NIGHT BLADE - DURATION [Archive]

RotoJon

07-14-2007, 09:13 PM

Bought a new set of Align Night Blades and can only get 8 minutes out of one blade before the green led is fadded to nearly nothing and the blue is getting dim.

The opposite blade works great.... 50 minutes of duration with no problem. both blades appear to be charging normally just no endurance on the one blade....

Any way to condition the battery and check its integrity??? I think I might have to see if the LHS will exchange them for a new set.

socal

07-14-2007, 11:05 PM

the blades use a micro lipo, if ts running like that then the battery is bad

chimaera

07-17-2007, 03:11 PM

I have the same problem. They came out of the box like that.

socal

07-17-2007, 06:46 PM

align uses align lipos in the blades, and we all know how much those suck

Finless

07-17-2007, 08:29 PM

OK I have charged my blades and plugged them in to see how long they would go... an hour later I unplugged as i got tired of waiting....

BUT the way the SPLIT charger works could be a problem so I reccomend charging each blade separatly to be sure they are fully charged. Bottom line you should get WAY MORE than 8 minutes or your night blades are bad!

Bob

RotoJon

07-17-2007, 11:08 PM

Thanks Bob,

The LHS has agreed to exchange them for me... I was hoping to see if others were having a similar problem. These are the new design (white) blades. Crashed 2 sets of the old black ones and even tried to use one salvaged blade from each crash to make a set but they were too unbalanced.

Anyway, This one blade is certainly bad. I tried charging one blade at a time... as well as many other ortions and i meter the voltage while the blades are lit.... one blade holds 3.75vdc forever and the other drops from 4.18 to 2.8 in about 8 minutes. Defenately Bad out of the box.

What i have noticed from metering the charger is that it sends 4.25vdc to each balde until the current drops below about 4miliamp then it turn green until the voltage drops below 4.05vdc at which time the charger will kick on again. the charger is pretty sweet little tool.

Anyway, If anyone else is noticing a similar problem out of the box I would request an exchange....

chimaera

08-31-2007, 03:42 PM

Wow I can only get about two minutes from mine. Will Align actually do anything about it?

aballen

09-03-2007, 09:14 PM

I had the exact problem with a set I got from grandrc, I calle dthem up and they said to send them back, I sent back the whole kit, blades, charger, everything.

Expecting a new replacement set

aballen

09-04-2007, 07:26 PM

Question for you Finless, can you elaborate on the split charger statement you made here? my new blades look good(I'll see tonight), but since its a lipo I want to be careful not to overcharge, or over discharge... I'll charge them 1 at a time, but I would like a better understanding of why.

Thanks

Side note:
I got my replacements from GrandRC already, man, great vendor... meanwhile I'm waiting for a replacement lipo from assurancerc... that I mailed out almost 2 weeks ago :(

OK I have charged my blades and plugged them in to see how long they would go... an hour later I unplugged as i got tired of waiting....

BUT the way the SPLIT charger works could be a problem so I reccomend charging each blade separatly to be sure they are fully charged. Bottom line you should get WAY MORE than 8 minutes or your night blades are bad!

Bob

09-15-2007, 09:13 PM

Question for you Finless, can you elaborate on the split charger statement you made here? my new blades look good(I'll see tonight), but since its a lipo I want to be careful not to overcharge, or over discharge... I'll charge them 1 at a time, but I would like a better understanding of why.I think what Bob was referring to is the fact that the charger with 2 charge leads will charge both blades at the same time assuming there is a good connection on both blades.

If one is not making a good connection, you won't know it since the led will show charging status from the other blade. With a bad or intermittent connection, it may charge one blade for only a few minutes which of course will show up as short run time.

If you charge one blade at a time, you know from the leds on the charger that it's making a connection and showing charge for each blade separately.

You may very well have a bad cell in one blade but you'll know for sure if you eliminate the problem the split charger can create.

aballen

09-23-2007, 07:48 PM

does it blance chage the 2 blades/lipos?

does it overcharge if you only plug 1 in?

kama1

09-23-2007, 08:23 PM

nope your good .....you can charge one blade at a time no problem
as far as balance ....think its a non issue...would only be one really stupid small cell in there

Bravo99

10-10-2007, 02:37 PM

I tested my night blades and after a full charge one blade lasted about 1.5 hours and the other started getting weaker about 15 minutes earlier..Im on my second set of night blades. I have not tested the duration of the second set. I crashed with the first set during the day when I was not using the light feature. So from now on I just put on the night blades for night time and back to regular blades for the day..

aballen

10-10-2007, 02:57 PM

My first set got ~1 hour before I crashed. My most recent set came to me charged, and has had one hour on it easily, and there appears to be no need to charge them yet.

