Hey Thrill Seekers, I'd charged up all my lipos for a flight that got rained out, now I'm putting them all on storage charge. I use the Hyperion 720 charger, so it has that option. The problem is that it takes FOR-EV-ER. The Movi batteries, and monitor batteries go pretty quickly. But I've had 12 6s 10ks on the charger for about 12 hours now. That's a long time to be sitting there watching the batteries. And it's just the first batch. I mean if I don't want them on a flight ready charge for more than 48 hours, and it takes 48 hours to get them all stored..... I'd consider running them on the OctoCopter but, like I said, it's raining. Is there a device out there that will draw these things down a bit, and do it safely?
You can use either a dummy load resistor pack (which is what I use for battery testing as well as taking LiPos down to storage when I don't have the time to use the Hyperions) or an electronic version of the same thing (search for Electronic Dummy Load). For the resistor pack see: http://rathergoodguides.com/suas-battery-testing.html -- the real problem is to make sure that you don't over discharge the pack, but that's where a LiPo Alarm connected to the balance leads comes in. Andy
This looks like something from Dr. Frankenstein's lab, and also like I'd have to make myself. But then I thought I'd never be able to figure out how to assemble and configure my UAV in the first place. Always an opportunity to learn something new. Thanks for the link and the great article. -Other Andy
Yeah. Igor was quite upset when I misappropriated the resistors. Actually, they're all store-bought and the wiring is dirt simple (connectors purchased from Ace Hardware). The resistors are 0.5 ohm, 10% 1000 Watt with mounting kits from digikey.com. Andy.
If you don't want to invest in a larger charger, I use a Revolectric Powerlab 8, then check out the Battery Analyzer from West Mountain Radio. Just the ticket for doing larger discharges and you can monitor the progress. http://www.westmountainradio.com/cba.php