Batteries Discharging lipo settings for storage?

TAP

New Member
What are the settings for discharging lipo? How may amps, What is the lowest 3.7 or 3.3 or? What are some of the safety settings for a charger? I have a HiTec RDX1. If someone has information regarding this charger.
 

Smoggie

Well-Known Member
If you are discharging to storage then your charger will almost certainly have a special 'storage' setting. The storage setting takes the battery to optimum voltage for storage which is in the 3.8-3.85V range. It will automatically charge or discharge to that voltage depending on the state of charge of the battery that's connected. You wouldn't want to fully discharge a battery unless you were disposing of it at the end of it's life.

As for 'how many amps'.. just set your charger to the maximum discharge current possible in the programming. It wont discharge at that current anyway, most chargers have rather pathetic discharge power rating, yours is no different at 5W. This means that it doesnt matter what current in Amps you set, the actual discharge current that the charger will work at is limited by the charger's 5W discharge power limit. For instance on a 6S battery the initial discharge current would only be 0.2A (5W/25V = 0.2A)... So if discharging larger batteries it takes absolutely ages!

High end chargers are a bit better with discharge power up to 100W in some cases but most people who use larger batteries rig up some sort of discharger that can handle more power.
 

Jimbo

Member
After a flight, my batteries are at 3.8 to 3.7. So can I just store them and they will be fine?????

Jim
 

Smoggie

Well-Known Member
After a flight, my batteries are at 3.8 to 3.7. So can I just store them and they will be fine?????

Jim

Jim,

Yes, that's exactly what I do. The only time I'd charge them 'up' to storage is sometimes if I thought the batteries might sit unused for a long time. For week to week use I just leave them as they come off the heli.

Discharging to storage is different. Leaving them fully charged for any extended time is bad so if I have a fully charged battery that I haven't used and I don't think I'll be using within 24 hours I'll discharge down to storage voltage.
 

TAP

New Member
Thank you for the information. regarding discharging and storage of li po. In my Hitech manual it has a chart to discharge down to 3.2. vs 3.7 Is this significant?
 

Smoggie

Well-Known Member
There really isnt any good reason why you would ever want to use a charger to discharge a LiPo below storage voltage (about 3.8V), except maybe prior to disposal of an old battery.
 

Tony

Staff member
3.2 is where you should set your LVC (low voltage cutoff) in your esc. You never want to store that low. Always store at 3.8.
 

murankar

Staff member
To piggy back off of Steve, so chargers have a regenitive discharge. The power labs have this feature. This will allow the charger to discharge at a higher rate if you are connected to a lead acid style battery . Now that battery will need to be on some state of discharge to accept the current.
 
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