FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

I just purchased a brand new Lipoly Battery pack (3 cell 11.1volt, 2100 mAh). I also just purchased a TRITON Computerized charger / Discharger Cycler. The instructions that came with the battery are saying I should charge a 2100 mAh Pack @ 2.1 Amps or below. The Triton charger says that a new Lipo pack should charge at no greater than 500mA. Not sure what to do cause these type of batteries are a time bombs waiting for you to make one stupid mistake! I know that the voltage on the triton charger should be set at 11.1volts, No problem with that, But Im not sure what to do about the Amps and how long should it take to charge the Lipoly. I set the timer to their 60 minute recommendation, but that's based on their suggested charge rate of 1A.

Also not sure of how the TRITON Charger Displays Amperage in it's Display window! For example is 500mA Displayed in the window only as 0.5A and 2.1 amperes displayed only as 2.1A.......???????? Scared to plug this thing into a lipo.........[X(]

FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

Sorry, Just pushing my Thread back to the top......... I need advice here........[&:]

evil_nathan

As a general rule - the first few charges of your lipo pack should be less than or equal to 1/2 C - in your case, a 1 Amp charge rate would be safe for the first few charges.

Be very careful though - the amount of charge rate that a lipo can safely be charged at varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

I have charged my 1600mah packs at anywhere between 800mA thru to 1.6A with no problems.

As far as I have read - the voltage is the most critical factor, and the Amp rate shouldn't exceed 1C (in your case, 2.1Amps, as per the instructions you spoke of...) sustained over-voltage charge can explode your lipo - however it will heat up a LOT, then it will expand, and then - some time later, it will vent, or if you're really lucky, vent with flames.

Even swollen lipos can sometimes function as per normal.


Nathan.

FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

Thanks Nathan,
The battery label says 11.1 volts and triton say set the voltage to battery label specs, Im good their! Triton also says to Charge the new lipo battery at no more than 500mA for the first few charges, and Triton also says that if I charge the lipo at 1A the maximum charge time should be set to only 60 minutes! But how long do you think it will take to charge at 500mA ???........[&:]

evil_nathan

It's actually really simple....

To charge your 2100mAH battery, it needs (when empty) 2100 milliamps to 'fill' it.

So, if you are setting your charge rate at 1 Amp, that's 1 Amp per hour being put into the battery.

So - it's going to take you just over 2 hours at 1 Amp charge rate, or almost exactly 1 hour at 2.1Amp charge rate.

At 500 ma though - your gonna be waiting at least 4 hours or so.

By the way - make sure u NEVER discharge your battery lower than 3 volts PER CELL... in other words - don't let your 11.1V 3S battery drop below 9V.

Simple way to tell, LiPos absolutely DIE when they are empty - so if the heli won't fly anymore, it's most likely empty enough to recharge the full amount.

I fly my dragonfly, and my ZAP, on an 11.1V cell - and when they wont fly anymore , the battery is usually at 9.2Volts or so - well and truly empty.

If you discharge your battery below 3Volts per cell - you may never be able to recharge it again.

Mine dropped to 8.6Volts once - and it took me 4 attempts on my digital charger before it started taking current again. Nearly cost me a lot of money

My friend, well - he wasn't so lucky. Accidently left his LiPo hooked up to his park-flyer overnight. Dead as a doornail. Nothing we could do would make it work again - and the multimeter was showing it as an open circuit. Wierd.

Hope this helps,

Nathan.

FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

MMMM, One thing concerns me! You said that if I charge my lipo at the rate of 1Amp It would take me just over 2 hours at 1 amp per hour, But how come Trition's Charger manual says that a lipo battery should be charged at a maximum of 60 minutes at a rate of 1A ....? [&:] MAYBE THE MANUAL WAS RIGHT! MAYBE IT COULD ONLY CHARGE FOR 1 HOUR, SEE MY NEXT POST RIGHT UNDER THIS ONE

FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

Okay Nathan, Maybe you can figure this one out........[&:] I pluged my lipoly into the Trition Charger last night, Set the Amps to charge at 1A then I plugged in the Lipo and the charger was charging at the selected 1 amp, BUT, as soon as the battery voltage (displayed in the charge window) Reached 12.6 volts (12.6v is the recommended reading you sould get after a charge according to battery manufacture specs.), as soon as the 12.6v was reached the Amps slowly and steadily declined to .9 .8 .7 until it reached 0.0, Then the Charger beeped and said that the Battery charging cycle was complete, BUT, it was only 72 minutes and the Milliamperes never went up to 2100 mAh, The display showed that It stopped charging at around 1085 mAh after only 72 minutes. What the hell does that mean, Am I fully charged or not?.........[:@] I haven't taken it out to test fly these batteries yet, But if you have any idea what all this means drop me a suggestion.......[X(]

Thanks.........

evil_nathan

Ok - firstly, there's a quick explaination of the short 'first charge' time....

They NEVER ship un-charged LiPos for the reason I gave you before... if it accidently discharges below 3Volts per cell while it's on the shelf / in the packet... then the battery will be dead before it gets a chance to be used...

... so manufacturers charge the LiPo fully, then discharge it to varying amounts, then pack them and ship them.

