lipo

I need more lipo and wanted to try something lighter weight to see how the HCP100S will do. The Hobby King Nano-Tech 330mAh made for the Trex 150 touts 45-90c. Let’s see how it matches up to the HiSky HCP100S stock 450mAh 25c pack.

I have two of the HiSky 450mAh and three of the Nano-Tech 330mAh.

Click to view the larger graph…

I was only able to pull 2A from my iCharger 106B+. And I estimated that the HCP100S pulls about 2.8A or so. But the graph above gives us a good basis for comparision.

The NanoTech claims 40-90C. And it does gives an ok discharge the first minute or so. The HiSky 25c does keep the voltage up longer.

I get about 6mins with the 330mAh pack. And about roughly 8mins with the HiSky 450mAh.

The HiSky’s ability to maintain a higher voltage through the flight makes up for the fact that it’s a heavier pack. My skill level doesn’t allow me to feel the weight on the HCP100S. The brushless motor sill makes it super power and peppy to me. And the weight makes it feel more stable in the breeze.

But the Nano-Tech are about half the cost, factoring HobbyKing shipping. And 5-6mins is a good amount of time for flying. You just need to install a balance plug to use the Trex 150 compatible lipo.

Just thought I’d share.

update 2015-07-01: I currently like the  Nano-tech 300mah 2S 45~90C. The measured IR is about 20ohm versus the 50-60ohms of the Trex 330 version. And it seems the Trex 330 version is already slightly puffy even though I haven’t flown it much.

Just wanted to share my new 1S LiPo charging station. I took a 1s Micro parallel charging paraboard from Hobby King and mod it to become a serial charging board. I think this paraboard would be cheaper and easier to mod. Plus, it does not have the LED that drains the first lipo cell if you don’t remove the lipo right after charging has completed.

With this mod, I can use the balance port of the charger to individually charge each cell. I can charge from 1 cell to 6 cells.

Here’s a closer look.

Here it is, charging two 150mAh LiPo. The stick the temperature probe near the cells so the iCharger could monitor the temp and be able to shut down the charging if any cell rises to unsafe temperature.

And here’s how you configure the board if you were to charge 3 lipo cells. You simply move the positive lead to the last cell. I like it because I can charge all the various connectors normally used with 1s LiPo.

You can also charge different capacity LiPo together. But for safety, you would limit yourself to the charge rate of the lowest capacity connected lipo. Not a big deal if you have the time. Otherwise, it would be better to charge cell combination with similar capacities.

Hope that inspires you with your own mods.

I needed some 250mAh 1S LiPo that will fit in the battery cage of some of the micro quad that has found it’s home in my growing fleet. On the forum, many suggest the cell BangGood listed for 5@ $12 is the best performing lipo for their micro quad. I purchased them to check them out for myself.

They just arrived and I noticed that they were labeled FullyMax 250mAh. I know from the FBL80 that HiSky do use FullyMax lipo with their label on top. So I compared it to the 250mAh 25c lipo that came with my Hobby King Qbot Micro (A HiSky FF120 rebrand).

Here are the results.

Both 1s 250mAh weighs ~7.90g.
Both lipo has the same dimensions and looks exactly the same.

And here are their discharge curve for comparision:

Just sharing a discharge curve I just grabbed while cycling the new Hyperion 550mAh and Glacier 600mAh cells. Interesting result.

I’ll discharge at 2A to 3.7v at a later time to see how well the cells really stack up.

Preliminary results.

Got brand new cells and starting to wake them up from slumber. So cycling them a few times at a gentle .6A discharge. Here are the graph so far…

I heard some brands such as Hyperion, if properly cared for, takes 40+ cycle to break in. Wow. I think I have been killing mine in less cycles than that. :)

Will test pulling 1A discharge to 3.8v next.

I remember when a good, computerized charger cost hundreds of dollars. New hobbyist now has a mired of options. Here’s a inexpensive one from Hobby King that many people already know. It’s based on the Imax B6 design, which there are many clones of.

Currently charging a v929 500mAh LiPo

I’ve used to to charge Lead Acid battery, NiCad and NiMH packs. LiION for my camera and LiPo packs for my RC stuff. It’s pretty verstile.

