I have a EOS720i super Duo3 charger and quadropower 8000 mah batteries. Using Andy's instructions I set a preset for lipo 14.8 volts 8000 c:16A d:5a. It charges to 16.9 volts however my initial tests with the cinestar only took the battery to 15.3 volts. To store it, in store mode it takes it to 15.3 volts. It says the input voltage is 14.9 volts but the actual battery voltage is 15.3. Do I have to get the battery voltage below 14.9 volts for the charger to give it a storage voltage of 14.9 volts?
Hi Dave: You should just be able to connect it up to the Super Duo and select "STORE" and the charger will charge it up, or discharge it down to the storage voltage. Are you saying that the Super Duo is display a battery voltage of 14.9 when the battery is actually at 15.3v? If so, how are you measuring the 15.3v please? Thanks Andy.
HI Andy It shows that the charger is applying 14.9 volts but the battery voltage is 15.3. I also noticed that in storage mode it was putting a 2.5 amp current load to the battery, where as the discharge had a negative amp load. I also noticed that there is a 3rd mode to my charger and its called discharge. I tried it overnight, it took the battery voltage down to 14.9. So I have 3 modes on my charger: Charging Storage Discharge
Andy I just noticed that I have using the PQ 7S adapter for my quadropower 8000 battery. I just went back and reviewed the 2nd DVD where you say to use the JST XH 7S adapter. Is there any difference if you plug the battery into the 4S connector? Both boards have them and the battery seems to fit into the 4S connector on both boards just fine. Looking through the Hyperion charger manual they don't list Quadropower for either board. Just wondering. Using the PQ7S adapter seems to have powered the battery to 16.7 volts just fine it just seemed to take the storage mode to 15.2 volts instead of 14.9 but like I mentioned in my above post it appears that the discharge mode takes it to 14.9. On another similar note: Is it ok if when I setup my batterey Lipo profile if I setup my charging current to 2 amps or less instead of 16A? I prefer to trickle charge the batteries for my capacity and better longer life. Does anyone have any experience charging the batteries at low current?
I believe 15.2 is the correct storage voltage. I think charging at 1C in your case 8A is fine, I charge all my batteries at 1C except for 1 which I charge at 2C as a test to see if its life is any shorter and if so wether charging at 2C outweighs the shortened life. I'm using turnigy nano tech batteries at the moment. I believe charging at less than 1C might not make any or minimal difference in battery life.
Hmm. I don't know what the differences are, Dave. I suspect it's just a case of the connector -- I really doubt the polarity of the wiring is different -- you'd have already discovered that the hard way if that was the case! If I understand what you're saying, it sounds like the charger is doing the correct thing. If you select STORE, the charger does whatever it has to to get the battery to storage voltage -- that might involving charging the LiPo up or discharging it down to storage voltage. The Discharge mode is for when you want to take the battery down to its lowest safe voltage, I believe. I've not done that with LiPo as they prefer to be at their Storage voltage. I think that Discharge is there primarily for NiCd batteries where you want to deep cycle them. @Sam: There seems to be considerable debate about the optimal charging rate. Thiago (search this forum for his name) has done a lot of battery testing. The only slightly counter-intuitive finding I recall was that charging at less than 1C seems to increase the amount of charge you can put into a LiPo. I hadn't expected that, but.... Andy.
HI Andy What should the storage voltage for the battery be? Right now its putting the battery at a storage voltage of 15.3 volts when I go through the storage mode. I though the batteries should be set to 14.8 for a "storage condition"?
I don't think there is a mandated storage voltage, Dave. The numbers I have in my head are 3.7v to 3.85v per cell, so that would put it between 14.8 and 15.4v. Andy.
Andy thanks for the reply. Do you know if there's a difference between using the PQ 75 adapter board verus the JST XH 7S adapter if you are plugging the battery into the 4S slot? The manual doesn't say anything about which board to use for Quadropower batteries?
If I charge at a lower rate like 1/2C or even 1/4C will I get more capacity/cycles? Or am I just wasting my time?
Based on the experiments that Thiago (Drones4U) did, the lower rate of charge does allow the battery to accept more charge, Matt. Let us know if you find this to be true too. Andy.
Ironically, I think that charging multiple batteries at a lower current rate will result in longer battery life and better performance. In other words, if you have a dual charger and want to charge up 4 batteries at 4 amps, it's better to do that than than 2 batteries at 8 amps (then switch when they're charged). Hmm...but how do you balance 4 batteries with a 720i charger?
I just found a ton of good Lipo info here: Lipos: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-lipo-batteries.html Para charging: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/parallel-lipo-charging.html Anybody tried these Glacier batts? Looks like a good value. Run dual 5000mahs?