The slowly falling charge rate is also perfectly normal...

A LiPo charging at 1C (1 x it's capacity) will acheive 80% of it's charge in about an hour, thanks to the constantly varying current and voltage that LiPos need to charge correctly. Then, at this 80% capacity point, the charger starts 'tapering off' the charge amps untill it reaches 0.

An example that the LHS gave me..... if I was gonna throw 20 litres (we're metric over here) of water into a 20 litre bucket.... I'd wanna get most of it in there as fast as I can, but at the end, I'd have to pour slowly to get the bucket perfectly full and not spill anything.

Not that you will 'spill' any current, but the digital charge process that LiPos need is constantly testing the battery so as to not over-fill (and possibly EXPLODE ) the battery. As it gets close to full, it slows down the charge rate so as to get as close as possible to the full capacity, without overcharging.

As for the Triton saying 1A for 1Hour MAX, they MUST be talking about a 1000mah Lipo, cos anything else doesn't make sense

Hope this helps,

Nathan.

Dodgey99

You're a patient man, and a good teacher Nathan!

FF - Ignore the 1A 1 Hour. You've got confused somewhere. I have the Triton. The only limitation with the Triton is it will only go up to 2.5 or 3 Amps charge rate for Lips (can't remember which).

Here is the simple rule set:

Mah = the capacity a battery / or pack has. (1000 Mah is the same as 1.000 Amp Hour) - MillAmpHour = Thousandths of an amp hour

Lipo batteries can be charged at a max of their Mah rating. So a 1000mah (1Ah) Lipo pack can be charged at a max of 1Amp. And it will take an hour. It is called a 1Amp_hour battery because it will provide 1Amp of power , for an hour.

A 1500Mah (or 1.5Ah) battery can be charged at 1.5 Amps.
A 2700Mah (or 2.7Ah) battery can be charged at 2.7 Amps.

They will all take an hour because you are charging at the batteries's "Amp-Hour" rating (known as 1/C - you are charging at exactly the batteries' rating).

So saying you should only charge at 1Amp for 1 Hour for the Triton is nonsense. This would mean the Triton has a maximim rating of 1Amp for liops (It has a 2.5 or 3amp rating)

Charge your cells at 2.1Amp hour and you will be fine. They will take about 45 mins, allowing for the fact you never fully empty lipo batteries.

The important bit is not to go over 2.1Amps for your 2100Mah (2.1Ah) batteries, and NEVER get the voltage wrong.

I accidentally whacked 8Amps into a 2700 pack for a few seconds and all was fine!

The way Lipos are charged is quite clever. It's not like Ni-Mh where you get "false peaks". If your charge says a pack is full then it is.

What's also nice is you don't have to worry about charging partly charged packs. It matters not.

Triton saying a new pack should be charged at 600Mah for the first few times, in my mind, is also rubbish. I have a myriad of Lipos for lots of helis and they all run perfectly with no dicking about. They are probably just being as safe as they can.

The one thing I HAVE noticed is Lipo packs are fairly crap until their 3rd or 4th cycle/ use, then the true capacity comes alive and they rock.

FlyingFish

My Feedback: (17)

Okay, Let me first start off with a compliment for you two fine gents for all your help, knowlege, patients and understanding.....

I understand now how this Triton Charger works, and I find it to be one of the finest charges on the market! This thing is great it takes out all the guess work! If your lipo completes its charge at 12.6v and your presently at 11.9v you know your almost done! Total battery progress is reported on the display window the whole time, and it gives you the Elapsed charging time so that you dont have to remember when you plugged it in and you dont have to keep looking at your watch, WOW I love this charger!!!!!!!

So I guess the lipo battery company sent me my lipo battery about half charged like you spoke of, it only charged to 1080 mAh on the first charge last night cause their was probably 1020 mAh already in the battery when I got it........ 1080mAh + 1020mAh = 2100mAh, I think I'm getting the hang of this now...... By the way I took out my heli out last night about 11pm after it's first lipo charge and it flew my Corona 120 Helicopter PERFECT with the new lipo for about 18 minutes........

Then I charged the lipo this morning and it took about 2hrs 10min @ 1A to fully charge, But this time it went all the way up to the 2100 mAh, cause I used the battery last night. As I get more familiar with the Trition charger I can always bump up the Charge amps to 2.1A for faster charge times, But not till after the first 4 charges i guess....


Sorry If I seemed so Paraniod, But a year ago I purchased a lipo battery that came with it's own cheap grade charger for a 4 rotor Draganflyer heli and the charger had nothing but a steady light when charging, then a blinking light when charging was complete! The stupid thing was defective and it kepted charging until the lipo battery blew up on the 4th charge! The battery swelled and started leaking fluid, Me, at the time, Not knowing anything about lipo batteries, Picked it up and put it outside on the front porch cause I was worried that my wife would complain about the smell it let out, As soon as I put it down and turned my back to walk away I heard a large bang and felt the heat against my back, only to turn around and see a 3' x 3' foot diameter Fire ball......[X(]
Now I charge my lipos with a Fire Extinguisher by my side........

Thanks Againg Guys for all your Wonderful Help...!

Off to Fly again.........

evil_nathan

No probs

Nathan.