Lipo battery question

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Lipo battery question

Postby erobertson » Sat Mar 07, 2015 7:59 am

My build: Finwing Penguin for FPV
Suggested battery from RMRC: 5100mah 4S 35C Lipo

I've been trying to educate myself on the subject matter of lipo batteries and have the formulas down I guess (i.e. watts = volts * amps). According to the formula, I'd need 86-watts to properly charge this battery. So will it hurt the battery's life to charge it at 50-watts instead of 86-watts? If this is a stupid question, please forgive me but I'm an old man attempting a new hobby and just trying to figure things out without an RC support group in my area.

Regards,
ERobertson
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Re: Lipo battery question

Postby BillGriffiths100 » Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:26 pm

If you're thinking about one rated at maximum charge 50w like this one which seems fairly typical of current mid range chargers:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... UINE_.html
The charging capacity is the amperage the charger can supply, this is the way it is thought about, rather than the wattage.
If you have a lipo charger charging with a capacity less than that required to charge in an hour say, it will just take longer to charge, no damage will be done.
As a rule the bigger the capacity of the battery the longer it will take on such a charger your 5.1 ah battery will take
nearly two hours to fully charge but in reality you will never discharge them that far and they will have at least 1/2 to 1/3 capacity left in the cells and it will be more like 80 mins.
So a higher rated charger would probably be a good idea to save charging time but not strictly necessary.
P.S.
Any attempt to charge lipos on a straight DC charger will result in unbalancing the cells.
And possibly a fiery disaster!!
Compromising with out of control government is like living with a lion, sooner or later the bloody thing will eat you .

You accept the tyranny of the state when it's not being applied to you, when it is: it's too late.
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