The manual says waith till th blue led goes out, then charge the blades. The blue leds require more power than the others, which is why they go out first. I'm waiting till they go dim to recharge.

Bravo99

10-10-2007, 04:50 PM

Yeah I know.. I have read the manual too but when I tested my blades duration it was the green one that started to get dim and went out first on both blades, you think the guy who wrote the manual is color blind?

comeflywithme

11-01-2007, 10:02 AM

I've also just had a faulty pair of Align Blades. Same story where one blade would hold charge well but the other would discharge within 2-4mins.

One thing I noticed was that the poor blade's cell was completely flat out of the box while the better one had a good charge in it. I presume that as with LIPO's these Li-ION batteries are supposed to have some charge in them before use so this seems like a good tell-tale sign as to whether one blade is faulty.

I would recommend people to simply ask whoever supplies their night blades to open the package prior to pispatch and check that both blades have some charge in them. Ideally it should obviously be Aligns job to do quality checks in the first place but I'm sure they will address this issue soon.

I'm certainly not put off as these blades as they seem very good provided you get a working pair.

xStatiCa

11-01-2007, 10:15 AM

Last time I tested my Align black night blades for duration (Last December I think) I got about 1.5 hours too.

aballen

06-12-2008, 07:51 PM

try charging them now.... my good blades are now bad after sitting for a few months...

flyinfool

06-13-2008, 08:44 AM

Now is it just me, or does it seem that now that all of the night blades have lithium cells that blade reliability has gone right into the craper.

I have blades that are several years old with NiMh batteries in them and they are still working great, even after extended storage. It seems that the newer blades with the lithium cells go bad after a few months of sitting in a box waiting for the weather to warm up.

I like the old way better where you just ignore the blades till you put them on charge the day before you want to fly them again.
I can see now that I will need to be constantly pulling out these newer lithium blades all winter long and cycling the batteries to try to keep them from going flat.

OK, rant over for now.:oops:

aballen

06-13-2008, 10:58 PM

yeah I think it is the lipos too... can you point me to any good nimh 450 sized blades?

VyNNeR

08-08-2008, 04:02 PM

Steelie

08-25-2008, 10:14 AM

i have similar problem too.
Just got my new align night blades set.
Tried it for the first time.
One of the blade only last about 20 mins and the other can last about 1.5 hours.

When i try to charge that weak blade it only took about 20 mins or so to turn green on the charger LED that represents full.

What is going wrong? Can anyone help?
Is this a bad set of blades or the Li-On needs to break in too?

Thanks in advance.

VyNNeR

I was just thinking...when the blades are manufactured they also need to be factory balanced to make them saleable/useable. I wonder if 'they' are using different size batteries from one blade to the next just for weight/balance correction...?, Might explain why so many guys are having different glow times in each blade.
Just a guess. That's all.

aballen

08-25-2008, 10:26 AM

no they do not, they actually put a rod in the blade to add weight(not sure if it is metal or carbon, I've seen xrays though), thats also how they get the cg set.

lots of these blade sets just sit on the shelf, and the lipos just die.... I had a perfectly good set die over the winter, just one of them.... align lipos = bad, the blades are bad too...

I don't understand why they have to go lipo on these, nicad/nimh would be just fine and less delicate.

flyinfool

08-25-2008, 06:18 PM

I can understand their reasons for going to lipo.
I just don't agree with it.
The reasons for the lipo is reduced battery weight, and higher voltage for mor selection of LED colors, some of the colors need the higher 3.7 volts of the lipos over the 2.4 volts of 2 NiMh cells that has been used in the past. Yes they could go to three NiMh cells for 3.6 volts but then the weight is really getting up there.

I was perfectly happy with my red and yellow reliable night blades. I could care less about haveing to have the green, white or blue blades that need higher voltage and wont last for a whole year. Sometimes I go more than a year without a night crash.

08-25-2008, 07:15 PM

I've had my Align night blades for over a year now. They've been used about 10-12 times. Since I haven't used them in several months, last week I took 'em out and charged 'em up for a test. They went well past 1.5 hrs before starting to fade (I looked at 1:30 and they were bright... I went back at 1:50 and they were noticeably dimmer). :thumbup:

I do charge them one at a time. Sometimes I get the flashing bad connection light but I leave it sit, plugged in, and about 5 minutes later it starts to charge normally.