the flight like you would with other batteries.

Tom: Yeah I remember with, with the NiCads and and even the NiMH batteries with with cars I used to be in the cars too. But, there would there would be a definite gradual decline in performance from start to finish you know with a with a kind of a sudden, ramp off of voltage at the end of the charge. But, yeah it’s not it’s not like that with the LiPolipos it’s very very a very flat if you will, discharge curve which is cool. Because like you said it’s the same power from almost from start to finish.

Ron: Yeah when I used to run cars a lot more too I mean you’d be you’d be racing down the the straightaway and you wouldn’t really notice any difference, it’s not like they slowed down a lot. But then all of a sudden you hit that low voltage cutoff and. Then that would just stop which is fine you know you’re running the car. So it’s not going to go anywhere, and then you can kind of baby it around and get it back to you. So you don’t have to go out on the track to pick it up,. But it’s when I did have some of the NiMH batteries, also. Yeah you could definitely tell you get halfway through the battery and you’d be going a lot slower you get to the end of that. Battery and it’s just barely crawling around the track trying to come back to you. So, yeah the LiPolipos make a huge difference oh yeah. Yeah they do only thing though with LiPolipos is make sure, make sure you are running it on an esc that is designed for LiPolipos almost any of them nowadays are I mean I I don’t know if you can buy one that’s not, right that you’re not able to use LiPolipos with. But with some of the older like tracks of stuff that I have and some of the aftermarket parts for those. They were really before LiPolipos, and so for me to run LiPolipos in that. First off you have to check your voltage to make sure it’ll it’ll work, right and you also need to put like a an external, like alarm you can get alarms to to plug into the the charger port or the the balance lead on the LiPolipos and. Then it’ll kind of start beeping if it gets to a a certain cutoff,. So just make sure your your esc can handle LiPolipo which like I said anything today I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t. So that’s.

Tom: Kind of a moot point did you want to talk about LiPolipos as receiver packs and airplanes and and kind of some of the issues you might run into with that. Yeah take over go on oh okay well I mean. So you mentioned you know the different voltage per cell and. So a standard you know three cell LiPolipo is 11.1 and a two cell LiPolipo is 7.4, and. So a single cell is 3.7, so most airplane, receivers are designed. To operate around the six volt range so a two cell LiPolipo unless your receiver is modern and designed to handle the high voltage and it’ll say usually hv on it somewhere, we would have to run the LiPolipos through some sort of a, oh gosh I a voltage regulator a regulator thank you, which I still have a bunch of those in the drawers here and stuff. But then even those are becoming less and less necessary. Because most of the radio manufacturers have kind of, accepted the reality of how good the LiPolipos and. The and the other lithium style batteries are and they’ve designed to operate you know at those voltages. So you have to be careful about powering an aircraft radio, with LiPolipos you have to make sure that you know if the radio is not designed to handle that voltage you’re using either a regulator or. Well I guess a regulator or a smart tray with one built in the other thing you have to watch out for.

Ron: Though not only your, your receiver servos some of those are not if it’s not a high voltage servo they are not meant to take, the higher voltage with a like a 2s LiPolipo sometimes you know there was there’s.

Tom: Like a band of receivers out there that, would accept the high voltage from the battery and their output voltage was designed to handle standard analog and digital servos at six volts. So you have to do your reading and do your research when you buy a receiver or if you have a receiver you know get out there on google and, find the specs and make sure that output voltage from the receiver no matter what receiver battery you’re using, matches up with the servos that you’re using. Yeah good tip.

Ron: Always check to make sure you’re not going to burn them out. Because that will, that will burn them out pretty quick and oh. Yeah, been there done that they’ll last just about long enough to get up and start flying and. Then you lose everything and crash so well I haven’t haven’t lost one in flight.

Tom: Due to that but I’ve lost several servos on the bench. Because I I’ve neglected to check the output voltage of the receiver and whether it you know was, would jive with the servos that I was using.

Ron: Oh yeah that luckily I’m cheap and I I buy cheap servos. So well you know you don’t want to mess up.

Tom: Anything too expensive right so now you you talked about all these wonderful things with the LiPolipos is there you want to talk about any of the negative stuff oh sure LiPolipos are scary batteries. Well they can be like when they first when they. First came on and first you know became popular in the in the rc, in the hobby I was I was very afraid of them I didn’t want them in the house in fact I kept them out in the garage which with the heat in my garage was not a good idea either. But anyway that was probably worse on them than keeping them in your house probably,. But, you know it was it was just they were. So. New and they hadn’t you know I don’t want to say they hadn’t worked all the bugs out. But they hadn’t really worked all the bugs out for especially for you know homeowners to use these things. Yeah, but, yeah I mean they’re they’re they really are safe I mean you really almost with with the chargers and all the stuff that’s out there. Now, that are using these things I mean I don’t want to say they’re foolproof. Because it’s still ways to mess them up but, if you’re you know even just. Slightly careful you’re not going to have any issues with them right I mean treat them. Well you.

