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How to charge T10J lipo battery


LHR Dave
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Hi everyone 

I have recently bought a second hand Futaba T10J transmitter.  It has a lipo fitted in place of the standard nimh pack. How do I go about charging the lipo battery, I am pretty sure that the supplied transmitter charger can not be used as I presume it is a nimh charger. If I remove the battery it only has a standard Futaba connector with no balance lead.

Any help would be appreciated as I am a bit stumped by this.

Dave

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Hi Dave.

 

similar(ish) to you except I have a 2s LiFe battery in my 16sz

 

I would go along with Andy but I personally also open the case bottom and slide the battery out during the charging process (but still leave it plugged into the tx within the battery bay)

 

as it’s a lipo you really need to see what’s happening during the charge and not leave it inside the tx (where you can’t see it) as lipos should always be supervised during charge.


you should hopefully have enough battery lead length for it to remain connected to the tx but able to sit outside the battery bay for monitoring purposes 

 

The reason I don’t disconnect it from the tx completely for charging Is to avoid constantly plugging and removing it from the tx battery pins, I’ve heard stories where over time that can fatigue the pin connection to the tx board, possibly giving a bad connection (which wouldn’t be good if your models in the sky at the time ?)

 

craig 

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Thanks for the replies,  I had thought about rigging up a lead but am a bit concerned about the amount of current going through it when using my charger, I would have thought it would have to be charged with a very low amp rate.  Craig are you saying to charge through the transmitter if so would that not damage the circuitry?

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I know LiPOs are all the rage and NiMH are considered old hat but have you thought about using them instead? You already have the charger and there's no worrying about leaving the pack in the Tx when charging no putting them on storage charge. no balancing and no need to keep them company whilst charging.

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Why not move to a LiFe. Not the danger of the LiPo but it still retains the charge for a long period. I have a Turnigy Tx pack in my 10J and it works very well although I do take it out to balance charge it.

If you decide to go back to NiMHs then go for the proper Eneloops rather than the normal LSD NiMHs as I found that they do hold their charge much better.

HTH

Maxg

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My advice is safely dispose of it. I put a lipo in my futaba 14sg and had a total transmitter failure (went dead) I had a fly away with my wots wot, failsafe kicked in, but the result was a total write off. Two things were found. 1) despite being on charge for quite some time prior to flying using a purpose made futaba lipo transmitter charger... the lipo was not charging. 2) if use a lipo, you need to adjust the battery voltage setting to reflect you are running lipo rather than higher voltage Nimh or Life or nicad. If you do not, you will not get a transmitter 'low voltage' warning. I forgot to do this, with lipos, the power just falls off the cliff, hence my transmitter shut down and model loss. I reverted to Nimh in the transmitter and not have a problem since. You need to beware, different futaba transmitters operate with different voltages, hence some trainer buddy leads have a voltage converter in line to drop from circa 9.6v to 6v.

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MAXPRO 2S 2800 MAH LIPO

Special 2S 7.2 volt Li-Po battery with high capacity and internal protection and balancer. Can be charged with up to 2.8 Ah with of course a Li-Po charger, protected against overcharging and deep discharging.

 

Ian was your Lipo like the above Maxpro?

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On 31/07/2020 at 02:17, Keith Miles 2 said:

Some time ago, I was persuaded, as others have done, to replace the original single-lead Spektrum 2S 2000mah Li-Ion in the Tx with a triple-lead 4000mah Li-Po, the latter seemingly only available from one source (a very reputable one) as far as I can tell.

The advantage of doing so being (a) greater capacity and (b) a 1 hour charge at 4A using a separate Lipo/Multi-charger as opposed to a slow charge, onboard, using the Tx jack and Spektrum adaptor supplied.

Flying mostly IC, aside from small indoor models plus a Riot, I’m now wondering (a bit late in the day!) if the Lipo conversion was such a great idea.

It seems, with only a few exceptions, that majority advice is not to leave Lipos sitting fully charged for more than about 3 days and, if doing so, to put them into storage charge. This is not, of course, necessary with Li-Ion.

So, I am now wondering , therefore, how many flyers who have done this Lipo conversion, regularly unplug and remove it from the Tx and put it into storage charge after a flying session and if they don’t expect to be using it again within 3 days i.e. treating it the same as a Lipo supplying motive power despite the fact that the Tx draws minimal current and will have lost much less capacity!

Whilst the original Li-Ion required an occasional traditional slow charge by just simply plugging the adaptor into the Tx, it seems that under general Lipo care advice, I should now be regularly removing the 4000mah Lipo, storage charging it, then fully charging it for 1 hour before EVERY flying session i.e. as one would for a Lipo flight battery.

Doing this in future would not only seem to defeat the object of the exercise but would also be less convenient, or am I missing something?

UPDATE! To add to the confusion, I now see that Spektrum offer 2S 4000mah Tx Lipo albeit, again, with a single lead. I understand that the Spektrum batteries, both Lipo and Li-Ion have inbuilt balancing. Still doesn’t explain the Lipo  “storage charge” anomaly, though, especially when that feature doesn’t exist in the Tx! 

 

 

Edited By Keith Miles 2 on 31/07/2020 01:57:16

This is a very interesting and highly relevant question with good answers.

 

Li-Po have the advantage of being able to be charged using a Li-Po charger.

The supplied 240v adapter can be used for the Li-Po charging while the battery is in the Tx.

 

There is lots more and well worth a read.

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There is another topic which uses the example of a consumer electronic product with Li-Po batteries. Unfortunately that example was used to argue that as the Li-Po is never balance charged then there is no need to balance charge flight batteries. Not a good idea BTW as many pointed out.

 

It looks to me that Li-Po batteries that are used in a low discharge/ trickle charge situation, especially with an on board balance charge board, are safe to treat as any other type of Tx battery. After a days flying recharge and leave fully charged ready for the next time. Is this correct?

 

Concerns have been expressed that these Li-Po Tx batteries should be put into storage charge between flying days, which I did wonder about. It does look like this is not necessary in this particular application, the same as in consumer products. 

 

Looks to me like Li-Po flight batteries are the ones that need to be treated with special care due to the high discharge, high recharge demand and the need to minimise the internal resistance.

 

This just leaves one outstanding question. Will the Tx Li-Po batteries puff up when kept fully charged for long periods?

 

Because Futaba and Spectrum supply Li-Po replacement batteries and simple 240v voltage adapters for charging I would guess not. ? 

 

Any thoughts?

 

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Interesting, yet very confusing.  The Futaba manual for the tx doesn't mention lipo batteries but does say a life battery is available it mentions that the nimh batteries can be charged in the tx but the life must be removed to be charged with the correct charger . 

With regards to enloop batteries I can only find 6v ones that say they are for rx ,stupid question maybe but can these be used in a tx. 

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My belief is that the Li-Po as you have it has been used and charged with the wall adaptor without any problem. I would just keep using the setup as it is.

 

The Li-Po battery and charger were a later accessory and are shown on the Ripmax web site, so must be safe to use.

 

Enloop  from servo shop. They probably have a charger to suit.

 

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