Lipo charging how many amps

A LiPo may last to cycles, depending on how it is cared for. First, using the proper charge voltage is necessary. Never charge your battery past 4. Third, never store your battery fully charged. The recommend storage voltage is 3. Most chargers will allow you to set it to a storage charge. LiPo batteries are able to be recharged. Most modern LiPo chargers use something called balance charging. If you remember from earlier, every battery is composed of cells connected together.

Balance charging is just a way of monitoring the voltage on each of these cells and charging them individually. Because every cell in a battery is slightly different. When you finish flying your quad and take the battery out, each cell in a battery will have a slightly different voltage and a slightly different capacity remaining. So the best way to recharge these batteries is to charge each cell individually. Chargers that have balance charging take care of this automatically.

Most LiPo chargers today are programmable and allow you to choose the type of battery, the voltage, current, and a number of safety measures. Here are the most important specs to pay attention to when picking out a charger:. Every charger is different so anything I say here will be general. I recommend buying a good charger. Do not get a cheap one. A good charger will reduce the chances of fire and increase the life of your batteries. Constant voltage charging just applies a set voltage say, 4.

The problem with constant voltage charging is that when you first apply voltage to the battery, there is a large difference between the applied voltage and the battery voltage.

This causes a large current to flow, which can be harmful to the battery or dangerous. Constant current charging fixes this by setting the current to a certain value say, 1C and keeps charging until the battery reaches the desired voltage. This fixes the high current issue at the beginning of charging that the constant voltage method faces. However, constant current charging faces the opposite problem — too high of voltage near the end of a charge.

In order to keep a constant current flowing to the battery, the supply voltage has to keep increasing as the battery voltage keeps increasing. Applying too high of a voltage to a battery can be harmful to the battery or cause a fire.

Good chargers will begin the charge by applying constant current. This gets rid of the problem of too high of current at the beginning. Then once the maximum safe voltage for the battery is reached, the charger switches over to constant voltage charging until the battery is fully charged.

This gets rid of the problem of too high of voltage at the end of the charge cycle. There are generally two types of connectors on a LiPo battery: the main power connector and the balance connector. There are a variety of different types of connectors that vary in size, current rating, and ease of use. I will upgrade to a high amp charger soon , too many toys and not enough balancers. If you're not in a rush, charge at 1c. If you're in a rush, charge at a higher rate. I'll charge my 2s mah at 10 amps if I'm in a rush.

BB code is On. Smilies are On. Trackbacks are On. Pingbacks are On. Refbacks are On. Forum Rules. All times are GMT The time now is PM.

Contact Us - RCCrawler. Add Thread to del. RCCrawler Forums. User Name. Remember Me? Mark Forums Read. Page 1 of 2. Thread Tools. What amp do u charge lipos at 2s and 3s When I charge my lipos what A amp do I charge at.. Re: What amp do u charge lipos at 2s and 3s Depends on the battery and size. Re: What amp do u charge lipos at 2s and 3s Lipo's should be charged at 1C unless the lipo has on its sticker that it can be charged at a higher rate.

Re: What amp do u charge lipos at 2s and 3s Oh ok that makes sense thanks guys I was right then I have mah and mah at 5amp. First, we have to change the equation to solve for volts, which would look like this:. So our battery would experience a tiny drop in voltage when a 1A load is applied.

Considering our 3S LiPo is around Well, let's see what happens when we increase the load to 10A. Now we see that when we increased the load 10X, we also increased the voltage drop 10X. But neither of these examples are very "real world".

Let's use the Slash VXL from the previous section and plug those numbers in. If you recall, our Velineon motor has a maximum continuous current rating of 65A. Let's assume we manage to hit that mark when driving and use that. That's around 6. Pretty respectable, but it's still a reasonable drop in voltage. But so what? What does that actually mean? That means it spins 3, RPM per volt. On a fully charged 3S LiPo we'll see this assuming no voltage drop :.

Now, assuming we can hit that 65A draw on our unloaded motor which we can't in real life, but for the purposes of demonstration we can , here's the RPM on the same motor with our voltage drop from before:.