Ron: Know if they get, if they show signs of degradation if they if they get puffy at all like my rule kind of is, if they get puffy don’t fly them I’ve seen other people, like the person I’m talking to. Now that has, flown with, some LiPolipo batteries that I would be questionable about, and would not have since I have since gotten rid of those batteries. Yeah so the. Okay so puffy puffy, LiPolipo what causes that, I don’t want to go in too deep on it,. Okay yeah because I won’t understand you anyway well okay. So let’s just let’s touch on the basics so a battery has an anode a cathode and electrolyte or electrolyte,. So with a LiPolipo the electrolyte is going to be your your like the hence the po LiPolipo lithium polymer it’s a polymer separator that goes between the. Cathode and the anode so what happens when it’s either. Well age causes it overcharging, charging too fast causes it, charging them to too high of a voltage causes it taking them below three volts causes it what about storing them at the wrong voltage storing them at the wrong voltage will speed it up. Okay so that’s kind of part of the aging thing. So with, with LiPolipo batteries you want.

Ron: To store them at a certain voltage we’ll get to that in a minute, any deviation from that is going to hasten the death of your battery. So, I like how you put that hasten the death of your battery just be careful. We’ll make them live as long as we can as long as we take care of them. But, so when you see the puffing that happens when that, that little separator the polymer separator breaks down,. So polymer is another word for plastic right yeah, more or less pretty much. It yeah that that’s that’s the part that goes between and kind of separates like I said your anode and your cathode. So, most of what, is in that is going to be lithium and oxygen. So when that breaks down that is the oxygen kind of coming out of that, electrolyte. So they’re a LiPolipo battery I don’t know if you’ve ever taken one apart they are made up of a lot of layers, that are very very be honest.

Tom: I’m still scared of them so I I don’t mess with them like I don’t take them apart like I get nervous even just soldering my my connectors onto them. So well no I’ve never had one apart I I have had to get.

Ron: Rid of some before and before I got rid of my you know I discharged them, all the way as low as I could go and I did cut one open just to kind of see what it looked like there’s a lot of like fan folded, layers in there, I think it was a three cell I don’t remember if it was a four or five thousand milliamp hour battery. But when you unfolded those battery it was a it was a big battery it was one of the. First ones I got for my, rc cars here but. Anyway when you when you unfolded the the stuff that was inside of that it was five or six feet long it was it was a lot of stuff that’s kind of. Pressed into that, okay so what what happens well first off when it when it puffs it’s starting or it’s starting to get dangerous you know the the chemicals that are in there, the problem with them is when they do short out they kind of fuel their own fire and that’s why it’s. So hard to put like a LiPolipo fire when that happens what what comes out, of that puffiness is oxygen and oxygen obviously. Makes it easier to burn so it’s it’s supplying its own oxygen to the fire and that’s what makes it hard, that’s what makes it difficult to, to put out sometimes. But so those layers you know as they start to puff up the, they get more room between them and in order for that battery to work. Well and to work at its full,, full extent that needs to be pressed as tightly as they can when that puffs up the ions can’t go between the anode and the cathode and you really lose, you lose the.

Ron: Ability to take out the, the power as quickly as you need it. So okay if it’s puffed too much really those batteries are useless, you’re not going to be able to get your flight times out of them you’re going to pull, or you’re not gonna be able to pull the power out as fast as you can without harming the battery, like I said discharging it too fast past your c rating, charging it too fast over one c or whatever they they rated at can do it, improper storage can do it and just time. In general because these batteries from the day you buy the battery it’s breaking down and it’s kind of eating itself away,. So these sticking right they don’t last forever, and that’s why like I said you get you know one two three maybe five hundred cycles out of them if you really take care of them,. But don’t don’t count on them lasting too long so that’s kind of the LiPolipo puff and why it’s a good thing to, when you see a little bit of a puff you’re probably fine just know you’re probably. Going to be on your last season but if it puffs up quite a bit especially if it wasn’t like that before you flew and you came back and you saw it was all puffed up just it’s done, set it off to the side let it cool down let it kind of sit on its own and just, don’t touch it you know. Then you’ll have to kind of go through you’ll want to get it, get it taken care of and recycled at a later date. But at that point just kind of let it sit and see what it’s going to do that’s that’s my recommendation at least don’t that’s good advice. Yeah that’s when they get dangerous you know like.

Tom: I said when so when when the battery has puffed has puffed to the point that it’s round.

Ron: Uh-huh so so what you’re saying is that’s bad yeah and some of the some of the batteries that I’ve seen are bad. Yeah, like I said some of the ones I have you know if you press on them you might get it to move down 16th of an inch or something like that and you can kind of feel a little bit of puffiness to it. But those batteries are I think one of them I have is, oh I date my batteries when I get them I think the one I’m talking about was, oh that’s a good idea. Yeah I I used to mark down how many times I charge it. But then I got lazy and didn’t want to do that,. But I think that one was 2015 so it’s about five years old, and it’s it’s probably to the point where.

Tom: I need to be getting rid of it, but so how that brings me to, I’ll ask you when you’re done go ahead. Well I lost my train of thought so I’m done oh. Well you were talking about you’d had it, five years or. So and it was probably time for it to for you to be done with it and and to get rid of it, and my question was going to be how like what how do we get rid of these things I mean these are I’ve heard that these are safe we can just throw them in the landfill. Well that depends on on where.

