Scale Curtiss XP-55 Ascender

[acerc]

Larry, get yourself one of these or something similar. There cheap and can save your airplane. I got in the habit of always checking packs right before I strap them in. That way you know you put a charged battery in and not the one you just flew with.

They will tell you total voltage, cell voltage, and percentage of capacity remaining. All for less than $20.
https://www.motionrc.com/products/g...=19057595078&gclid=CIC5nLP2wc8CFVM2gQod3swARA

View attachment 89299

I'll second this! Definitely a plane saver, especially electrics.

 

[Larry B]

That is cool! It's like a gas gauge for your battery pack. I never knew such a thing existed for electric stuff, when I visit the hobby shop this Thursday I'll be sure and see if I can pick one up.
Thanks for the good info, as usual this forum is a great way to connect with modelers who have a clue, which helps those of us who don't

 

[acerc]

One of these, http://www.gravesrc.com/hobby-people-watt-meter-in-line-volts-curr-watts-energy.html, installed on board can tell you what is doing what. I used one when running electric flight to check the speed controllers, batteries, and motors for maximum set-up. Now I use it to see how much total current a system is using as well as trouble shooting servos, smoke pumps, etc. Of course you have to make the pig-tails for different connectors.

 

[HRRC Flyer]

I wish someone made a battery checker like those that would put a small load on the battery to see if the battery will handle it without failing. I have the Futaba battery checker and it does everything but this and it showed good voltage on all three cells on one of my 2200 mAh 3S packs. The problem was as soon as I plugged in the battery and the plane was in the air for about 30 seconds, the battery immediately died and I ended up damaging my plane due to the fact that I also lost all controls on the plane as well. Luckily, it was one of my foamies. As it turned out, the battery was bad. In hind sight, the battery was one of my original Thunderpower packs that I bought years ago and no telling how many cycles that battery has seen. This is also why I always use a separate receiver pack in my larger electric planes. It's not that I don't trust BEC's, it's just the way I've always set up my planes.

My apologies for derailing your thread Larry.

 

[Pistolera]

I wish someone made a battery checker like those that would put a small load on the battery to see if the battery will handle it without failing. I have the Futaba battery checker and it does everything but this and it showed good voltage on all three cells on one of my 2200 mAh 3S packs. The problem was as soon as I plugged in the battery and the plane was in the air for about 30 seconds, the battery immediately died and I ended up damaging my plane due to the fact that I also lost all controls on the plane as well. Luckily, it was one of my foamies. As it turned out, the battery was bad. In hind sight, the battery was one of my original Thunderpower packs that I bought years ago and no telling how many cycles that battery has seen. This is also why I always use a separate receiver pack in my larger electric planes. It's not that I don't trust BEC's, it's just the way I've always set up my planes.

My apologies for derailing your thread Larry.

I've used one of these 8-Ball Battery Checkers from Fromeco for several years. It puts a 1 amp load on to see what's up with the battery. Easy to use prior to flying.

http://www.fromeco.org/Products/05FRC8BAL/

 

[acerc]

I've used one of these 8-Ball Battery Checkers from Fromeco for several years. It puts a 1 amp load on to see what's up with the battery. Easy to use prior to flying.

http://www.fromeco.org/Products/05FRC8BAL/

I'll second the 8-Ball.
But I also have to offer my opinion on the bad battery thing. If one is using a charger that monitors the individual cell charge, a battery will always show that bad cell with a lower mah at the end of charging. This lower cell will progressively get lower over a number of charges thus letting one know the battery is coming to it's end of life.

 

[Larry B]

I need to see if the charger that I bought will tell me the condition of the cells. I guess this might explain why one of my packs never shows a full charge no matter how long I let it charge.

 

[Abe]

I have some pretty good stuff to charge and check lipo's.

 

[Larry B]

Well I just got back from the hobby shop and the TRC club meeting. While at the hobby shop I had them check the programming on my speed controller for everything, so now thats all correct. I also bought the little do-dad that Jetpainter suggested to check the condition of the cells.
I also got both of my packs to take a full charge, the guys at the Hobby shop said it's completely normal for brand new packs to take awhile to charge up due to cell imbalance.
I did another ground run and found that it will now run in excess of 6 minutes without shutting down which is great news.
I am running out of excuses to test fly this thing, other than the Hurricane which is making our weather less than ideal for a test flight.

 

[Jetpainter]

Glad to here you got it squared away!