See the drop in performance? That's the effect Ohm's Law has on our hobby. A lower internal resistance means your car or truck or airplane or boat or helicopter goes faster and has more power.

This begs the question: how low should it be? Unfortunately, there's no easy answer for this. It's all dependant on your use case and battery. What is great for one battery may be terrible for another. But this is only a guide - there is no hard rule set here.

And if your charger doesn't give you the per cell measurements, you'll have to divide your total count by the number of cells in your battery to get an approximate per cell rating.

There are many people out there that believe a higher C-Rating will make their vehicle perform better. We know from our previous discussion on C-Ratings that you need to account for the power draw your motor has when picking out the right C-Rating for your battery, but does more equal better?

Many people say yes. But there isn't anything intrinsic to the C-Rating that substantiates their claims. It's simply not true that a higher C-Rating makes your car or airplane faster. However, there is a correlation between the C-Rating of a battery and the internal resistance of that battery. In general, batteries with a higher C-Rating also have a low internal resistance. This isn't always the case, as there are always variances in manufacturing, but the general idea seems to hold true, and a lower IR will make a car or airplane faster.

This is a case of correlation not equalling causation. It's really the internal resistance making a battery faster, not the C-Rating. It's important to use a LiPo compatible charger for LiPos. As I said in the Introduction, LiPo batteries require specialized care. Basically, the charger will keep the current, or charge rate, constant until the battery reaches its peak voltage 4.

Then it will maintain that voltage, while reducing the current. Charging a LiPo battery in this way can have damaging effects, so it's important to have a LiPo-compatible charger.

The second reason that you need a LiPo-compatible charger is balancing. Balancing is a term we use to describe the act of equalizing the voltage of each cell in a battery pack.

We balance LiPo batteries to ensure each cell discharges the same amount. This helps with the performance of the battery. It is also crucial for safety reasons - but I'll get to that in the section on discharging.

While there are stand-alone balancers on the market, I recommend purchasing a charger with built-in balancing capabilities, using a balance board like the one pictured to the right. This simplifies the process of balancing, and requires one less thing to be purchased. And with the price of chargers with built-in balancers coming down to very reasonable levels, I can't think of a reason you would not want to simplify your charging set up.

We'll talk more about chargers in the next section. One of the big problems with this connector is it's lack of surface area; namely, one's inability to get a good grip on the connector. This makes it hard to unplug from a balance board, and a user usually just ends up pulling on the wires. This can break the connector, and potentially short out the battery. They clip around the balance connector, and give a user more space to grab on to the it.

They are usually inexpensive, and a great way to prevent balance connector fatigue. To the left, you can see a balance connector with and without the Balance Protector Clips. While we would routinely charge a mAh NiMH battery at four or five amps, a LiPo battery of the same capacity should be charged at no more than three amps.

Just as the C Rating of a battery determines what the safe continuous discharge of the battery is, there is a C Rating for charging as well. So, for a mAh battery, we would want to charge at 3A, for a mAh LiPo, we should set the charger at 5A, and for a mAh pack, 4. However, more and more LiPo batteries are coming out these days that advertise faster charging capabilities, like the example battery we had above. On the battery, the label says it has a "3C Charge Rate".

Given that the battery's capacity is mAh, or 5 Amps, that means the battery can be safely charged at a maximum of 15 Amps! While it's best to default at a 1C charge rate, always defer to the battery's labeling itself to determine the maximum safe charge rate. Due to the potential for fire when using LiPo batteries, regardless of the likelihood, certain precautions should be taken. Always have a fire extinguisher nearby; it won't put out a LiPo fire as I will further explain below, LiPo fires are chemical reactions and are very hard to put out.

But a fire extinguisher will contain the fire and stop it from spreading. I prefer a CO2 Carbon Dioxide extinguisher - it helps to remove oxygen from the burn site, and will also cool down the battery and surrounding items. Another safety precaution is to charge the LiPo in a fire-resistant container. Most people opt toward the LiPo Bags on the market today, like the one pictured to the left.