Ron: You are, it’s not necessarily a good idea to do that, just. Because you know recycle them there there is material in these that can be reused, I think some of these I don’t remember if the LiPolipos do or not. But some of them have cobalt in it, and those you know that that material can be recycled, batteries in general should be recycled not just thrown away. But okay the way to make these safe, from so what I’ve done and I don’t know don’t take my word on this I I haven’t looked up you. Know how to officially destroy these batteries, but what what I’ve done in the past two things. So I will hook up, you know drain it as much as you can just on your airplane get it as low as you can get it voltage wise,. Then you can either like put a light bulb or a some sort of small charge like if you’re in the right depending on what kind of voltage you’re you’re working on you can use. Like, some led strip lights are 12 volts some of them are one and a half volts some are three volts just depending on what kind of light you have. But you know use something like that in order to slowly you know slowly pull a draw out of it, when it gets down low what I have done before, is just put it in salt water and I’ll make up a container and put a decent amount of salt in it you know get it warm. So it gets dissolved, then normally I like to go outside with it. So that I’m.

Ron: Not, you know inside my garage or, inside the house especially. But I will leave it outside for upwards of sometimes a month and a half two months just to make sure it’s completely shorted out and there’s no power left in there, that’s what I did with the one I was talking about that I, that I took apart after it was out there for quite a while I knew that you know when you check it with a a volt meter and stuff there was nothing in it it showed nothing,. So you’re able to kind of. Be less scared of them because when the when the power is out of them there’s nothing really that’s going to happen,. So once that’s done you know set them off to the side and find out what your local recycling you know battery cycling place or something like that is and take them into there.

Tom: Okay I mean that’s what I do so deep discharging them down down to 0.0 volts that’s that’s not enough discharge to set these things off what do you mean. Well it the the fire that that these things can potentially cause that’s that’s a that’s a chemical reaction it doesn’t really have anything to do with.

Ron: Electricity right I see what you’re saying well what and. Please if I’m wrong somebody correct me because I’m not an expert on this by any means it’s the pulling out fast that destroys it. So if you slowly discharge it and that’s what the salt water does it’s a very slow discharge I mean like I said it takes a long time to do that is. Okay and especially because you’re not trying to save the battery like if you get down to where it’s very low you’re not going to want to use that again it’s just going to give you issues it’s not going to charge right and that’s when it can get dangerous. So as long as you, as long as you do it slowly from what I understand you won’t have any issues and like I said. Please somebody reach out if I’m if I’m telling a lie. Because if we’re wrong on this I will. Take this down and we will we will correct what we said,. But that’s how I understand it yeah I’m just.

Tom: Scared of them so like when they’re when they’re done I just cut the connector off and actually they’re all the ones I was planning on getting rid of they’re sitting right over here on the on a box in the basement I needed to take them out figure out what to do with them. Well okay, so the other.

Ron: Thing when you cut connectors off one wire at a time and make sure they don’t touch I know. So don’t I mean don’t just like take your scissors and go straight across them. Because that’s going to short.

Tom: Them out and that will get and I cut them at different lengths too. Yeah like I’ll cut I’ll cut one wire and then I’ll flip it over and cut the other wire really short. So that they don’t touch yeah that’s that’s a good idea.

Ron: That’s how I do it yeah, yeah so the with LiPolipos like I said just be careful and treat them. Well, yeah do not over discharge them when you’re flying you know if they get below that three volts per cell that’s the kind of the magic number with them, you’re really going to mess them up and they’re going to get useless very quickly. So just take care of it and you should be. Okay cool.

Tom: And and don’t rely on the low voltage cutoff of your electronics v controller. Yeah that’s that’s.

Ron: Kind of a a last resort you you want it there to, to kind of be a a just in case I need it thing. But you don’t want to ever need it so the best thing like I said set that timer, and don’t necessarily go all the way down to zero percent too I mean I I don’t like to discharge my batteries that low,. Yeah figure out what your capacities are what you’re gonna be flying at and like I said I always cut off maybe eighty percent of the battery or. So, sometimes even less because I’d rather fly a little bit less. Now and have that battery last longer than have that extra couple. Minutes of flight time now and have to replace it sooner. Yeah right and and to be honest most,.

Tom: Modern electronic speed controllers you can you can actually adjust that low voltage cutoff too. Yeah yeah and I mean you’d have to you’d have to look at your speed controller. But, but again I I like you I I set a timer on my transmitter and when it goes off I I make for the runway. Yep that’s when.

Ron: You know it’s time to come in and then and. Then you can check it you know you’ll know how much, charge you’re putting in, and that’ll kind of tell you how much you took out obviously and. Then you can adjust accordingly so if you only took out twenty percent of your battery you know double that timer and go ahead and. Yeah fly a little bit longer but don’t get down to zero I mean I don’t know if I have a five thousand minute lamp power battery I don’t want to be putting five thousand minute lamp powers in it to you know when I when I do it I want it to be I’m happy if it’s, you know four. Thousand something in that range yeah, just leave a little fuel in the tank. But I guess I’m the same way with cars like real cars when I drive I don’t like to get below like quarter tanks that’s when I’ll stop you know there’s two people you know the car says 50 miles left on the on the dashboard. Well I got to get gas or other people it says zero. Well that’s fine I know my car I got another 20 miles in me no I I don’t like doing that at all I’d rather not walking my wife.

