How long between flights ?

[Tom Fiddler]

How long does it take to cool down, recharge and be ready to fly again with the BIG Li-Polys?
What is the charge "C" rating without hurting your investment?

[DavidH]

Tom,
From my understanding of talking Jason Krause and Chris Stephenson. With two chargers it will be about 1.5 hours between flights. This is the time it will take to recharge the batteries at 1C. I have seen these guys take the batteries right out of the heli after flying and put them on charge.
The downside is , you have to leave the car running if using the battery in the car for a power source. These chargers will kill a car battery in short notice if the car is not running.
Also suggest putting the batteries and chargers on a separate table and just have the cables from the chargers running to the car battery.

David

[WillJames]

Tom,
From my understanding of talking Jason Krause and Chris Stephenson. With two chargers it will be about 1.5 hours between flights. This is the time it will take to recharge the batteries at 1C. I have seen these guys take the batteries right out of the heli after flying and put them on charge.
The downside is , you have to leave the car running if using the battery in the car for a power source. These chargers will kill a car battery in short notice if the car is not running.
Also suggest putting the batteries and chargers on a separate table and just have the cables from the chargers running to the car battery.

DavidWOW that is alot longer than I thought. That is a lot of juice needed to charge. Intererting information David. Thanks!!

[bob00]

I've got 2 Orbit Pro chargers - the plan is to use each with it's own 100min reserve deep-cycle battery. I'm hoping that each will be good for at least 2 charges. These suckers are heavy so they'll probably live in the truck for the season.

Looking at the chart produced by the Orbit for a typical 1C charge cycle of a TP 3S3P pack, it seems possible to predict a certain point in time after the voltage goes constant that the pack will be more than 90% charged. The results seemed to be pretty consistent with the mentioned pack and shorten the charge cycle to about 1h 8min. I spent some time looking into this stuff earlier this year and can post more info when I've got some time next week.

I expect to see a similar pattern after collecting data from a few cycles with the Ion's 5S4P batteries - won't miss the last 10% if it means significantly shortening the charge cycle.

- Rob

[Sluggo]

Rob If and when I get a Ion you are going to be my pit crew for charging the bats. :lol: :lol:

There is just way to much to learn with this new things.

Chris

[bob00]

Brian already has plans to have power outlets installed at the field next season - should make things a lot easier :D

- Rob

[Tom Fiddler]

Does anyone know the amp draw of the chargers?
I'll check my Triton at 20 cells tonight
Also I have seen some 14 or 16 volt lead acid batteries used in race cars
Don't know what the chargers will truly take but with your car running you get between 13.8-14.8 volts

Just a thought

[DavidH]

The Triton is not going to charge these Li-Po large packs I don't believe.

Chris that designed the Ion was telling that you can basically fly continous if you have 4 battery packs.
You fly 2 packs for 5 to 6 mins and then put them on charge. Fly the other 2 packs for 5 to 6 mins and put them on charge. He is saying the batteries on charge can recharge in about 30 mins doing it this way. You take the packs out of the heli and put them on charge as soon as your finished with a 5 to 6 min flight. Keep rotating like this. That is what he was explaining to me a while back.
Chris is now working at MA, he is an EE and he lives and eats this new battery technology. When he gets back from Toledo I will invite him to join here.

David

[WillJames]

SOunds great David. We need a battery GuRu here!

THanks!!

[Tom Fiddler]

I charge 20 Nimh in series. they peak around 30 volts
the Triton is limited to about 3 amps charge rate with this number of cells
at a 3 amp charge at 29 volts the Triton is drawing around 9 amps from the power supply
I like my Triton but for big Lipolys it won't be the ticket for sure

[Jared J]

I really have to get one of those Orbits. I have heard nothing but good stuff about them.

[EricLarson]

The Ion batteries (at least the 10S4P ones) are 8000mah or 8amp. There are only a few chargers that will push 8 with lithium cells. Looks like Futaba's new charger, Augusto's (if he builds it), Orbit, and the larger Schultze will do it. I am just runing the $150 small Schultze 330 charger and it does 5 amps. It takes me about 1.5 hours to bring the packs back up after a 10 min flight. I am charging the packs seperately 5S as this reduces the posibility of imballance or overcharge and hurting the pack or possibly causing a fire.

Also keep in mind I am pulling 18 amps out of my power supply charging 10 cells at 5 amps! If you are charging at 8 amps or if you want to charge 2 sets of packs at once, you will need some serious power! I have AC at my local field so it is nice, but I think for traveling I may pick up one of the Honda Generators.

The limit right now on charging above 1C is the chargers. The packs stay cold and we are dumping them around 50 amps. Right after a flight, you can plug them up as even while charging, they are cold in about 10 min.

2 sets of packs should work good. As David said, you do not need to charge to 100% and the packs are probably 90% full after 1 hour or less with an 8amp charger. The problem with flying the pack at 90% full has nothing to do with pack life, but the output voltage will be a bit lower and that will result in not quite as much power. The lower the pack voltage, the more amps you need to get the power.. more amps = more heat, which is what will kill the motor.

Right now the limit appears to be the motors. They work good, but you can overheat them if you gear it too deep or just don't let up once in a while. The new batteries are great, and I really never saw them above 140F.

The machine is a lot of fun. It is just that electrics are new, and not all of the same ideas work. If everyone takes it easy and learn's it, they will not have problems..

[jwooten]

I will to agree with Eric. Cool down is about 15 minutes with a fan on the batteries. About 1 hour 20 minutes to full charge. I am charging four 3s3p packs at once. It is taking about 10 amps per charger to charge at 6.6 amps. A deep cycle battery is having trouble delivering this current without voltage drop. The generator should be here next week:)

Jimmy

[Ben74]

i charge my 4s3p 6600mah tanic packs with my astro 109 lithium charger off a 115Ah deep cycle battery from costco. i have run up to three 109s off the same deep cycle at the same time with no problem. i don't know how many charges the deep cycle will give me because i haven't done an all day flying session in quite a while.

the 109 will bring the packs to 90% charged in one hour. you can fly them 90% charged if you want. the last 10% takes another half hour to go in, but it's hardly worth waiting for that last 10%.

[jwooten]

Welcome onboard Ben,
I have found 3 chargers are the most you can run at one time on a deep cycle.
For the second charge, I can only run 2.

Jimmy

[Tom Fiddler]

Thanks Guy's this info is great :shock:

[GGoodrum]

I too have run three AF 109s off the same deep-cycle Optima (from Costco...) battery, but most of what we've been flying (with Ben ^ :)) have been 3p configurations of the TP "gen2" packs (12s3p in his Predator and in my Logo 24, 10s2p in my Logo 10 and 8s3p in our friend, Nick's Logo 20. As Ben says, it'll take an hor to reach the 90% level, but mostly we wait them out for the full 1:20.

The exception is the two 5s4p packs Nick now has for his Joker (same cells as the Ion packs, but configured differently...). In that case, Nick usually flies for about 9-10 minutes and then puts them on the charger. He then will fly his Logo 20 for awhile. His Schulze 626 can put most of the charge back into his 5s4p packs in about 40 minutes.

Nick actually has three of the Optimas, two which hooks in parallel for the 626. That'll last him the whole day, usually.