Kraton LIHV LIPO BATTERIES

[Jluther@becoinc]

So I bought a SMC 6200 mah 150C battery.
Local HS told me it would last longer with regular 4.2 charging. Would it be worth my money to get a charger that will charge to 4.35 per cell? What do you guys think about charging a hv battery to 4.2?

 

[SrC]

Actually, your LHS is dead on correct. And Most decent modern chargers actually have a HV setting. Or able to adjust the Voltage cut-off to 4.35v per cell.
But yeah you can just charge it at 4.2v, and you will be fine. Yeah the cells will last longer because you are never peaking out the cells to their max. designed voltage. And perfectly ok to do so , any Lipo can be charged below its peak voltage and this makes them last slightly longer, at least in theory. Just that HV packs are much more $expensive$.
Is it really worth it in the end? Only you and your wallet can answer that. SMC makes good packs in general. Just that HV packs are not commonly purchased. Not much of a thing. Been around for some years now. I think the ESC mfrs, haven't quite embraced HV packs completely, yet. I see many LHS's/vendors being "stuck" with them. Nothing wrong with them. Except just being more expensive.
And... the most important thing is that The ESC must be able to handle a HV pack that IS charged at 4.35v per cell., if you intend to.

Most decent ESC's that cannot run HV Pack's voltage, will see an Over-voltage at start up, and Not intialize and Power On. (A fail safe) Best case scenario.
Worse case the ESC becomes toast in a split second.
Which Charger are you currently using now? Doesn't make sense to buy one that is HV settable, if your ESC won't handle it. And a regular Non HV charger will charge an HV pack to the max of 4.2v per cell anyway. If that is your intent. Why spend all the extra coin on a HV charger and HV pack if you wont use the 4.35v anyway? Not practical. I am sure your LHS will want to sell you both.


EDITED a few times for clarity.

 

[Hector_Fisher]

As @SrC stated, the question is whether you are able to use those as HV or not on the ESC. May want to check applicability with the ESCs you have.

I'd personally take the longer cycle life by charging to 4.2v. There really isn't that much extra power above 4.2v per cell unless you need it for that last 5% or so of power

 

[Greengaunja]

I always meant to ask if really, was there anything to gain with the slightly higher voltage? My only LIHV batteries I own are Protek 9600 130c and 8600 Mah 120c that were included with the TF2 I bought. It runs on the HW Fusion Pro 2300kv. There is a noticeable difference in performance from them or my ZEEE 5000mah 100c. Yet the guys in my crawl group say this is a result of better battery/higher discharge and not the extra voltage. If they are correct, whats the real point of LIHV? Thoughts?
FWIW, the LiHVs are fully charged on LiHV settings.

 

[Jluther@becoinc]

I always meant to ask if really, was there anything to gain with the slightly higher voltage? My only LIHV batteries I own are Protek 9600 130c and 8600 Mah 120c that were included with the TF2 I bought. It runs on the HW Fusion Pro 2300kv. There is a noticeable difference in performance from them or my ZEEE 5000mah 100c. Yet the guys in my crawl group say this is a result of better battery/higher discharge and not the extra voltage. If they are correct, whats the real point of LIHV? Thoughts?
FWIW, the LiHVs are fully charged on LiHV settings.View attachment 300885

The charger I have says online that it will charge LiHV but I can’t get it to. I plan on buying one if I can’t get mine to do it. What charger are you guys using

 

[Greengaunja]

I have the HTRC Dual charger. When scrolling battery types LiHV LiPO LiFe pop up BUT with my SkyRC single charger, you have to select liPO and then change it from Lipo/LiHV/LiFe by scrolling through charge/discharge options. Yours may possibly do the same as the SkyRC
HTRC LiPo Charger Dual RC Charger 1-6S Balance Battery Discharger C240 AC150W DC240W 10A for Li-ion Life NiCd NiMH LiHV PB Smart Batteries https://a.co/d/5VKcT2K
SKYRC S65 AC Balance Charger / Discharger Max Power 65W Charge Current 6A for 2-4S LiPo LiHV Battery https://a.co/d/9as1AxW

Note the skyrc model here(same as mine) can only charge 2s-4s. The HTRC charges 1s-6s