Top 5 RC LiPo Battery Mistakes of 2021 and How to Avoid Them

[slick2500]

Rather informative video breaking down a few things to consider when buying a battery.

 

[BashTillBroken]

Here’s one
Same battery in both photos

 

[jkflow]

Good info in the video.
@bashtillbroken, one of your leads internal to the Lipo is broken, seen it several times. It's one of the tabs of the Lipo cell itself. That throws off the reference of the charger/checker and they show stupid values.
By all means, I was never able to fix those issues, mainly because they literally break where it enters the protective case and heating that up without it blowing up is a bit of a challenge.

IMHO it's trash worthy unless you are comfortable making it a lower cell count Lipo by removing the defective one.

 

[3d-rc.myshopify.com]

My oops is there is a plane up there with a lipo now at zero volts

 

[1coopgt]

My oops is there is a plane up there with a lipo now at zero volts

View attachment 152332

Nice Tree.

 

[jkflow]

Sure there is, right next to the Ferrari
At least you don't have to worry about discharging prior disposal.

 

[*420+3RC*]

I run the spektrum battery. 1. And this charger in pic. Bundle pack when I bought the rig. First rig....didnt know. Do they discharge themselves? Like if I thought I was gonna be able to run then didnt. What should I do? How or does my chrger discharge? Im gonna buy a couple more batteries but these are expensive. For what?

 

[slick2500]

I run the spektrum battery. 1. And this charger in pic. Bundle pack when I bought the rig. First rig....didnt know. Do they discharge themselves? Like if I thought I was gonna be able to run then didnt. What should I do? How or does my chrger discharge? Im gonna buy a couple more batteries but these are expensive. For what?

View attachment 152378

I thought I heard that the Smart batteries do discharge themselves. But I would get the better Spektrum Smart Charger though.
We have a sticky at the top of this section for batteries and chargers.

 

[*420+3RC*]

Right on thx

 

[jkflow]

Yes, the Smart batteries discharge themselves. I believe it's over a 10 day period. Nothing for you to do.

 

[*420+3RC*]

Yes, the Smart batteries discharge themselves. I believe it's over a 10 day period. Nothing for you to do.

Good. Because ive not been a good battery owner. I def gotta get a diff charger and get me a system of when I'm gonna run so I don't charge batteries without a way to discharge them till say after work. 10-12hrs of them sitting charged

 

[Armarookie43]

Rather informative video breaking down a few things to consider when buying a battery.

Nice. How about temperature? How hot is too hot for batteries when running our RC vehicles hard when it's summer? I'm trying to put fans on top of my batteries so that they can stay warm and not too hot? Or that doesn't work?

 

[jkflow]

Running in hot weather is challenging. Batteries should stay below 140F, as a rule of thumb. Fans do not help here, you have a big block of laminate separated by insulators, you might cool down the top cell, but the rest won't see any benefit.

You should be fine running your cells for single runs, just don't make the mistake and recharge them right away, let them cool down first.

 

[Armarookie43]

Running in hot weather is challenging. Batteries should stay below 140F, as a rule of thumb. Fans do not help here, you have a big block of laminate separated by insulators, you might cool down the top cell, but the rest won't see any benefit.

You should be fine running your cells for single runs, just don't make the mistake and recharge them right away, let them cool down first.

Damn. Cool thanks for the info. So I guess if you find out with your temperature gun that your batteries are above 140F call it a day? I went with the biggest connectors that I could find, QS8, since I didn't trust the XT150S with my huge XLX2 and 1100kv motor with 35/47 gearing on my 30lbs Outcast 8s. I was thinking that was making my batteries so hot, but I guess it's just the crazy heat and humidity here in south Texas the bigger culprit. My batteries were hot to the touch (powerhobby 4s graphene 8000mah 120C). I think that I saw 150F when I checked them. That's not good.

 

[slick2500]

Running in hot weather is challenging. Batteries should stay below 140F, as a rule of thumb. Fans do not help here, you have a big block of laminate separated by insulators, you might cool down the top cell, but the rest won't see any benefit.

You should be fine running your cells for single runs, just don't make the mistake and recharge them right away, let them cool down first.

Isn't 140 a bit high? I thought it was closer to 120 where the heat starts to diminish performance of the lipo?

-edit- after looking around on Google I couldn't really find anything official but this was the first thing that popped up.

"Temp limit for lipo is usually quoted as 140F, but if its getting that hot, its prob getting damaged as well. Lipo getting warm is a sign its taxing for the lipo to generate the current thats being demanded."

 

[jkflow]

140-150F is what I see as well during summer and I don't run that much but mainly because I don't enjoy the 95F ambient. You need to gear down during summer, that is about the only thing you can do. Obviously 120F is better but when you start out at 100F it's not realistic.For me it's more a delta of 40F that I don't want to exceed.

 

[Armarookie43]

Isn't 140 a bit high? I thought it was closer to 120 where the heat starts to diminish performance of the lipo?

140-150F is what I see as well during summer and I don't run that much but mainly because I don't enjoy the 95F ambient. You need to gear down during summer, that is about the only thing you can do. Obviously 120F is better but when you start out at 100F it's not realistic.For me it's more a delta of 40F that I don't want to exceed.

I will probably just not run my 30lbs beasts non stop. That should help. I usually run two at the same time anyways. One jump, stops, then goes the other one. It's hard to stop when you are having so much fun doing 20ft plus jumps

 

[evberkel]

I have 3 2s batteries and don’t know much about the technology end charging. I left the batteries fully charged for a couple of weeks now. Decided, based on the video, to put them in storage mode. Now all 3 have excact 7,2 volt. Is that Oke? I have 5500mah 50c 7,4 volt batterie. Gens-Ace bashing serie.

 

[Twoteccs]

Rather informative video breaking down a few things to consider when buying a battery.

So are 100 c batteries bad???

 

[Armarookie43]

So are 100 c batteries bad???

Not necessarily, but you have to double check yourself and see what others say about a particular battery if they have used it before. My 100C Yowoo 4s graphene battery seems to have way more punch than my 140C Turnigy Rapids regular lipo 4s ones as an example. Now the graphene thing is another can of worms, but it seems to me that the graphene batteries have more performance in them from those two examples.