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Bad
Battery !
1500mAh LiFe from HobbyKing |
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The other day I was out trimming a helicopter when my Tx voltage
alarm went off . I was a little surprised as I checked the
voltage and it was 9.3v and it should not have dropped from
there so quickly . I have the same battery in another
transmitter and so have a little history with the battery . This
battery had only been charged twice , so was practically new .
On recharging , only some 250mAh went in and the charger said
the battery was fully charged .
Well , that was a serious warning sign , I discharged the battery @ one
Amp to see what would happen .. C2 or cell 2 was dropping
voltage seriously . With the other two cells at 3.11v C2 was
down to 2.5v and the charger was throwing up a Battery voltage
error .
I did order a new battery pack for my Tx , just in case . The LIFE in
question has been cycled several times over two days , 6 or 7
times now , and it looks like C2 may have come good [ looks like
] . Through out the continuous cycle of charging and discharging
, capacity has increased and C2 has stabilized to the point of
matching the other two cells in the pack .
Currently I'm giving the battery a final charge , to see how much current
goes in , and then I will test and see how the battery goes over
the long term [ holds capacity ] . Its always a bit of a gamble
with multi cell batteries , as one or two cells may not be as
good as the other(s) . Cycling a battery is a good way to
condition and test a pack before trusting it . But with such a
low Amp demand from a Tx , I was not expecting any issue from
these batteries . Usually these things show up in high Amp
situations [ battery pack for 450 helicopter ] where the
batteries are put under much higher load [ strain ] , so this
came as a bit of a nasty shock I can tell you .
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Battery = 1500mAh
LiFe from Hobby King
Charger = Turnigy Accucell 8158
Charge rate = 500mAh
Discharge rate = 1A |
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