Lipo Charging

[daveimi]

Oh cool ok that's great thanks How do the expensive ones like this charge? Is it through the balance plug and discharge plug etc?

http://www.hobbyking.co.uk/hobbyking..._GENUINE_.html

[grant_ploughbot]

Oh cool ok that's great thanks How do the expensive ones like this charge? Is it through the balance plug and discharge plug etc?

http://www.hobbyking.co.uk/hobbyking..._GENUINE_.html

£16 for a lipo charger is excessively cheap. Expensive chargers are around £200-300 plus power supply. depending on what your doing I would be vary wary of such cheap quality chargers. I've seen a number of them fail in a way that can cause damage to your batteries, and in turn add unnessary risk to your home. It doesn't mean you should never buy a cheap charger, but you will need to take extra care when charging and NEVER leave them unattended incase of a failure.

To answer your question though, higher power chargers (not higher cost) tend to charge through the main power leads whilst using the balance leads to measure the voltage difference between each cell. If they are out of balance they will charge through the main leads and discharge individual cells at the same time. This isn't ideal as it builds up heat, but also isn't great for the batteries. It also takes a long time to charge if your batteries are getting weak or out of balance.

More expensive chargers such as the CellPro/PowerLab range charge through both sets of leads. They will slow charge through the balance port to increase a cell voltage rather than discharge all the others to lower them. They look after the batteries far better.