Tom: Oh plenty of time. Yeah that’s not me yes I’ve had to take I’ve had to take gas to her a couple times I think I.

Ron: Talk about that some other time yeah I think I’d do that once and. Then, after that she’s on her.

Tom: Own yeah all right so so that’s LiPolipos, how about, do you want to talk about the A123 cells or or lifepo 4s or lithium ions whatever you want to call them. Yeah we can we can talk about that one.

Ron: Those are the ones I like well that’s good because I don’t know nearly as much about those. Because I’ve never dealt with them before, I know you have some for receiver packs is that right I do. Yeah so why don’t you why don’t you tell us a little bit about them what’s the difference.

Tom: Between that and the LiPolipo, well one’s called LiPolipo and one’s not I’ll be honest the, the science and the technology, I I’m not I’m not real keen on the differences, these are these are made of a lithium iron phosphate combination,. So you know as far as the actual construction of the cell. Yeah I can’t really talk about it because I don’t know that much. Yeah, but I know they’re round you know kind of like what I’m used to with the old NiCads and nickel metal hydride batteries. So they’re familiar.

Ron: But bigger though right they can be yeah oh can you get them in the like the double a size.

Tom: Very similar yep oh I didn’t know that yep,, and and the reason I I really like them is. Because they’re they’re more closely related voltage wise to nickel metal hydride. So, usually a life battery, you can get away with, with a standard you know six volt radio system,. Because they’re only you know, 3.3 volts, when fully charged, and when they’re fully discharged you can get them. Down to I think it’s,, 2.3 or 2.5 something like that. Anyway they’re more closely related so you don’t have to have a lot of the the fancy that’s not. So fancy anymore because it’s fairly standard but, back when these came out the the high voltage receivers and high voltage servos were fairly expensive. Because and you had fairly limited selection of what you could get,. So the life po battery or the lithium iron batteries were nice. Because you didn’t require anything different you could just buy this new technology battery which was kind of the best of both worlds it it had the, you know. The long life and the,, the the non self-discharging features of of the LiPolipos. But you also had the somewhat durable nature of the of the nickel metal hydrides,. So that’s why I like them and they’re you know they’re easy to deal with you don’t have to balance charge them you don’t have to do any of that stuff you can treat them as long as you’re charging them with the correct charger you can treat them almost like you would treat an icad or a nickel metal hydride they’re not really designed.

Tom: For high discharge rates, which is perfect for you know receiver battery use. Yeah because I I don’t run a lot of the high voltage you know high amp draw digital servos of my airplanes, or I’ll gang several like on my big airplane, I have two analog servos that are fairly low draw to run a big aileron instead of one big high amperage you know digital servo. So perfect for me that they’re not high. Discharge like the LiPolipos, they do charge a little bit differently than the LiPolipos like I said you don’t have to balance them you don’t have to really monitor, that each individual cell like you really should with a with a LiPolipo,. But but yeah that’s I I like them, they’re they’re simple to use and they’re pretty safe, comparatively speaking to it to a LiPolipo for sure, I’m not sure what the what the lifespan is on them. Because honestly I have not worn one out yet. Yeah yeah they will they will sit in an airplane all winter long I shouldn’t say that they will sit on my bench all winter long technically I do I do leave them in the airplane. But I shouldn’t oh but they’re stored inside right you’re right I don’t keep them out in the garage or out in the shed or anything like that. So but I don’t I won’t touch them all winter long and. Then when I’m ready to go fly in the spring I’ll go to top them off and they’ll take maybe maybe 100 maybe 200 milliamps for them to get back to fully you know fully charged I mean they really really are.

Tom: Are ideal for, what I use them for you know aircraft receiver batteries and what do you say the the voltage was on them I think I think when they’re fully charged they they go to 3.3 or? 3.6 I to be honest I don’t well wait a minute I got a sheet right here, 3.6,. Yeah so, per cell and then, never let them get below two and a half per cell oh. Okay so they are a little bit.

Ron: Different than LiPolipo then just on their on their voltages too. Then right okay then that makes sense like I’ve never used them. So that makes sense as to why you can kind of directly replace right like a six cell, or a five cell, receiver pack. Yeah yeah I love them I really do.

Tom: They’re kind of pricey still, I haven’t really been able to excuse me I haven’t really been able to find a, I don’t want to say cheap, inexpensive if you will place a value brand if you will right right,. So, so I just buy them from fromico I mean that’s a good it’s a quality brand I’ll say their name, the great customer service I highly recommend them. But anyway I can’t find them really anywhere else for much cheaper. Anyway so I just go ahead and get them from there and, I’ve. Like I said I I’ve got let’s see I’ve got three in my big yak here I’ve got two on the bench one of them it’s going to go in the kristen eagle,. But I’ve had these batteries god I can’t remember I can’t even remember when I bought them I need to do like what you do and put dates on them, in fact I may do that on all these new LiPolipos I just got. But I actually think I might remember you talking about.

