How Long Will the Astro Blinky Balancer Balance?

[iflynething]

I forgot to balance while I was charging a pack so I let it go after the fact and it still connected. After about 10 min of balancing, there were no lights coming on the blinky balancer.

I have in the past left it on for many hours and I would still get some sort of blinking.

While I've got ya, could you explain what the blinks even mean. The only thing I know its that when I first plug it up and the three lights come on (i'm running 3S right now) the voltage is good.

What else though?

Thanks

~Michael~

[Paul Hinz]

It does not matter when you balance the pack. The blinky will work before, during, or after charging the pack.

The blinky when first plugged in will light the number of series cells a 3S will light 3 LEDs a 4S will light 4 LEDs. After showing the cell count the LEDs will light to show which cell is being discharged.

Paul

[redgiki]

If your Blinky is not blinking anymore, you have a nicely-balanced pack. This is actually a defining characteristic of appropriate cell matching! High-quality packs are discharged and charged at least once at the assembler using a CBA-like graphing tool in order to match cells discharge curves.

Cells with matching discharge curves need little or no balancing. The more active your Blinky, the worse-matched your cells are. Conversely, the less your Blinky blinks, the better-matched your cells are.

So far, the packs my balancer has the easiest time with are Flight Power Evo Lite 18C. Not necessarily a recommendation, but an observation. Comparing to Thunder Power, Hextronik, Loong Max, A123 (self-made, I admit that I didn't graph discharges on these cells), Common Sense R/C (15C, four years old, getting really saggy), and a few no-name brands.

[iflynething]

Oh, alrighty then. That makes sense.

Thanks for the help.

~Michael~