Thank you Bart for putting together such a comprehensive & easy to understand guide. It's an awesome reference!
However, I still have some really basic questions that I just can't find the answers to anywhere (I've read the entire thread, browsed the newbie area, searched the site, used Google/YouTube, etc - nothing).
Most pressing is this...
How long is "a while"? A day, 2 days, 3 days, a week? I've seen countless warnings, threads, & videos showing how these things can puff up and spontaneously ignite if they're left either fully charged or empty and I want to make sure I'm not sharing my house with a handful of little bombs that could go off while I sleep (I don't have a fire-friendly place like a garage to store them).
At the moment I charge them in the morning and fly in the afternoon but I now need to charge my batteries the night before a planned flight so that they're ready for an early start (balance-charging 5x 4s 5000mAh packs takes about 4 hours). Is it safe to charge them the night before and not worry about them puffing/burning overnight? What if I didn't use all the batteries that next day and didn't have time to discharge them? Would it be safe sleeping next to them for a 2nd night? Are the fully-discharched batteries a danger too if not given a storage charge quickly? Worst-case, what if I 'lost' a fully-charged LiPo around the house - would I have to spend 24 hours tearing my place apart to find the ticking time-bomb?
Sorry if this sounds like a panic - it's not, but I've seen videos of them burning on YouTube and spotted a few hundred warnings from manufacturers and multirotor-pros like this (
http://www.multirotorforums.com/showthread.php?7898-Storing-Lipos-at-full-charge-warning&highlight=store charged lipo ), coupled with the fact that members here seem divided with some saying it's fine and others saying you're asking for trouble (note: I don't mind the batteries going bad, I just don't want them going 'bang'). I can't find a clear answer and it seems like a pretty important question. Any help would really be appreciated.