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31May/100

Multi charge leads

I was charging an 800mah 2S battery via the JST connector on my multi-charge lead. After the charge was finished, I went to unplug the battery and dragged it toward me over my bench, when the lipo started fizzing and smoking. I suspect the Tplug that wasn't in use at the time shorted out on a pen clip. The effect is as good as shorting out a Lipo across it's terminals.

The terminals have melted and the lipo has puffed so I've junked the battery. To avoid this in the future, I took an unused T connector and covered the terminals in silicone. When you look at all the leads on the harness, if a short is going to happen, it's going to be on the T connector with those exposed terminals sticking out.

Tagged as: battery, lipo No Comments

25Feb/104

How much current does a receiver battery monitor draw?

For all the years I've been flying RC my method for making sure my batteries are charged is to put em on the charger overnight before I go flying the next morning. Touchwood this has served me well and I don't believe I've ever lost a plan to flat batteries. I've never monitored the state of my receiver batteries throughout the day though. How many flights are they good for? 5, 10, 15? For me, I never seem to get a full day of flying, maybe 5 or 6 flights at the most and the receiver packs hold up fine but it still left me wondering, how many electrons are left in the tank after those flights.
I saw some cheapy battery monitors on ebay and thought I'd try one out. The two I bought didn't actually state the current draw but identical looking versions were touting 5 mA. I was keen to put them to the test.

Test 1: Current draw of just the battery monitor. 10mA.

A 4.8 volt, 1100mA NiCd battery is connected directly to the battery monitor with a multimeter in line. The monitor shows a reading second from the top in the "Perfect" range.