charging without balancing?

[flipnap]

Hey all, i just picked up my trex 500 today .. YAY.. and i bought the new hyperion dual charger and am using 3300 5s lipos.. only problem is they didnt have the adaptersa for the battery to the balancer on the charger.. the LHS guy said that i can charge a few times without using the balancing plug without any problems, and that he only balance charges one or twice a month.. i always balanced charged automatically because i was using eflites onboard charger which charges the balancer automatically.. so is that safe to do? to charge directly through the leads without balancing? plus ive always had plug-n-play chargers, faced with all these prgrammable numbers, with amps and stuff, im afraid im going to blow myself up!! :shock:

thanks yall
flip

[HPSOV2]

A good quality pack that is in balance to start with, and is used properly will very rarely ever go out of balance until near the end of its 'life'.
It is perfectly safe to charge without a balancer... so long as you know your battery is in balance to start with. If you have a multimeter you can check the voltage of each cell through the balance connector, if all is in balance then there is no worries charging without the balancer (it might be worth manually re-checking the balance at the end of the charge, as this is where it becomes critical).
Its worth adding that another useful function of balance charging is that most chargers these days will terminate the charge should any cell go over 4.3v, which could occur if you make a wrong selection of the cell count on the charger. I am sure the vast majority of 'fires' during charging are caused by user or charger error selecting the wrong cell count, so this safety feature of balance charging can be useful.

[WillJames]

WHen the packs are new and before the cells "settle" in, a balancer is a very good thing to have. It takes working lipo cells about 10 or so cycles before they settle in and become pretty predictable. IMHO. Get the adapters would be a good idea.

[istandalone]

yea, definitley get the adaptors but don't be afraid to use your packs in the mean time. just be sure to take it easy on them for the first few cycles, maybe only use 50% of the pack instead of 80% and charge at 1C.

[redgiki]

It takes working lipo cells about 10 or so cycles before they settle in and become pretty predictable.

A pack of well-matched cells won't exhibit the behavior you describe. They'll be balanced first charge, every charge. Many LiPo vendors, IMHO, are relying on their customers to have balancers now, and ignore the CBA-graph-matching step of pack assembly. They'll just solder together cells with little care for the discharge curve and capacity of individual cells which often vary by as much as 10%. Sure, the end result is the same, but it's a warm-fuzzy feeling to be bored watching the balancer because it almost never blinks.

I balance-charge every time now, but got superb pack longevity from decent packs even only balanced once every 10-20 charges using a stand-alone balancer.

Memo to me: Get rich. Save money. Buy a CBA. Start sacrificing packs to evaluate how well they are matched. Repeat.