Hello everyone,

I know that many people are using li-po and li-ion batteries in their r/c vehicles. I am posting this topic because I want to help people who do not know too much about li batteries save some money. Fisrst of all, if you do not know too much about charging, and the batteries in general, don't quick charge unless you know what you are doing!

I, before I knew about the new lithium batteries, was quick charging them as fast as my charger could go to get more flights in. This I found out was bad, because it will ruin you battery if you charge it too fast. You should refer to the instructions that come with the battery and if you are not too sure about what it means, it means this. It will say the maximum charge rate per cell of the battery. Lets say that you have a three cell 1500mAh battery. If the instructions say do not excede 100mah and hour for charge rate per cell, you could charge that battery pack ate a maximum setting on your charger at 300mAh. Basicly, you multiply the number of cells in the bettery by the maximum charge rate per cell, and you will get the total maximum charge rate you can use to safly charge you batteries. If you let X equil the charge rate per cell, and Y equil the number of cells in you pack, then use the equasion XY=maximum charge rate. If this does not make sense, please ask me to explain it ever more.

Also, another tip to get the most out of your lithium batteries, when you are (lets assume) flying, when you notice a drop in engine power, land emidiatly, and use as little power required. This is the bettery going into the protoection mode if you will, to save the battery so it does not run out of power completely. If you run it when there is very little power left in the battery, you are damaging it, and will probobly get about 1/2 the life. Also, remember that unlike Nickle Cadmium, or Nickle Medal Hydride, lithium batterys will just die, and your plane will do whatever you were telling it to do at the time the bettery dies, it id like it is unpluged and the servos will stay in the position they are in. so if you Li battery is running low, land emediatly, before you plane or battery can become damaged.

Lastly, I do not recomend building your own bettery unless you are extremely skilled and careful. I tryed building one, and it cought on fire the first time i used it because it short circeted because i was not careful enough about protecting the wires. I would spend acouple extra bucks and buy some premade ones.

Oh yeah, batteries in general, to figure out the chargeing time for each of you batteries, look at how many mAh you battery is Ex:1500 mAh, and the charge rate of the chareger, if not programable Ex: 200mAh. Divide the battery size by the charge rate, and the answer is how many hours it will take to completely charge. Ex: 1500/200=7.5, so it will take 7hr and 30 min to charge that battery with that paticular charger.

Here are the answwers to some of your guys' questions. If you do not understand this, please feel free to pm me, or post here if you have any comments.
Your battery pal,

Keith