My Xtreme Power Lipo went dead

[shails]

I have purchased a HDX450 from helidirect

The Lipo I had purchased was Extreme Power 11.1V 2200mAh 18C Lipo Battery and to go with this I had purchased a Align New Li-ion Battery Balance Charger RCC-3CX and a Switch-Mode BEC 5V/3A (up to 35V)

After 15 flights the duration of power from the battery started reducing. I had barely done 20 flights and as one day I started the heli the head speed decreased within a minute and slowed down unable to lift the heli of the ground.

Then I have noticed that when I plug-in my lipo on the charger one cell gets charged within one hour and rest of the 2 cells take as much as it 4-5 hours to get charged.

I have tried to fly the heli again after charging the lipo but now the heli does not even lift off the ground as the battery seems to have no power left in it.

Kindly suggest what should I do. If the lipo run for barely 15-20 flights would such a thing happen? Is the lipo defective? Is there any way to revive the Lipo?

Shail :arggg:

[broke-again]

It could also be the charger, have you got another battery? Also what ESC are you using?

Lastly, what voltage do you read from the battery.

[cudaboy_71]

how much amperage were you putting back in the pack during those 15 good cycles? what was your flight time and flying style?

initial thought is you've overdrawn the pack during flight. if that's the case, then 15 cycles is about right for the life of a pack.

[moyesboy]

I had one of these chargers and two 12c red xtreme power 1800 packs.
After a bout 20 cycles the packs were dead. I was probably pulling a bit much amps if you consider the 12c rating is probably not even 10c in reality (most packs are over rated for marketing).
I read a lot about that align charger. Early versions of the charger took the cells to too many volts which does them no good. The versions marked as "new" on the label are supposed to be OK but I measured the volts of the cells when the lights went green and they were still a bit on the high side (can't remember what the figures are).
I got some 18c black xtreme power lipos and at the same time got a FMA cellpro4 charger and since then everything is fine. The batts use about 70 percent of capacity (put about 1500 back in) after 7 minutes with my hybrid mx400/trex/hdx450 turning 325 carbons at 2800 pulls 25a at full pitch and 17a in the hover (with the extra payload of a wattsup meter).
The batts are fine after 25 cycles each so far. Its a lot better to use a charger that gives you some figures for what it is doing.
Keep them at 3c in the fridge if you are not using them for a few days. Allow them to warm before charging or flying.

[shails]

It could also be the charger, have you got another battery? Also what ESC are you using?

Lastly, what voltage do you read from the battery.


I use OTTER 35A ESC with BEC which came in with the heli. The charger I use is an NEW align charger.

Regards
Shail

[shails]

I had one of these chargers and two 12c red xtreme power 1800 packs.
After a bout 20 cycles the packs were dead. I was probably pulling a bit much amps if you consider the 12c rating is probably not even 10c in reality (most packs are over rated for marketing).
I read a lot about that align charger. Early versions of the charger took the cells to too many volts which does them no good. The versions marked as "new" on the label are supposed to be OK but I measured the volts of the cells when the lights went green and they were still a bit on the high side (can't remember what the figures are).
I got some 18c black xtreme power lipos and at the same time got a FMA cellpro4 charger and since then everything is fine. The batts use about 70 percent of capacity (put about 1500 back in) after 7 minutes with my hybrid mx400/trex/hdx450 turning 325 carbons at 2800 pulls 25a at full pitch and 17a in the hover (with the extra payload of a wattsup meter).
The batts are fine after 25 cycles each so far. Its a lot better to use a charger that gives you some figures for what it is doing.
Keep them at 3c in the fridge if you are not using them for a few days. Allow them to warm before charging or flying.

The charger is marked as "NEW".

This is my first electric heli. I have only flown nitro heli's till date. I have found this experience of buying a electric heli not worth while.

Still i was not much experienced to know what battery to buy. Could you suggest what make of battery one should buy?

I am looking to buy a 2000mah with a 18-20C discharge

Regards
Shail

[Pinecone]

Bottom line is, did you over draw the packs? You never answered the questions posted previously? Does that cahrger tell you how much you put back into the pack? If so how much did you put back in after each flight? How did you determine when to stop flying?

If you flew each flight until the head speed dropped, you are over drawing the packs and NO pack will last.

[moyesboy]

In theory the align charger you have should be kind the the batteries as it is a balance charger and the current is limited to 1A I think so it is only charging at 0.5C which should be good for the batteries but means it takes a whule to charge them.

