Air Land Sea Hobbies

MCX type batteries are the single cell 3.7V lithium Polymer Batteries used in so many of the Indoor Airplanes. The Tenergy 3.7V 130mAh battery found at AirLandSeaHobbies.com is a MCX type battery. Being a single cell battery they do not have a balancing lead commonly found on most lipo batteries. The single cell battery does still require a balancing type charger that stops charging the battery at 4.2V. When the batteries charged voltage reaches 4.2V they are fully charged and all charging should stop. Most chargers I have seen and used are set up to charge one battery at a time.

To fully enjoy indoor flying I find I need more than one battery so I looked for a charger that would charge multiple batteries at once.  I found a Tenergy Double charger at AirLandSeaHobbies.com that has worked well for my purpose. this charger charges two batteries at once and does so independently on one another so a weaker battery doesn’t get unsafely over charged. This charger has been very easy to use, just plug it into a wall outlet and connect 1 or 2 batteries, when the indicator diode turns green, the battery is charged and ready for use.

Remote control battery packs and chargers represent a sizable investment for hobbyists, but they play a crucial part in keeping an RC vehicle running properly. If an enthusiast neglects to pay close attention to the quality of these items, his or her RC performance may suffer. As such, it’s important to understand the principles behind taking good care of these accessories.

The design and effectiveness of a given RC charger may vary. The simplest chargers can be plugged into the wall, and they convert alternating current into energy that toy cars can use. More advanced chargers, such as the iMax B5, allow you to pinpoint just how much energy each individual battery cell receives. These complex chargers feature a digital display, and they are marketed to serious RC enthusiasts.

There are many different Lipo Battery Chargers on the market. Some of these chargers balance and charge threw the balancer lead. When charging below 1.5A (1500mA), it is OK to charge through just the balancer leads. When charging over 1.5A, it is recommended to charge through the main battery leads, and balance through the balance connector. This is because the balancer leads and associated wires are too small to handle higher charge currents and may cause erroneous balancer operation due to potential voltage drop. 

Read all the instructions that are included with your lipo battery charger. If you charger is set up to charge and balance threw the balancer lead both your charger and lipo batteries will perform best if you limit your charge current for large lipos to a maximum of 1.5A.

During a battery’s lifetime, it can be exposed to undue amounts of stress when it is being used in an airplane and when it is being charged. The stress that you put on the battery in the plane is the reason you purchased the lipo battery pack in the first place…to power your aircraft. You can reduce some of the demand on your battery packs by not always flying at full power. We can also size our packs to the motor demands so that the power consumption never exceeds 75% of the battery’s maximum output. Take note, however, that no matter what we do, when the batter pack is in the plane and the power is on, electrons will be pulled from the pack. During this process the pack will get warm while giving up that stored reserve of electrons, and its lifetime will become a little shorter. Fortunately, with a balance charger, you can rejuvenate packs to extend their lifetime a little during the charging process. A cell balancer keeps all of the cells in a pack at the same level of charge, which is very important. During the discharge process that happens during flight, the power is pulled from all of the cells at the same time. As the battery packs age, one or more of the cells do not deliver the power at the same rate of discharge as the other cells. At first, this is a very slight difference. Each time the battery pack is charged without balancing, the charger will keep pumping current until the battery pack, as a whole, is at the level of the cutoff voltage. This means that the lower cell is not brought up to the full level of charge as the other cells, which are now actually getting a higher level of charge to makeup for the weak cell. When the battery pack is put back in the plane, the motor draws current from the pack as a whole and does not know that one cell is not discharging the same amount.  As this cycle continues, the weaker cell gets farther out of balance from the stronger cells. This process continues until one day the weak cell can not handle the rate of discharge or one of the stronger cells can’t handle the demands put on it by the motor. Either way the results are the same; it is time to buy a new battery pack.

Not everyone lives in a climate that is convenient for everyday flying. Some need to store their Lipo batteries for different periods of time. The safest way to store lipos is in there specific original state. They are classified by types: 3.75V Lilo, 3.85V LiPo and 3.3V LiFe.

The Battery charger that I got from AirLandSeaHobbies.com has a Storage program built into its operating system. The safest way to store LiPo is to bring them to their storage voltage. With the automatic charge-discharge function of the charger, it will either charge the battery if it is under voltage or it will discharge the battery to bring it down to it’s specific original state.

For the longest life and safest state of storage, always use the Storage Mode of your charger with all your LiPos.

Most people don’t know just how bad the disposal of batteries is for the environment. The average person throws out about eight batteries per year. When a parent buys his child a remote control boat, he probably isn’t thinking of all the pollution the batteries can cause. These days modern technology has afforded us many benefits like battery chargers. An RC battery charger, for example, can deflect some of batteries’ negative impact on the environment.Here’s what happens to batteries when their thrown away:

~They pollute lakes and streams as the metals vaporize into the air when burned.
~Contribute to the heavy metal that potentially may leach from solid waste landfills.
~Expose the environment to lead and acid.
~Contain strong corrosive acids.