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RX batteries...

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Fred:
Hi,

Just a quick though about RX batteries (must be bored...  :P )

I went to the slope for the last time in November, and flew a good part of the afternoon with my asw15. Since then, the glider spent the winter in my garage (went up to -3 degrees in there...)...

Time to recharge the batteries, and I was a bit worried since I use very cheap batteries (Aldi) and do all my RX packs myself. I know this is bad to leave discharged batteries for so long, and during winter, but surprise ! When I charged my pack (4 cells, 4000Mah), the pack only took 800mah !!  :shock:
Checked with a battery checker, and all green ! Can't beat that really, especially when a 4000Mah cost me around 10 euros !  :D

So, I checked my Algebra pack... Haven't flown that one for months (last summer)... This time, checked the battery with the checker before charging, and all green... Charged the pack, and only took 170 mah !! (4 cells, 2400mah)... Cost of the pack : 5 euros... 3 years old pack.

So, lots of people are paying bigish money etc etc for eneloop, Sanyos, GP etc etc, but so far, my experience with cheap batteries (Aldi in my case) is 100% satisfaction ! I do my packs for the past 3 years now, and they are all performing very well !
All that remind me a few years ago, in France, we used to buy cheap supermarket batteries (Uniross if I remember), and they were performing very well, same level as the really expensive packs... But 1/10 of the price!

I'll do a discharge / charge when I have time to compare true capacity...

Also note, I never charge my pack in quick mode, I never exceed 0.5C, and in Nicad mode (all my packs are Nimh).

For TX, problems solved, after I changed my MC18 to lipos, moved my EVO to Lipos, and the 3030 is to follow soon !  :D

Happy Days:
Yes, that’s very good Fred :D  PROVIDED the battery packs are still holding 4000mAh and not just 800! :?:  (As you said, you wont know their true capacity until you deep cycle them by discharging and then recharging.)

I used to use Ni-cad’s a lot in one of my previous lives. I wouldn’t have thought -3 degrees would have hurt them too much. I found it was high charge rates that used to kill them, or leaving them discharged for too long. :(

When ever I come home from flying gliders, I always re-charge my Ni-Mh’s. That way I know they are always ready to go for the next flying day. :)  I deep cycle them once every 20 or so flights and I’m still using the same batteries I had when I started flying gliders. (Purchased from Island Models of course! :clap: )
(The less I spend on ancillary equipment……….the more models I can afford to buy!)

Now, where is that website selling Skorpion and Acaia models :wink:

Fred:
Yeah, I guess that will be a job for this week end.. I'll do a cycle and see for the true capacity after this bad treatment.
I'll post the results here...

I still have a few of those blue batteries from the shop, great ones !  :D

billscottni:
For anone looking for good RX batteries at a good price:

http://www.component-shop.co.uk/

Fred:
Alright, I bring that up as I was cycling almost all my batteries over the week end (do that twice a year), but this time, using my old charger...

Well...I just realised that I was flying my ASW15 with an empty battery almost all the time !!  :evil:

Checked the battery pack (4cells, 4000mah) before charging it with my old charger, and the readings were alarming ! less than a volt/cell!!  :shock:  I never used my old charger on this glider, so that confirm what I said somewhere here, my new charger is not working properly (or I don't know how to use it!!  :roll: ). That also mean that all my readings with this charger were all wrong!  :!:

This is an Accucell 6 (I think..), sold with many differents names, so be carefull if you have one, or if you know what is wrong (my guess is the deltapeak...I only have issues with Nicad/NiMh, Lipos etc etc are charging just fine), let me know... But I have lost my confidence on that one...  :?

Anyway, following up on the cheap Aldi cells, after 2 cycles with my charger, they took almost 6000Mah (they are 4000Mah cells) and restituted around 4500Mah with a 0.9A discharge  :D  Not bad at all for a 10 euros pack!

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