Ron: Getting those I mean it’s been several years hasn’t it it’s. Yeah it’s been at least if that’s the same.

Tom: One I’m thinking of it’s been at least five years at least. Well you okay so I think you bought.

Ron: Those about the same time I bought the the batteries for my yak. Because in the in my plane.

Tom: In that big one I put, the two cell LiPolipos. Okay yeah so it probably yeah because you’ve got a board in that in that airplane right? Yep so okay yeah so yep yeah that’s exactly when it was. So how long.

Ron: Ago has that been I don’t know I don’t have those batteries in front of me to tell you the date on them.

Tom: I mean it may not be the exact date but it’d be it’d be pretty close,. Anyway I want to say probably.

Ron: 15 or 16. so yeah five five or six years. Yeah well four or five or four or five yeah four or five.

Tom: Years, and like I said I I pulled, I pulled them out of the yak I mean I pulled them out of the lat out of the yak last fall just last week, and and topped them off and literally that one of them took like 120 milliamps to to top off and the other one it was like about them it’s like 200 it was like just shy of 200 I think and how big are those those, these are this one is, 4800 oh. Okay 48 yeah. 4800 milliamp pack and it sat idle I mean last time I charged it would probably have been last summer honestly sometime and I said all that time and that’s all it discharged. Yeah it’s not bad then.

Ron: That’s pretty impressive you said those you said when charging they don’t have like the balance ports that LiPolipo does. So how do you charge those is there a special setting on a on your charger. Yeah so in.

Tom: Fact from from fromico the people that I I buy these from they they you know they’re very very good they give you very very specific instructions on how to charge them and basically you charge them on your on your LiPolipo charger on the lithium polymer setting oh I guess the voltage is close enough and you charge them as a two cell in series, I’m sorry yes two cell in series or a 7.4 volt that’s how you charge them even though they’re not you know they’re not a LiPolipo and it’s using that. So.

Ron: They’re going for voltage then right yeah so and then just at one c like what amp do you do those with.

Tom: One c it says do not exceed one c okay. So 4.8 and I I charge yeah I charge I charge them at an amp I mean I I kind of I kind of undershoot a lot of these c ratings on the charge just. Because I like you know I’m cheap I want to I want my batteries to last as long as I can possibly, make them and if charging at one c as opposed to three c or or I’m sorry charging one amp as opposed to charging at 4.8 amps makes the battery last another season you know I’m not in that big a. Hurry I don’t need the battery charged that fast so once yes is plenty for me. So I or I’m sorry one amp I should say I keep saying one c,. So I just charge them at one amp and to be honest you know these little jst connectors the little connectors that plug into your radio with these small wire anything more than like an amp and a half or two amps the wire gets kind of warm. Anyway and that kind of frightens me so I just charge them at an amp play it safe. Yeah well I think the jsts are.

Ron: Supposed to be like five amps that’s what they’ll handle. But I’ve seen I’ve seen some of these little wires get pretty warm at an amp and a half. Well like I’m talking about the actual connector not necessarily the oh. Yeah I’m sorry yeah, I’m talking about the wire oh. Okay huh well okay so yeah I love them I guess since we kind of got to charging let’s let’s move on to that really quick,. Okay so NiCads’s charge pretty easy there’s no nothing special to do with those, nickel metal. Hydride same thing, charge pretty easy nothing special, the one thing sure you have that delta.

Tom: Peak detection set to be really sensitive for the nickel metal hydride right and. So I would say most.

Ron: If not all modern chargers, have selectable battery types like I know on mine I can do like lead batteries I can do the nickel cadmium batteries I can do the,, NiMH I can do the LiPolipos, I think that’s all I have on mine that’s the only ones I’ve ever used on it,. Okay that I remember saying at least so when you charge a LiPolipo though. So that’s going to be completely different than any other battery really, that we’ve dealt with. So yes the long story short of it LiPolipos have a balance lead. So what that does is actually hooks up wires to each and every cell individually that’s in, in your battery. So if you have a 3s LiPolipo you’re gonna have four wires coming off that balance lead one’s ground and. Then one’s positive for each of the the three cells when you. First charge, your LiPolipo you’re going to set your, your charge rate like your amperage and. Then you’re going to tell it what kind of, what size LiPolipo battery you have like 2s 3s unless it’s smart enough to know on its own like I said. Mine isn’t you have to tell it what you’re charging. So then it’s going to then it’s going to go ahead and check and make sure that pretty much what you’re, or what you’re telling it is there is there. So it will check and make sure there’s voltage on all of the,, all of the the balance leads and. Then it’s going to start charging so your high rate of charge like if you’re charging a 5000 mAh battery at 5 amps your high rate of charge is going to actually start charging through, the main connection to the battery when you get to the end, let me back up just a little bit. So when you’re charging there’s.

