Batteries zop batterys

hawk-i

Member
Hey guys. Been too hot to fly here for a long time plus I've been spending more time changing batteries than flying. My issue is that I ordered 6 zop 2200 lipos from gear best and checked the voltage right out of the box on all packs.3 packs read around 3.7 volts but 3 had one cell lagging at 1.7 or so. I use an I charger and it refused to charge. I went to NiCad mode and got all up to 11.1 and began charging in lipo mode. But one pack swelled and one showed no voltage on one cell. but I checked it again and it showed 1.5 so I'm charging it now. Guess this is more just info on zop batterys since they came from China and I wont be sending them back. Just a little food for thought.
 

SIXFOOTER

Member
Yea you got to be careful with some of the Chinese stuff, houses burn down when batteries are not charging correctly
 

Tony

Staff member
The one that lost the reading on one cell, you may have a broken wire on the balance lead.

Sadly, this is very common from chinese sellers of batteries. Hobbyking is pretty good, but I have not tried any of the batteries from anyone like gearbest, tinydeal or the like. Maybe I should have them send me some batteries so that I can test them and abuse them lol.

Hope all packs that took a charge and didn't puff work out for ya.

What is the IR of the packs?
 

hawk-i

Member
Don't know what IR stands for but all the packs charged up after starting in NiCad mode. they are 2200 mAH and are 30c and after discharging the 3 that had a problem in a heli they recharged fine. so they may be better than I first thought. When I bought 10 packs from hobby king I had one bad turnigy one out of the box. so maybe I'm lucky these all charged up. I store them all in a steel army amo box I drilled holes in top. you guys think that should hold the fire if there is one?
 

Tony

Staff member
IR is Internal Resistance. The iChargers have the ability to read it and it's a very crucial number to keep an eye on. It can tell you if you have a bad pack that needs to take a saltwater bath before burning down your house.
 

D.O.G.

Goblin 380 Supporter
Don't know what IR stands for but all the packs charged up after starting in NiCad mode. they are 2200 mAH and are 30c and after discharging the 3 that had a problem in a heli they recharged fine. so they may be better than I first thought. When I bought 10 packs from hobby king I had one bad turnigy one out of the box. so maybe I'm lucky these all charged up. I store them all in a steel army amo box I drilled holes in top. you guys think that should hold the fire if there is one?

Hey there hawk-i, I use a ammo box my self. I don't have any holes drilled in it but when I charge my batteries, I just close the lid but not all the way down like your going to lock it.
 

hawk-i

Member
Ok so is there any information out there to let me know what the acceptable IR of a pack should read or will the I charger warn me if its too high?
 

Tony

Staff member
Typical high reading is 15 mΩ to 20 mΩ. And the iCharger will only tell you what it is, it will not warn you. You want to try to keep your packs below 10mΩ.

Here is the steps to get into the IR graph if you didn't know.

review-iCharger_206B-04.jpg

review-iCharger_206B-04.jpg
 

hawk-i

Member
ok the worst one read 4 4 10 ,that's the one that got a little puffy. I have older packs that I checked and are in the mid 20's range. and what is a saltwater bath anyway?
 

Smoggie

Well-Known Member
The cell that was reading 1.7V is dead, you are wasting your time trying to recover it to be honest.

Low cell recovery sometimes works after you over discharge a battery during flight and it's been at low voltage for only a short time, but a battery that comes 'new' with a very low cell obviously has a physical fault and that won't be fixed by charging it.


'IR' is inversely proportional to battery mAh capacity.. In plain terms that means that the larger the mAh then the lower the IR will be. For that reason you cant have a single acceptable IR figure that applies for all sizes of battery. If your batteries that are showing 20 mOhn are 2200mAh size then I'm afraid they are toast for heli use. You could maybe still use them for low power applications, I sometimes use old LiPos that have too high IR for flying with to power my charger in the field.
 
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Tony

Staff member
A saltwater bath is just what it sounds like. A bucket of saltwater that you put dead batteries into. Saltwater is used to completely drain the cells of their power. Virtually dead shorting the battery, but in the safest possible manner.

Here is a link to Bert Kammerer and Bobby Watts flying quads. At about 5:00 you will see Bert toss a battery into a bucket. I will bet he has more money in that bucket than I have in the whole hobby lol.

https://www.facebook.com/smackfpv/videos/1543445695959708/
 

Tony

Staff member
Another thing I would like to add is that IR is also affected by the amount of charge (voltage) you have in your pack. I have a 1300mah Zippy Compact that I use for my 210/250 quads that, due to testing, was ran down low enough to not power anything on. With this battery sitting at about 1.5 volts per cell, I was between 125mΩ and 150mΩ. Horrendously high!!! After I charged it (yes, it took a charge amazingly) my IR was only 11mΩ to 15mΩ. Just something to keep in mind. And this test was done with the iCharger 306b just for reference.
 
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