There are three ways to shorten the life of the lipo:

1 pull too much current out of them.
Many lipos are over specified with their C rating. Whatever the spec most packs wont live if you pul more than 15C constant. However unless you have too big a motor pinion with shoudln't have hapened on your heli unless you are really throwing it about with hard 3D. Its worth having a wattmeter just to see what it pulls when hovering and also at full negative pitch on the ground which is a worst case scenario.
One way I hurt my xtreme power 12c batts was tryingto fly on a 14T motot pionion that came with my kit. It shoudl have been an 11T. The current overloaded the ESC anyway so it fellout of the sky ofter a short time but it wasn't a god start for the packs!
After much swapping of pieces my heli is similar to yours with HD superframe STK and sonix head spinning 325 carbon blades. ESC is a quark 33a and motor is the excellent medusa 28-40-2500kv on a 14T pinion (not this is a lower KV motor with lots of torque so runs a biggish pinion).

2 run them too low.
You should not run the pack below 3.0v per cell. I have a lipo alarm which measures the volts across the pack and a green light goes to flashing red and a buzzer goes off at 3.2 volts per cell (9.6 v on the pack). This is independant of the ESC shut off so I have ages to land before the ESC shuts down. This is one of the most important things with lipos. this is mine, made in UK http://www.heliproz.com/prodinfo.asp?number=335444
Usually this means a flight duration of 10-12 minutes of mild flying or 6-7 minutes of agressive 3D on a 2200 mAh 3 cell.
It is good to have a charger that logs how much charge went into the pack to cheack you are not pulling too much out of it. The volts recovers quite a bit after you stop flying so measuring that after the flght is not such a good indicator as an alarm on the heli.

3 - overcharge them.
Obviously with a flexible charger it is possible to use the wrong setting liek charge the pack on a niMH settign or something which will screw the pack. I prefer the FMA cellpro 4 charger becuase it is a dedicated charger that also balances and gives good info about what it is doing. There are other options. Some cheap charger can be out of spsc and charge the pack to too many volts which reduces the pack life a lot.

As regards the packs, there are basically 3 places the cells come from, seahan, kokam and enerland. The cells are assembled into packs by thunderpower, flightpower etc.
The ones that last the longest in terms of cycles are the kokam - 300-500 cycles if you are kind to them. Enerland wil last about 100 cycles and loose their edge after 30 but they have a bigger current capability so they use those in the packs with the biggest C rating claims. The way the cells are connected also effects that.
Flightpower and Tunderpower use the enerland cells and these will give you the best 3D performance but they won't last as long in number of cycles as a kokam pack. I don't know who uses the seahan cells at the moment but they are supposed to be very good cells.

In USA the kokam packs were marketed by FMA direct but they fell out with kokam and are not currently selling packs. I'm looking for who now sells kokam packs in USA but nobody answered my post on that.

[shails]

Bottom line is, did you over draw the packs? You never answered the questions posted previously? Does that cahrger tell you how much you put back into the pack? If so how much did you put back in after each flight? How did you determine when to stop flying?

If you flew each flight until the head speed dropped, you are over drawing the packs and NO pack will last.

Yes I flew the heli till it the head speed dropped. Then accordingly to you I overdrew.

My Align charger does not have any indicator to tell me how much power i put in, neither i have a indicator on the heli to know when to stop flying.

I basically did not know how to use a Lipo and I think I killed the lipo. But now when I buy a new Lipo what all equipments should I buy to ensure this does not happen and how should I use the lipo.

Regards
Shail

[cudaboy_71]

step one: get a new charger. for up to 4s packs, the FMA cellpro (http://www.fmadirect.com/detail.htm?item=2193&section=45) is great. balancing built in, graphic display, blah blah.

step two: get a/some good packs. right now, there are two kings of the hill: thunder power (http://www.thunderpower-batteries.com/Li-PolyBatteries.htm) and flightpower (http://www.flightpower.co.uk/). if you're not flying hard 3D, the TP prolites (TP2100-3SPL) are great because they are powerful and lightweight. if you ARE flying 3D with a high performance motor (read in excess of 35 amps) you need more current. the packs are a little heavier, but can take the added draw...go with the TP2070-3SX, or slightly heavier but even more amperage TP2200-3SX. as far as the FPs go, with the 2170 (http://www.readyheli.com/FlightPower_EVO_2170_mAh_3S1P_11_1v_p/3s1pevo2170.htm).

step three: break in your lipos before wringing them out. i usually do 2-4 low draw (hovering in normal mode) cycles for about 4 minutes per charge. that is, charge the battery. hover the pack lightly for about 4 minutes. let it cool off for an hour. repeat 2-4 times. don't be in a rush. you'll get a longer life out of your packs if you baby it early here.

step four: learn to properly discharge your lipos. you MUST use your TX timer to monitor your pack's amperage draw. the breakin cycles should have given you an idea of how much current 4 easy minutes of hovering uses. (if you put 600mah back in the pack, you know a 4 minute easy hover uses about 28% of your pack: 600/2100=28.57). after the pack is broken in, leave your timer at 4 minutes and put in a normal flight --normal being whatever your typical flight style is. charge the battery. how much amperage did you put back in this time? 1250? (just a number i picked...dont be worried if your number is drasically different). ok...1250/2100 = 59.5%.