Ron: Two different charging, profiles for LiPolipos on mine you can either charge one or you can balance charge it, always balance charge it is what I will tell you the reason for that. So when you’re charging your battery you’re going to really quickly try and get that battery charged what happens if you don’t balance it when you get to 4.2 volts on a cell for your LiPolipo battery that’s fully charged you don’t want to put anything else in there if you do you’re going to start to kill that, that cell and. It’s going to die off really quick when you’re charging three cell LiPolipos at your 11.1 volts or 12.6 when it’s fully charged when it gets to that 12.6 volts it doesn’t know what each cell is doing. So if one is it right it’s just registering the pack volt right it’s just overall you’re at 12.6 volts. So one might be 4.2 one might be 4 volts and one might be 4.4 volts if that one is over it’s your. Battery is going to be pretty much shot so what happens is when you balance these things when it gets towards the end it will start to charge each one of those cells separately and. Then that way it knows that each cell is going to be at 4.2 volts and it will charge them, on its own. So when one gets to the point where it’s fully charged it stops charging and. Then it will charge the next one, you know until it’s fully charged. So it’ll it’ll do them all at once but when you get to the point to where each one is done and at 4.2 volts. Then your battery is fully charged that is the best way to charge a.

Ron: LiPolipo battery without killing it like I said whenever I charge them I do one c. So I’ll do that at most one c even if it can do more. So like I said five amps, for a 5 000 milliamp hour battery and. Then when you get to the end it’s going to take a lot longer to charge. So you’re going to see that really go up and and take the, take its charge quickly and. Then as it gets to the end it’s going to slow down a lot as it’s balancing. Because instead of that five amps it’s only putting like an amp or less or. So I think into each one of those cells just kind of bringing it up to its. Full charge voltage so just be careful when you’re doing that, that’s how really you’re going to make your your batteries last longer. So that’s the best way to do it, you can also you you mentioned before take your charger to, to the field with you I like doing that too especially when you’re flying a bunch of, electric, airplanes I have a four port charger that I bring with me,. So that will hook up to your car battery and. Then you can charge four separate batteries at once and you know. Independent of each other which is nice, yeah only problem with that and I want to warn people on this. Because I’ve done it if you’re at the field for a long time charging a bunch of batteries your car battery is going to die and. Then you’re going to have to ask somebody for a jump, I, I’ve kind of gotten into the habit, when I’ve gone places like towards the end of the year last year of bringing an extra like deep cycle battery with me and. Then just using that to charge, you know the chargers have a low voltage cutoff. So when it gets too low to safely charge your batteries it’s not.

Ron: Going to, it’s not going to charge or you know it’s going to shut itself off. So you’re not charging batteries and then you don’t have to worry about having a dead car battery. So yeah always use a different battery is is my recommendation. Because I’ve been there to where I’ve had to get a jump, I’ve also been there to where I was the only person there and had to call somebody to come give me a jump. Because oh yeah I’ve done it twice once with somebody else there with me and. Then once by myself, and that’s not fun that’s why I like nitro that is true. But you yeah okay you got me that’s.

Tom: True no I mean I’ve I’ve never I’ve never, ran my car battery down. But, I mean I I can see how that how that could happen especially if you’re flying you know flying a lot and you got a lot of.

Ron: Batteries yeah actually when I, when we used to run cars here quite a bit, I took one of our our older, kind of crappier golf carts and made a power panel on that to where I could actually charge all of the batteries and stuff straight off the golf cart and. Then you know that the batteries in there are quite a bit bigger,. Yeah and the nice thing about that is I didn’t have to worry about having a car out in the field with me or anything like that and I’ve also done that. Now with airplanes, since I don’t do the cars as much I’ll take that out with, airplane batteries and. Stuff and just kind of camp out in the field and go through a bunch of batteries and spend a couple hours out there at a time. So that’s fun too yeah good times yep okay so I just wanted to. So the.

Tom: Algorithm that the chargers use for I mean I understand how it works with with, nycas and nicomotohydrates what’s the difference between if you if you know tell me and if you don’t that’s fine you know it’s not that big a deal. But is the algorithm different because you know there’s constant current constant voltage and. Then there’s you know, variable current you know with with constant I mean there’s all these different charge algorithms I mean is it is it really that different between the. Two styles of battery yeah so with that I don’t know. Okay because I know with I have no idea with NiCads I mean you talked about you know you touched on it just a just a little bit ago about how you know the peak voltage for let’s say,, a two cell LiPolipo is what 8.4 I think that’s where it cut off. Yeah it keeps it for two times two just just while watching you know watching my charger while I’d be charging one of these batteries you know the like you said that the voltage the the pack voltage. Would get you know get up to 8.4 or whatever that top is very quickly and? Then it would just stop there and then it would adjust the charge current to keep it at 8.4. So I’m I guess what I’m asking is is the cutoff you know when does it actually cut off the the charge current like when when it takes.

Ron: A tenth of a volt to keep it at 8.4 oh I see what you’re saying. Yeah I I’m asking yeah I I do I’ve noticed that before too. Yeah like when I’m charging batteries, like it’ll start at that five amps and. Then yeah it turns itself off and somehow it knows based on voltage drop, pretty much how full it is, I see I don’t know how it works I’m not a an electrical engineer or anything, me either. But.

