mCX Battery Life

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Jack Schmidling - 07 Dec 2008 15:40 GMT

In about 3 weeks, I have gone though 4 batteries that no longer take
or hold a charge. I followed all the rules and suggestions.

I just returned from the local hobby shop with two new ones, put them
on the charger till it stopped blinking which was only a few minutes.

I am now using a timer set at 5 minutes and stopped flying the first
one when the timer went off.

I did the same with the second new one but after less than two
minutes, the led on board started flashing and the heli came down.

These are all batteries with the Eflite sticker on them but no clue of
the brand.

So, am I the only one with this sort of experience?

All all batteries equal?

Are there better batteries out their?

Thanks,

Jack

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Kevin - 07 Dec 2008 16:34 GMT

> In about 3 weeks, I have gone though 4 batteries that no longer take
> or hold a charge. I followed all the rules and suggestions.
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> Jack

have you bent a shaft or crashed it?

Signature

Kevin R
Reply address works

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Chuck - 08 Dec 2008 17:05 GMT

One of the bigger problems I had with Lipos turned out to be the cheap
chargers sold with many of the RTFs.
As a result, I bought a good charger/discharger/cycler unit, knowing that it
would be needed when I graduated to larger choppers. The small number of
flights you are getting and the short duration makes me think that the
charger may be the culprit. (assuming everything else is ok.) Multiple
batteries with the same problem is another clue.

> In about 3 weeks, I have gone though 4 batteries that no longer take
> or hold a charge. I followed all the rules and suggestions.
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> Jack

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brianrees005@gmail.com - 16 Jan 2009 22:21 GMT

> One of the bigger problems I had with Lipos turned out to be the cheap
> chargers sold with many of the RTFs.
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>
> > Jack

I'm not sure what you guys are doing to your batteries, but I've used
my one battery that came with my MCX for more than 2 months now. The
number of cycles my 110mAh LiPo battery has been through is probably
in the range of 30-50. At this point, my flight time has remained the
same as it was when the battery was new.

If you are concerned about the rate of charge for this LiPo battery,
you can easily modify your charger to either charge slower or faster.
The standard charge time for this charger is around 30 minutes (2C). I
found a link to modifying the charger by googling "MCX battery mod".
It should show up within the first few results. The forum shows that
if you open up your charger, play with the POT inside it by either
rotating it CW or CCW you can make the charge time faster or slower,
respectively.

Check the charge of the batteries inside the charger.

It should take 30-40 minutes to fully charge the battery if it is
fully discharged.

Not all batteries are created equal, but most of the time they are
when made by the same manufacturer and are from the same batch.

If you aren't satisfied with your batteries I'd recommend you bringing
them back to the store and tell them to see for themselves with a
floor model MCX and charger.

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TeraHurtz - 18 Jan 2009 02:51 GMT

Check your batteries in the charger it self. I moded my charger for wal
power.
Make sure your lipos charge up to 4.2V - 4.5V if not then your charge
is cutting out at a lower level

--
TeraHurt

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Doug McLaren - 19 Jan 2009 01:12 GMT

| Check your batteries in the charger it self. I moded my charger for wall
| power.
| Make sure your lipos charge up to 4.2V - 4.5V if not then your charger
| is cutting out at a lower level.

They should not charge up past 4.2 volts/cell. If they do, they're
damaging the battery.

Signature

Doug McLaren, dougmc@frenzied.us
The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's better than what we have now.

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Model Forum / Radio Controlled / Helicopters / January 2009

mCX Battery Life