REMEMBER: NEVER DRAW MORE THAN 85% OF YOUR LIPO'S CAPACITY. so, you have 85%-59.5% = 25.5% of your pack left to draw. now some basic math:

2100mah * 85% = 1785mah max draw per charge.
1785mah - 1250mah drawn in 4 minutes = 535 mah left to draw
1250mah/4 minutes = 312mah drawn / min in your test flight
535mah/312mah = 1.71 minutes additional to achieve 85%.

Alternatively, you could calculate:

59.5% / 4 minutes = 14.875 amps/min.
25.5% remaining / 14.875 = 1.71 minutes

so, with the same type of flying, you can expect to add 1.71minutes or 1:42 seconds more to your timer. so, with your flying style, 85% battery life is 5:42. subtract a little time as a safety buffer if you like. but, that's generally what you'd want to fly each pack. less is better. but, definitely not more.

hope that helps.

[Pinecone]

ZYes, if you fly until your head speed drops, you killed the pack. As has been said, get a better charger. FMA CellPro is very good, Triton is good, but you need one that tells you how much you put back in.

If you are starting out, DN Power an dUnited Hobbies Hextronic packs are fine and will save you a good bit of money if you whack a pack in a crash.

What I did is fly minutes and see who much I put back in. Divide that by 5 to get mAH per minute of flight. Then divide 80% (all advice I have seen says 80% max draw) of your pack capcaity by the draw per minute to find out how many minutes you can fly.

So after 5 minues you put back 1250 mAH, you draw 1250/5 = 250 mAH per minute. 80% of a 2100 pack is 1680 mAH so 1680/250 = 6.72 minutes, or for safety 6 1/2 minutes safe flight.

Set a timer (either in the radio or buy a Radio Shack or kitchen store timer). It should be a ount down timer with alarm.

Also buy a lipo alarm to back up the timer. Maybe due to operator error the timer doesn't start. Or due to bearings going bad your amp draw goes up, then the lipo alarm tells you to land beofre you harm your lipo. Efliernz here in the freak has special alarms that fit Trexes perfectly. Also a great guy to deal with.

WRT pack break in, I have heard varying comments on whether it is required or not. But it can't hurt. :)

[shails]

step one: get a new charger. for up to 4s packs, the FMA cellpro (http://www.fmadirect.com/detail.htm?item=2193&section=45) is great. balancing built in, graphic display, blah blah.

step two: get a/some good packs. right now, there are two kings of the hill: thunder power (http://www.thunderpower-batteries.com/Li-PolyBatteries.htm) and flightpower (http://www.flightpower.co.uk/). if you're not flying hard 3D, the TP prolites (TP2100-3SPL) are great because they are powerful and lightweight. if you ARE flying 3D with a high performance motor (read in excess of 35 amps) you need more current. the packs are a little heavier, but can take the added draw...go with the TP2070-3SX, or slightly heavier but even more amperage TP2200-3SX. as far as the FPs go, with the 2170 (http://www.readyheli.com/FlightPower_EVO_2170_mAh_3S1P_11_1v_p/3s1pevo2170.htm).

step three: break in your lipos before wringing them out. i usually do 2-4 low draw (hovering in normal mode) cycles for about 4 minutes per charge. that is, charge the battery. hover the pack lightly for about 4 minutes. let it cool off for an hour. repeat 2-4 times. don't be in a rush. you'll get a longer life out of your packs if you baby it early here.

step four: learn to properly discharge your lipos. you MUST use your TX timer to monitor your pack's amperage draw. the breakin cycles should have given you an idea of how much current 4 easy minutes of hovering uses. (if you put 600mah back in the pack, you know a 4 minute easy hover uses about 28% of your pack: 600/2100=28.57). after the pack is broken in, leave your timer at 4 minutes and put in a normal flight --normal being whatever your typical flight style is. charge the battery. how much amperage did you put back in this time? 1250? (just a number i picked...dont be worried if your number is drasically different). ok...1250/2100 = 59.5%.

REMEMBER: NEVER DRAW MORE THAN 85% OF YOUR LIPO'S CAPACITY. so, you have 85%-59.5% = 25.5% of your pack left to draw. now some basic math:

2100mah * 85% = 1785mah max draw per charge.
1785mah - 1250mah drawn in 4 minutes = 535 mah left to draw
1250mah/4 minutes = 312mah drawn / min in your test flight
535mah/312mah = 1.71 minutes additional to achieve 85%.