Tom: Yeah I mean I know how they work with NiCads and nuckle metal hydrides I just didn’t know how it I guess I just didn’t care enough it was scared to find out I guess. Because LiPolipo is still still frighten me I mean I still get nervous even just having them in the house sometimes when I think about especially this new battery I just bought it’s it’s like the biggest LiPolipo I’ve ever owned and just looking at it I’m intimidated by it. Yeah that’s a little bigger than anything I’ve had too.

Ron: But really it’s the same as your smaller ones, just treat it. Well and it should it should be fine if you see it start to get puffy don’t use it,. Well hopefully it doesn’t do that for a while.

Tom: Because it wasn’t I mean relatively speaking it wasn’t a cheap battery. Well and you should get a lot of uses out of it as long as you take care of it right? Well now I’ll take your advice you know and I’ll not over discharge it or discharge it, overcharge it I guess I should say also. Yeah what, like what connectors do you use on those. Yeah so I use dean’s two pin or dean’s ultra plugs on pretty much everything that’s not a jst connector. So and the reason is because and and I’m set in my ways. I used these style of connectors way back when I used to race rc cars, and they’re they’re I don’t know what they’re actually I think they’re capable of like 120 amps or 150 amps or they’re capable of quite a bit of current and I have I have never knock on wood I’ve never gotten one. So hot that I’ve you know knocked a solder joint or anything off of them. So is that like a bigger version of dean’s then or no the dean’s ultra plug is. So dean’s like over the years I’ll just give you a quick. Brief history so dean’s has been making plugs for a very very long ws dean’s that’s the name of the company making plugs for a really long time and they actually started their business making,.

Tom: Connectors for radios like servo connectors and things like that they were little three pin and they made these little tiny little two pin connectors and, they’re red and you could get them in black too and, they’re just very high quality the pins are all gold plated,. So you know good for for, conductivity, and then they made these, I forget this I think it was in the early 90s, they they may produce a plug called the ultra plug and it was just a it was just a heavier duty version of their two pin plug that they were making at the time and they’re arranged such that one pin. Is arranged one way and then the other pin is arranged 90 degrees to that? So it’s impossible to plug them in backwards now it’s not impossible to solder them backwards. Yeah but when you have them all soldered correctly and they’re cool. Because on the back side of the plug they have a plus and a minus. So you can be consistent about your your setup but. Anyway I’ve used them ever since, I’ve done cars and, I know there’s better connectors on the market. Now probably and certainly there’s cheaper. Connectors on the market but, I like these, hobby king even sells a version of it I think it’s called the xt something or other, and they’re compatible with the dean’s plug. So, that’s what I use.

Ron: Hmm well I guess I don’t know about the the dean’s ultra plug is what you said it was I’ll have to look.

Tom: That up that’s what that’s what dean’s called them they called them their ultra plug. But it’s the same connector you’ve seen them I mean they’ve they’ve been on all my batteries since you’ve known me. Well.

Ron: But okay so I what confuses me so a regular dean’s plug that I know is 50 amps. So is there a difference.

Tom: Between a dean’s plug and a dean’s ultra plug, well I don’t think. So I think you and I are talking about the same plug. But I thought they were capable of much more than that I could be wrong. But no so.

Ron: If if if we’re talking about the same thing little red ones. Because I have some of those too, that’s 50 amp oh. Okay and it’s funny you like that because I don’t like those, my reason for not liking it was I when you solder them you have to be very careful what I found is that the best thing to do when you’re soldering them is to have a heat sink on the other side, to kind of take some of that heat away. Because it the the red plastic melts just a little bit if it gets too hot, and. Then they. Are very difficult to plug in and unplug to the other ones, you need a hotter iron? Then because I I have.

Tom: Zero problems with that when I’m soldering them oh really. Well yeah I’ve had problems with that.

Ron: Before but the ones I’ve used, pretty much on just about everything. Now, are the XT60 connectors and those are you know 60 amps what what I like most about those especially compared to dean’s they plug in and unplug very easily, it’s it’s the same thing to where you can’t get it backwards, when you’re plugging them in obviously watch you know there’s plus and minus on it when you’re when you’re putting it together, or when you’re soldering it up. But it also it has the the round connector inside. Like the bullet style, and it just makes it so much easier to solder you’re not trying to solder onto a little flat piece of of metal like you are on the dean’s,. So that’s that’s probably my favorite one, they they do make like the xt90 that’s going to be a little bit bigger and that’ll handle you know as the name suggests 90 amps,. But yeah the the XT60 connectors are what I use,. Okay I had some yellow ones right yeah those are the yellow ones I had some of the the the blue ones the, what. What’s it called the EC3 connectors, from e-flight yeah, you can that not just on them, you can get those on on other things too I think one of the the cars I had a lot a long time ago had those on it man I don’t like those very much, I know I’m sure I’m sure some people you know really do they don’t seem to come apart, as easy and together as like the XT60 connectors the thing that is nice about them though,?