I was delighted to find that you can get a TTL-serial USB adapter and hook it up to the computer to log a battery’s discharge curve like I was able to in this post.

With a parallel charging leads, you can charge many 1s cells, like the ones used with the Xieda 9958, mSR, v911, Solo Pro, v929, etc…

Anyways, this is what you need to buy:

• Accucel-6 Charger
• AC Adapter (You can use an old laptop AC adapter. I am currently using a IBM T20 power adapter)
• Charging Leads:
  • If you have a v929, Blade mQX, Blade 120SR, etc… They use JST connectors and here’s the parallel charging harness: JST Parallel Charging Harness
    
  • For Eflite/Parkzone type such as mSR, Xieda 9958, mCX/mCX2, etc… The UM pico plug parallel charging harness is what you need: Pico Plug Set
    
  • The mCPX uses this charging harness: Ultra Micro Charging Harness
    

There’s debates on the safety of charging cells in parallel. Hyperion is a reputable LiPo manufacturer and they have a 1S Parallel Adapter for sale. You can purchase this for charging 6 Eflite style 1s in parallel instead of the Hobby King harness above: Hyperion Micro 1S Battery Parallel Adapter (HP-LGUM6PADAP)

Another charger that caught my eye is the Gens Ace iMars.

I think it function similar to the Accucel-6, but it has a nicer updated casing IMHO. Plus, it can do internal resistance reading. Some newer model Accucel-6 with a IR sticker on the box has this ability too…but getting it is a hit an miss currently. Remember, there are tons of other chargers out there.

More reading on parallel charging:
About parallel charging of Lixx/PB packs

And since I am playing with the WL Toys v929 Quad most of the time nowadays…here’s the battery I have tried for it so far.

I like the stock v929 battery for it’s weight, size and relative performance. But at roughly $5-$6, I rather buy the Turnigy Nanotech 600mAH @$2.58. It actually works really well. I got a bunch more in so I’ll take a closer look, but for the price, I think it’s a good solution for the v929, mQX, Solo Pro 328, Blade 120SR.

Ever want to use the popular Eflite/Parkzone style batteries with your v911? Here’s a mod that uses the Hobby King mini extension plugs (Only $0.52 using BuddyCode) and fit it nicely into the V911 charger to enable you to charge both types of batteries.

Simply cut the dividing bars. Easily done with an xacto knife. I cut one bar from the front and two bars underneath. It’s obvious when you open it up.

Then the connector fits in really tightly. Just perfect. If you find it too tight a fit, just sand/file off a little bit of plastic off the charger.

Then I glued down the plug and wires from underneath to ensure it won’t move.

As for wiring, just solder the wires up appropriately. Red to + terminal and Black to – terminal.

I finally got a hold of the new EFlite 150mAh 25c LiPo. I was curious about this cell because a Horizon Hobby employee said that the chemistry is better than their prior 1s cells. One person on the forum noticed that the head speed of their mSR X has a higher pitch, which suggest it was turning at a higher RPM than their Hyperion 160. That with the MSRP of $5.99 and Horizon Hobby listing it for a reasonable $3.99, it made me want to get one to put to the test. This proved to be difficult to find as it’s out of stock everywhere. The times when it came in stock at my local hobby shop, they marked it up at $9.99. This is the Hobbytown in Escondido. They also marked up the Hyperion 160mAh to $9.99 that can usually be found for $6.95 elsewhere.

New E-flite 150mAh LiPo

Anyways, finally found one at Discount Hobby Warehouse for $5.99. My curiousity got the best of me and I grab a single cell for testing. Now, bare in mind that the performance can vary from cell to cell. And I like to have at least three cells to give a better representation of it’s performance. But it’s interesting to see the result nonetheless.

It was nicely packaged. Weighs in at 4.4g. You can reduce that slightly if you remove the sticker because it wraps around the entire cell, with a little tab on one end. Anyways, make sure to click on the graph below to view it full size.

I need to grab a new order of Turnigy 160 and Turnigy Nano-Tech 160 from HobbyKing to see if those cells are really that bad or the ones I have are just worn. I also have some MiniAviation 180mAh coming from the UK. Will put that to the test once they arrive.