I think I've ruined my first Lipo

[Flydigital]

I've read all the warnings and tips but I didn;t seem to prevent me from trashing a Lipo it seems.
I have 2 4S 5000 lipos, both of which I had at 'storage level'.
I then used them at that level to do some settings, bench work. One plugged into the NAZA + Gimbal airframe, the other running a 2.4Ghz BT for Ground station.
I thought these would happily trickle enough power to do some settings - no flying.

However I checked the voltages this morning and on one battery, 1 cell read at 0.0V. With the other 3 cells at 3.6v approx, falling from storage of about 3.8v. Tried to charge and it seems dead.

Surprised it did that but something to learn there. -Charge full, no matter how trivial the load is perceived to be? Maybe load was high? Not sure the power needed for the 2.4Ghz GS thing?
Also might be good to have the JST mini alarms plugged in.

Anyon have advice or experience to share looking after Lipos?

 

[jbrumberg]

Sorry about your battery. If you do not mind sharing the information what brand? How long was this battery discharging?

 

[Flydigital]

I'm not sure how long it was in for. On and off for about 4 hours. Also not sure what it was connected to as I grabbed both batteries which are identical.
They are both 4s 5000mah 30c Zippy Flightmax

1 was connected to a DJI 2.4Ghz BT Ground station.

2 the other to a Naza-2, H3-2D gimbal and BT receiver.

One of them somehow emptied a cell to 0.0v

Happy to take advice on better makes of battery. New to this and went for cheap option.

 

[Silverburn]

Hmmm. If some cells were still at 3.6, then the one that hit 0.0 might have been defective. Were any devices connected via the balancer port by any chance?

A 5000 should be able to run electronics (no motors connected) for 4 hours even with the gimbal attached.

 

[Flydigital]

No, nothing on the balancer port - assume that means the charging port? JST?
Looking back I wish I had a lipo alarm on it though. But as you say, may be defective?

 

[jbrumberg]

I can not help you with any battery recommendations. I have seen some complaints posted about Zippy Compact batteries at RCG. I actually have a bad or "failing" Zippy Compact 3S 4000mAh battery. It has a bad cell that cannot take a full charge- my iCharger self terminated an automatic charge, which is what alerted me to this issue from the very first charge if I remember correctly. I manually charged it and did use it once which I probably should not have done in hindsight. It would "almost" take a full charge manually which I did under very close scrutiny and on a concrete surface on this and on a follow up test charge. This is also not a good thing to do, but I have left it at full charge to see what would happen, and as expected the voltage has begun to drop. Right now I am reading 4.19V/4.17V/4.19V on this battery. I guess if I am really going to test this I should put a load on this battery and see how it discharges.

 

[slow_jun]

set your multi chemistry charger to NiCad then charge it for 1 minute just to pump some voltage into the cell, change the settings back to Lipo then charge as normal. when you get into the safe voltage (3.3V/cell) balance charge the lipo , once done charge to store voltage.

note: please note that this option is the last resort and may or maynot bring back to life of your lipo. always take then necessary precautions, as always.

 

[Flydigital]

set your multi chemistry charger to NiCad then charge it for 1 minute just to pump some voltage into the cell,

I have a basic 'Turnigy 420' lipo charger so not able to switch to NiCad. I was actually looking for another charger. The one I have does one battery at a time and takes about 3-4 hours it seems to charge. Ideally I'd want one that can do at least 2 at once, and possibly with the NiCad option you mention if that can recover a faulty battery. Any idea the type I should be looking for or price range to look at? Mine was £10 secondhand.

 

[slow_jun]

Try any multi chemistry charger that can charge nicad,life,lipo etc,it'll be handy someday,i have done parallel charging 7 pcs 2s lipo but charging takes awhile. I also revive my lipo(if it falls the safe level) with success. Always be carefull in doing this. It is not recommeded but its one way to revive a lipo.


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