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Balancing on every charge is not mandatory from a chemical standpoint (though FRA rules seem to disagree), but it does help to keep your lipos in the best condition. What is done often is use charge only at events, balance charge when coming back home. Most events you won't need to charge more that 6-8 times if you run on one set, so if you have 2 sets that even halfs it. If your cells get so out of whack within so few charges that they need a balance you need to take a serious look at that pack.
Investing in a charger with a proper balancing function that adds charge to cells lacking behind instead of overcharging and discharging those ahead ( which is what cheaper chargers do) is worth considering if you charge and balance at events, but if you have time to spare at home the cheaper balancers will work reasonably well.
A bit if theory on balance charging and how cheap chargers work:
https://youtu.be/wIbHLacozFo?t=6m10s
go to 6:10 for the interesting stuff.
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Most new chargers always do a proper charge & balance by default. My Bantam chargers have a fast charge option but that still balances and saves time by only charging up to 95%. I can't see the logic in trying to save time by not balancing - get a charger that puts out enough current to charge your packs quickly and balance every time so the cells never get far out of balance in the first place, so the problem mentioned in the video never happens.
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With cheap chargers this problem always occurs. You overcharge and discharge so effectively you keep abusing those cells that got to their end charge quicker. By charging to 95% you avoid the issue all together but then I see no point in balancing as you don't overcharge anyway.
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For the record, I don't advocate to never balance, just that balancing with cheap balancers every single time is not making the packs last much longer than charging every time and balancing once in a while.
For best results and longest lasting packs, get a more elaborate charger or charge the cells individually.
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My point was "Don't buy a cheap charger" :). If you had a cell go bad during an event and charged without balancing, the remaining good cells would get seriously over charged and risk a fire. The point with the fast charge option is that the last few percent charge is always at a very low current, so you have to wait a lot longer for just a small amount of extra charge.
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Then we agree. :) As a rule I check my packs with a lipo checker before putting them on a charger in case one cell is dead or damaged. If so, then I don't even bother with charging.
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My actual point was that if you're running 2 or more packs in parallel, you need to make sure the the packs are charged to the same voltage before connecting them up, else they can self balance the voltage between them rather rapidly. I wasn't talking about balancing in the usual sense of balancing the individual cells in the pack
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I have 2 nearly new Lipo packs for sale as I bought the wrong voltage :-(
They are optipower 6cell 100c packs I'm open to offers and will be taking them to next event.
