How to test amp hour

[Lil Giants]

Originally Posted by Espeefan

Sometimes, you might think the battery is the problem, when in fact a battery charger can be the problem instead. Cheap chargers sometimes false peak, before the pack has reached full capacity. It makes it look like the pack is bad, when it really isn't.

I have these Venom 4s 25C (charge rate 1C) 5000mah lipos for my JD850. The 1st three I had last yr were cycled nearly everyday (all three) & were balanced charged everytime (charger set to 5A, but usually showed 3.3A or less). By summertime I wasn't getting much runtime from them & charger only showed 3 to 3500mA & the voltage @start of charging was over 14v. I thought something was ary with my lipo cut off of the esc I was using in the model.

I got three new Venom lipos mid October, the same everything as the old ones, they are working like they should in the model, draining down to 12.5+v & using up 4600 to 4850ma every use. The 3 older lipos have gotten worse & are now down to 2600ma per use and upwards of 15v at the start of charging.

Visual comparison of the old vs new, the older 3 lipos have expanded outward quite a bit.

Since mid October I have been just "charging" all packs and now having six lipos, the new ones are not getting cycled as fast as the old ones were last yr. And also I'm not digging anywhere near as hard as this time last yr, so the lipos aren't being drained as quick either. Last yr when I switched out a lipo, the lipo was warm, but now that isn't happening with either of them.

Is it better to charge lipos vs balance charge? Or just balance charge on occasion?

Why did my original 3 lipos go bad so quickly? What do you Nathan (or anyone?) suggest that I should have done differently to keep them in optium working form longer?