Overcharging Lipo?

[ljohns35]

I'm new to Lipo batteries so this may seem like a silly question. I have an Ares G36C and I use a 11.1 V Lipo battery. Within the past 4 months I've been through two of them. I'll charge them and then they just seem to die out on me :| Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated.

P.S I do have a Lipo balance charger.

[R.I.T.Z]

are you pluging the ends in correctly?
is your charger/balancer made for the amount of cells your lipo has?

[SuperHog]

Your charger is probably giving you a full charge, but your gun is probably overdischarging them during use. If you discharge below 3V you will damage them.

Are you running a Lipo monitor?

I set mine to go off at 3.3V and stop at that point. Because of the extreme current drains your gun can pull with each shot, at 3.1V, a shot can cause the voltage to dip well below 3V.

[MaciekA]

You may be suffering from crappy batteries, crappy charger, or simply overworking your batteries (or all three). In my opinion LiPos below 2000mAh are rarely adequate for the velocity and trigger response demands that we're subjecting them to in this country, especially if you're attending games and not just plinking.

As SuperHog says, if you overdischarge these things (i.e. keep shooting once your battery is past the "voltage cliff") you'll perma-damage the battery. This is usually super obvious and easy to avoid even without a monitor, though if you're using a particularly weak LiPo you can sag into the dangerzone pretty easily. If you are actually running out of juice mid-game or sagging that badly, it's a strong sign you should seek a battery with a lot more mAh.

If you suffer from low-grade batteries and/or a low-grade charger unit and want to reboot your setup, get your next battery and charger from Hobbyking. Also, spend some time finding the absolute biggest battery you can find that will fit in your G36. It may be tricky to do this at 11.1V, so you may want to stepping down to a 7.4V battery, which will give you more C and more mAh for the same amount of physical space.

If you miss the snappy trigger and high rate of fire, you can always throw in a high torque motor and speed gears to compensate.

edit: I should mention that it's unlikely your batteries are dying from overcharging as long as your charger knows how many cells your battery has, and I assume you're charging them with a balance plug, (see picture below). If you are charging using this plug, even a budget charger shouldn't cause any issues. Most low end LiPo chargers I have seen, if they do one thing well, it's knowing when to stop.

[lurkingknight]

are you even using a balance charger?

[muddertrucker]

Does your charger have a display? You can minitor the voltage and amperage of each cell as the battery is charging. If your charger is set too high then your battery will be overcharged. Overchaging a lipo battery is a big fire hazzard btw. Usualy it will get all puffy on you though.

I also think the problem is that you are discharging it too much.

[ljohns35]

my lipo is a 3 cell, i do have a balance charger with display. I think i may be overcharging them. If so then would this be the reason they are dying on me? My charger has a preset charge for 3 cell batteries that i use

[ThunderCactus]

if you were overcharging them, they would be on fire

[ccyg8774]

it is very hard to overcharge with a balance charger with correct setup.
In contrast, overDIScharging is easy to occour if you are not using any lipo-alarm or lipo-monitor on your gun.

[PrIeSt]

You didnt answer the other big question?

How do you know when to change batteries in the gun? are you just running the lipo dead than switching batteries? Or do you use a lipo larm.

Draining a lipo bellow it's 3v per cell voltage will damage them. effectively killing the life of them.

Also go on ebay buy an IMAX B6AC charger for $30 and you will be much better off charging as well.

[muddertrucker]

Originally Posted by ljohns35

my lipo is a 3 cell, i do have a balance charger with display. I think i may be overcharging them. If so then would this be the reason they are dying on me? My charger has a preset charge for 3 cell batteries that i use

What is the preset value at? If it's a decent quality charger that preset value is adjustable and might be set too high.

[ljohns35]

The preset for the lipo charge for 3 cell is 11.1v, I don't know if I'm actually draining them completely since I only play once a week and charge them right after. I bought a pretty damn expensive charger, its an imax dual power charger

[ljohns35]

I think that maybe my gun is just killing the battery because the manual calls for a different voltage thats lower.

[MaciekA]

Originally Posted by ljohns35

I think that maybe my gun is just killing the battery because the manual calls for a different voltage thats lower.

Running a higher voltage is not your issue, unless you're experiencing charred trigger contacts or something similar.

[ThunderCactus]

if the motor has a bent armature, it would cause batteries to drain VERY quickly. However it also acts as a short, so you may be really close to causing over-current draw on your lipo, which would also cause it to catch on fire.

I had a VFC AK that would drain a 1400mah 8.4v stick in like 300 rounds, problem was a bad motor