Alternatively, you could calculate:

59.5% / 4 minutes = 14.875 amps/min.
25.5% remaining / 14.875 = 1.71 minutes

so, with the same type of flying, you can expect to add 1.71minutes or 1:42 seconds more to your timer. so, with your flying style, 85% battery life is 5:42. subtract a little time as a safety buffer if you like. but, that's generally what you'd want to fly each pack. less is better. but, definitely not more.

hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice. It really makes sense. However I have come to understand that its a headache flying a electric heli. I think I was better off flying nitros.

I checked the volts in the battery and its shows 11.75V, if the battery has the required volts then why won't the heli fly? I have also noticed that when i discharge the pack two cells heat up and the third is only warm.

What is actually happening here? I cannot figure it out. Is the ESC faulty and not drawing power or what :dontknow

Regards
Shail

[gordohigh]

Do not keep that battery in your house. It sounds like you have at least 2 bad cells, and If you've never seen a lipo fire, go on readyheli and watch the lipo sak video. It will show you how a damage battery can ignite and burn. It is impressive to say the least.

Be careful, no heli or battery is worth burning your house down, and or injuring your self, or family!!!

BTW, 11.75v is not a charged battery. If that is what it reads charged, you could have one good cell and 2 damaged ones not charging all the way, and ready to puff, (if they havent already).. :shock:

[cudaboy_71]

I checked the volts in the battery and its shows 11.75V, if the battery has the required volts then why won't the heli fly?

volts is only 1/2 the equation. volts * amps = power. if your pack cannot deliver the current (amps) to back the voltage, you get no power. this pack sounds very abused and unable to deliver its C rating any longer.

put another way, if it WAS an 18C 2100mah pack, it could deliver (at one time) 37.8amps. 37.8amps * 11.75v = 444 watts...enough power to fly.

however, if the pack can only deliver 4-5C now, you only get 10.5amps * 11.75=123 watts...NOT enough to fly.

flying electric is not any more of a pain to fly than nitro...just different. once you understand the basic concepts of battery maintenance it is quite easy. just fly til your timer goes off; land; let the pack cool for a while; charge; fly til your timer goes off........

[shails]

I checked the volts in the battery and its shows 11.75V, if the battery has the required volts then why won't the heli fly?

volts is only 1/2 the equation. volts * amps = power. if your pack cannot deliver the current (amps) to back the voltage, you get no power. this pack sounds very abused and unable to deliver its C rating any longer.

put another way, if it WAS an 18C 2100mah pack, it could deliver (at one time) 37.8amps. 37.8amps * 11.75v = 444 watts...enough power to fly.

however, if the pack can only deliver 4-5C now, you only get 10.5amps * 11.75=123 watts...NOT enough to fly.

flying electric is not any more of a pain to fly than nitro...just different. once you understand the basic concepts of battery maintenance it is quite easy. just fly til your timer goes off; land; let the pack cool for a while; charge; fly til your timer goes off........

You have suggested to get FMA Cell pro charger.

I also need a similar charger for my Nicads. Can you recommend a charger which is as reliable as FMA cell pro which works both for Lipos and Nicads and does the function of charging and discharging?

What is the difference between Lipo and Li-ion?

Regards
Shail

[cudaboy_71]

for nicd/nimh charge/cylcers i'd look at the "DuraTrax IntelliPeak ICE DC Competition Charger"

although it does not have a lipo balancer built in, it will charge nicd, nimh, lion and lipo. you could add an external balancer like the TP210 or even a simple astro blinky and get all of the function of the cell pro when you charge lion/lipo, plus you get nicd/nimh charge/cycle in one unit--with the exception of A123 charging ability.

lipo (lithium ion polyer) is an offshoot technology of the original li-ion (lithium ion) cell. but in a lipo cell the electrolyte is held in a solid polymer rather than an organic solvent--thus it can be manufactured in practically any shape rather than having to be constructed in the typical metal can form.

[shails]

How would you rate GPMM3153 Triton charger. It says it charges/discharges all kinds of cells. Is it a good buy? I can't figure it has a balance charging system like the Cellpro.

My motor is outrunner KV3200, Max current 28A and max power 320W. If I go for flight power 2170 would it be ok?

Some one suggested to install a on board low battery alarm system from a company in UK http://www.heliproz.com/prodinfo.asp?number=335444
when i was on the FMA site I saw a product called Cell Pro 4S Discharge Protection Module. Is this the same thing but without the sound?

Regards
Shail

[cudaboy_71]

that one's fine, too.

[miguelcpp]

Hey can you help, i got 2 xtreme power 11.1v 2200mah 18c packs with a ranktop charger that only fits the align batteries balance connector, how did you connected your xtreme powers to the align charger? did you bought some adapter?