Battery - how low can I go????

[vortekyteky]

Hi all,

Very angry, second pack on the new battery and the LVC alarm unplugged when I was driving. When I checked the battery the reading were around the 2.85v mark After a while the volts slowly rose and came at a stop at: 3.14, 3.19, 3.19.

Is the battery permanently damaged? It is a CNHL racing series 5600mah 11.1v lipo 120c.

I have them on the charger as I am writing this and for some reason the IR on the batteries is better than it was on the previous charge??????

Also do you know if im supposed to take the clear wrapping that goes around the battery? its a hardcase pack.

Thanks.

 

[Sandracer_NL]

That’s pretty low. Hook them up to your charger and check the IR of the cells. Do the same next time you‘ve charged them. You may notice the IR of one of the cells is high, balance charging taking much longer than normally.
In either case I’d get rid of the lipo.

 

[vortekyteky]

That’s pretty low. Hook them up to your charger and check the IR of the cells. Do the same next time you‘ve charged them. You may notice the IR of one of the cells is high, balance charging taking much longer than normally.
In either case I’d get rid of the lipo.

Overall the IR of the cells is actually lower than previously, it took an 1hour 16mins to change at 5.5A, basically 1C. So very normal

 

[Sandracer_NL]

Maybe it‘s still OK. Keep an eye out when you start seeing drastically reduced runtime and temps of the lipo getting high.

 

[nino]

It's fine. I have brought cells from near 0V back to life.
It's not good for the cells but one incident won't hurt.

 

[Velodromed]

Don’t take that clear plastic off the hard case, I’ve had batteries where that was the only thing holding the hard case together. That’s really not that low. I have done similar, had Lipo alarms become unplugged or forgot to plug them in to begin with, and run batteries down to 2.0. I simply cycled them a couple times (slow charge then a slow back to storage then repeat ) and they’re still running fine.

I have another funny way of checking my lipos after all of the routine checks. I smell them before each time I charge them. I have a ridiculously strong sense of smell and Lipos smell sickly-sweet when a cell is compromised. I learned it when one time when I had a Lipo smelling sweet, ignored it, and that battery went up in flames. After a bit of research, I discovered when a Lipo cell is compromised and leaks, it has this weird sweet smell. So…have you smelled your lipo batteries today?

 

[vortekyteky]

Don’t take that clear plastic off the hard case, I’ve had batteries where that was the only thing holding the hard case together. That’s really not that low. I have done similar, had Lipo alarms become unplugged or forgot to plug them in to begin with, and run batteries down to 2.0. I simply cycled them a couple times (slow charge then a slow back to storage then repeat ) and they’re still running fine.

I have another funny way of checking my lipos after all of the routine checks. I smell them before each time I charge them. I have a ridiculously strong sense of smell and Lipos smell sickly-sweet when a cell is compromised. I learned it when one time when I had a Lipo smelling sweet, ignored it, and that battery went up in flames. After a bit of research, I discovered when a Lipo cell is compromised and leaks, it has this weird sweet smell. So…have you smelled your lipo batteries today?

thanks, I might cycle them 2 or 3 times. Maybe at 0.5C??? I usually charge them at 1C even though batteries say 5C max. Will be smelling them

 

[Velodromed]

thanks, I might cycle them 2 or 3 times. Maybe at 0.5C??? I usually charge them at 1C even though batteries say 5C max. Will be smelling them

I cycle mine 3-4 times when new at.75/C and also a couple times after things like, if I forget one and let it sit charged up or at low voltage too long, or run it below 3/cell. I’ve recovered batteries I’ve run to the 2.6 range. But if they get smelly or act ‘funny’, like puff some, I throw a brick at ‘em I’m usually not in a hurry so also tend to charge/store around .75C.

 

[nino]

Ditto on the smell, @Velodromed !

I first realised that when my metal battery box got a weird faint sweet smell... I googled it and found that's what lipos smell like.

And just last week a buddy's battery got damaged and as soon as he took it out of the truck I could immediately smell it so I told him to ditch the pack.

 

[Velodromed]

Ditto on the smell, @Velodromed !

I first realised that when my metal battery box got a weird faint sweet smell... I googled it and found that's what lipos smell like.

And just last week a buddy's battery got damaged and as soon as he took it out of the truck I could immediately smell it so I told him to ditch the pack.

Once you smell it, you can’t forget it. it’s quite unique.

 

[Hector_Fisher]

I have had batteries drop that low before. One acute incident won't necessarily be the death of them. It's likely the IR permanently raised just slightly. But no big deal, i'd chalk it up to a pretty low harm learning incident for you.

I had a few batteries (since retired) that had several instances where they dropped down to 2v on one of the cells. After the 2nd or 3rd time of that happening, the IR was noticeably higher on that one cell. That cell was subsequently was more susceptible to dipping below 3.0v afterwards due to the higher voltage sag, and it all went down hill from there.

I would recommend setting your LVC as high as you can on the truck. You don't really gain very many mah's below 3.5v per cell anyway.