Ron: Is that you solder them when they’re not in the plastic? So you assemble that afterwards you know you solder your, bullet connector and. Then you push it into the plastic piece and it clips in, right? So that’s kind of nice, you know with the deans and with the XT60 connectors you have to use the the shrink tubing behind it just to make sure you don’t get a short,,. So always use the shrink tubing on those, I’m trying to think what are some of the other ones there’s, oh I had some I think. I had one battery in a an airplane and I ended up changing it out. But it was a, hxt I think is what they’re called it was like a four four millimeter bullet connection,. Okay that’s kind of the same thing when you assemble those is the EC3 connectors, I just. But I to me they’re they’re hard to plug and unplug I don’t like those very much either and they’re really long,. So it takes up a lot more.

Tom: Space oh I know yeah I know the ones you’re talking about they’re red I think. Yeah yeah yeah I don’t like.

Ron: Those either they are really long yeah, but yeah I mean other than that like your, your balance connector I think those are the what are they called the jst dash xh I think. Yeah I think yeah.

Tom: I think there’s three different styles of those jsts but. Yeah that’s but yeah that’s the most common.

Ron: One that I if I remember right, and I think those are only a couple amps you can’t put a lot of power through them. So, yeah that’s why like I said my my favorite ones are the XT60 connectors pretty much everything I have is either XT60 connectors or dean’s,. Yeah I think I’ve switched everything else out that wasn’t that to be that and it’s nice to do it that way too. Because then you don’t have a whole bunch of different, charging leads for your chargers you know you can just have a single one that’s.

Tom: Yeah and that and that’s probably why I still use the dean’s. Because all of my charge like everything I have is as these dean’s and I mean even if I even if I wanted to change to an XT60 connectors or 90 I’d have to buy that for everything I own and it’s just I don’t know just easier to keep using what I have.

Ron: Yeah it is I mean as long as they’re not giving you problems there’s no need to to reinvent the wheel.

Tom: So no and you mentioned about you know when you I mean I don’t want to get into soldering techniques or anything like that. But you you talked about using a heatsink and really when you’re soldering connectors onto a battery on a LiPolipo battery especially you should be using you know a wet a wet paper towel or a rag or something on those wires away from that solder joint. Anyway because you don’t want any of that heat getting into the cells of the battery. Yeah that’s a good point so what when you solder what do you set your iron in as hot as it’ll go I’m using a it’s an old hacko h-a-k-o I think. And I believe it is a 120 watt I think I’d have to get the box out. But anyway, I set it to the max because I don’t want like and I don’t use flux either, I use a good quality solder uh-huh, that I get from same company ws dean’s people same people who make my plugs or make the plugs that I use, and I’ll I’ll pretend if you will you know I’ll get some solder on the tabs of. The connector first yeah before I go and try to you know. Because that is a lot easier to get that soft and sticky if you will. Yep, than it then it is to get the gold on the player on the on the connector,. But anyway I I don’t want to be on that tab very long at all with the iron. Because I don’t you know I don’t want to melt the plug like you know the problems you say you’ve ran into. So a good good good quality hot like a really really really hot iron with a big fat tip that will transfer as much heat quickly as you know, and rapidly as you can is better than you know an.

Tom: Iron with a smaller tip that maybe you have to sit there on the tab and wait for everything to get hot. Because then you’re going to run the risk of you know getting heat down the wire into the battery or melting the plug. Yeah I just hotter is better yeah I think I set mine like 800 degrees if I.

Ron: Remember that’s what it does because I I do the same thing I just turn it all the way up when I’m soldering these things,. Yeah and then I use one of those little helping hands things you know the thing that has a couple alligator clips and man that makes it. So much easier yeah I’ve got a cool.

Tom: Little, tool here that I used to use in the, in the rc car business is a aluminum block that actually sorry, actually clamps the connector into it. So then you have another free hand to you know to manipulate the wire and hold it still and you still have to use fingers and that’s probably why I don’t have any, nerve endings left in the tips of my,. First three fingers on both hands but anyway, that’s what that’s the setup I use at least it’s not your thumb that you use for flying. True I would adapt I would adapt and overcome maybe maybe you’d go with the the pinch instead of the thumb thing you know I I’ll say it again I I really wish I had learned to fly that way I really do. But I I’ve tried it and it’s just so weird to me I I can’t like I’m just a thumb kind.

Ron: Of a guy I have no precision yeah I guess I lucked out into the fact that when I started I don’t remember who it was. But somebody told me the pinch I mean they didn’t actually tell me. But when they showed me how to hold it that’s how they showed me and that’s that’s just kind of how I how I’ve taken off since. Then taken off yeah that’s kind of how I’ve done it since. Then I see what you did there yeah that was not on purpose, it’s getting late actually I think it’s probably about time to end this one,. Okay it’s a lot longer a lot longer than I planned on. So, anything else you want to add or.

Tom: Are we just going to call it quits, no I don’t I I think, I think you hit all the high points?

Ron: All right well in that case, goodbye I’m Ron and I’m john see you later we hope you enjoyed this.

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