What about balance charging a perfectly balanced battery
from what ive seen on balance charge itl start working on the cells right away even if it went on balance. each cell kinda starts moving back and forth alittle. not to a terrible amount. like it go 3.7 then down to 3.6 back to 3.7 and will work all cells like this till, all are 4.2
if i put a battery on and its 3.7 3.7 3.7 ill then unplug the balance plug and straight charge. i do think lower amps will increase longevity of battery howeer i havent seen any degradation while chargeing at recomended manufacture rates even up to 5c. but i sure dont have the knowledge of alot of these guys flying helis and guys like chris who build lipos. i kinda just go buy how the heli feels and planes. i have little exsperince with lipos on cars.
i run high c rated batteries whenever possible and i havent had any battery problems but i have smoked a few plane motors running to big a prop or to much pitch. a watt meter would be an awesome tool. for knowing if you batteries and prop or even on car are driving the motor to pull more watts and amps than it can handle.
i have some lipos that are a year old and going pretty dang strong and i can honestly say i rarely balance. but i do check balance often and balance when reguired or sometimes just for the heck of balanceing since i dont make habit of balance.
plane and helis guys who run big lipos do the same. just seems if a balance isnt needed then why balance?
Well there are a couple things to consider when it comes to balance charging. First off, unless you're throwing down the coin on a nice Hyperion or Thunder Power charger, I would put money on the cheaper knock offs not being as accurate on the voltage reading. I have had some voltage reading devices be as much as .4v off:shock:
Second, since current is traveling back and forth in the balance leads, that read out will also just inherently be less accurate. Reading and using voltage from the same lead, is not the most accurate. Ideally, a second set of leads to monitor voltage would be ideal. Not at lighter loads, I am sure it's not as big of a deal, but most balance plugs are 20awg and smaller, so when it comes to DC current, and voltage loss over distance, there become so many factors to play with
Another thing to consider is the IR of cells. Back when Lipos were(in my eyes) in their "Prime" there was a lot more time into making the cells more even in the manufacturing stage. So this resulted in much more consistent IR's across the board. The only thing that will REALLY keep the cells nicely in balance, is the IR. If there is even the slightest of difference, it will show when you fully discharge a battery. Since lipos are being produced by hundreds of more factories that seem to pop up over night, and the QTY's of cells are going through the roof, there is so much more room for error!!!
Now I am not saying that all lipos are like this, but most that we test are not that consistent. The balance charging is the safety net. Since all lipo fires occur during the charge, is it worth a gamble? To save you what.... 10-20 minutes?
Lipos sadly arent like they used to be. Back about 4 years ago, the best lipos were being made. Since then, I havent really seen anything that can handle much more than about a 30C discharge efficiently. Kind of sad to see every factory just want to produce #'s and not quality. The highest TRUE C rating I have ever seen was about a 40C from some Elite lipos a few years back. We test ALOT of lipos around here, and the quality these days is quite sad compared to what it used to be