They are a bit pricy, but are more portable than other solutions. Finally, never charge your LiPo batteries unattended! If something does happen, you needs to be around to react quickly. While you don't have to always be in the same room, you shouldn't leave the house, or go mow the lawn, or anything else that will prevent you from taking action should the battery catch fire.

At the time of this writing, I consider the Dynamite Passport P1 Mini Charger pictured to the left to be one of the best values on the market.

It can even charge the newest LiFe batteries that some use for receiver packs in airplanes and cars. It has a built-in balancer that handles up to 4S LiPo batteries and can charge up to six amps. It's a great charger for the price. It's not as high-power as some LiPo users may need, though, since it only operates at 60 watts.

So higher cell count batteries may not charge very fast on the P1. This means you can charge up to four batteries at one time! In fact, we use the W version as our go-to charger here in the store. If you have large-capacity batteries, large cell counts, or higher charging rates, you may want to find a charger that operates on higher wattages.

Each port on the Ultra Power quad charger is 60W if using them all at the same time. What does this mean to you? Well, let's look at how watts, amps, and voltage work together. See, wattage, voltage, and amperage are intertwined. You can convert voltage to amperage, and vice-versa. This is important in determining what kind of charger you need.

Let me show you how. But when I go to charge the battery, the most it ever charges at is around 3. What gives? If we use the formula above, we can plug in our voltage So the formula is saying that if we want to charge our 6S mAh LiPo pack at 5 Amps, we would need a charger that is capable of delivering at least Watts of power. Our Kinexsis KX80 can only deliver 80 Watts.

So you can see why a higher wattage charger might be important if you want to charge larger batteries quickly. Like the Kinexsis KX80, it's a single-port, multi-chemistry charger. Unlike the KX80, though, it is capable of a whopping Watt output, and a charge rate of up to 15A. As always, it's best to talk to your local hobby shop and have them set you up with a charger that will fit your needs. Local support is always a handy thing! A wonderful gentleman from the Netherlands contacted me recently asking about parallel charging versus series charging.

He wanted to know how best to charge six of his single-cell LiPo batteries at the same time. Parallel charging adapters are readily available, so that must be the best way, right?

Absolutely not! Parallel charging can be very dangerous. Even experts from well-known battery manufacturers "consider parallel pack charging to be highly dangerous and should not be attempted even by experienced users". The problem with parallel charging or even using your batteries in parallel is that, when hooking up batteries in parallel, you are doubling the capacity of the batteries while, and this is important, maintaining the voltage of one of the individual batteries.

What this means is that your charger, which normally monitors the battery while charging to prevent overcharging, cannot see all of the individual batteries' voltages - it can only see one. Another problem with parallel charging is the inequality of the batteries.

If the two batteries and the cells contained therein were from the exact same production lot, had the exact same chemical composition and age and charge history and everything else - in other words, if they were completely identical - parallel charging would be okay.

But a consumer that's you will never be able to replicate those conditions, or even come close. The more those parameters differ, and considering the questionable balance charging techniques that many battery chargers use, the higher the chance of over charging and thermal runaway more on that in the next section.

But what about batteries that are built in parallel? Doesn't the fact that batteries are sometime constructed in parallel mean that parallel charging is safe? Like I said before, if you can match all those parameters to be identical, parallel charging is okay.

At the factory where they make the packs, manufacturers are constantly monitoring and testing the materials that make up the cells. Each cell is labelled with a UPC code that contains the entire chemical makeup and history for that cell.

When a manufacturer assembles a battery, a computer scans and sorts the cells into compatible matches. Only then is it safe to parallel charge these cells. However, when you charge a LiPo battery at home, even if it is already constructed in parallel, you don't need any fancy parallel charging boards - the work is already done for you, and you simply need to charge it as you would a normal battery.

Please, please , don't use parallel charging cords. There is no safe way to use these. Active 1 year, 6 months ago. Viewed 3k times. Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Kralc Kralc 5, 1 1 gold badge 10 10 silver badges 47 47 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown.

The Overflow Blog. Podcast Explaining the semiconductor shortage, and how it might end.