Battery Failure?

Buk

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Charging a battery and the charge red LED and the #1 cell red LED on the charger are alternating, back and forth.

Is this two week old, 5 cycles, battery toast?
 
Putting battery in Phantom, it blinks red continuously. Sounds toasted to me.

30-day warranty on batteries or is that an unrealistic expectation or warranty vendor specific???
 
I bought 5 batteries at the same time, the other four, plus the OEM battery, charge up just fine.

How do batteries "normally" fail? Is it just a gradual loss of flight time?
 
Buk said:
I bought 5 batteries at the same time, the other four, plus the OEM battery, charge up just fine.

How do batteries "normally" fail? Is it just a gradual loss of flight time?

I dunno, haven't had a battery fail on me yet.

Are you sure all the battery wires are ok?
 
When I plug in just the main power wires the green light flashes. Plugging the balance wires either by themselves or at the same time as the power wires, the reds start flashing starts.

I had the props off today to check motor balance and I used this battery. Shortly after turning on the motors, RPM started to decrease. The battery isn't charging at all. If go to Radio Shack perhaps they have a mate with wires to the balance plug and maybe I can check continuity of the three cells.

Not that these efforts accomplish anything, I read the fine print on the invoice and it says no returns on electrical items. Ugh.

Thanks for your comments.
 
Buk said:
When I plug in just the main power wires the green light flashes. Plugging the balance wires either by themselves or at the same time as the power wires, the reds start flashing starts.

I had the props off today to check motor balance and I used this battery. Shortly after turning on the motors, RPM started to decrease. The battery isn't charging at all. If go to Radio Shack perhaps they have a mate with wires to the balance plug and maybe I can check continuity of the three cells.

Not that these efforts accomplish anything, I read the fine print on the invoice and it says no returns on electrical items. Ugh.

Thanks for your comments.

I always thought plugging in the balancing wires first was not good for the battery, though don't know for sure.
take it to a hobby shop and see if they have a better charger to try it out on.
 
socman said:
I always thought plugging in the balancing wires first was not good for the battery, though don't know for sure.
take it to a hobby shop and see if they have a better charger to try it out on.

Although the manual doesn't use the word bad, it does say plug in the charge wires first and then balance. It also mentions using the 2 amp setting in one paragraph and 2 or 3 in another, but did state the max with a 20w rating it is limited to 1.8.
 
Buk said:
socman said:
I always thought plugging in the balancing wires first was not good for the battery, though don't know for sure.
take it to a hobby shop and see if they have a better charger to try it out on.

Although the manual doesn't use the word bad, it does say plug in the charge wires first and then balance. It also mentions using the 2 amp setting in one paragraph and 2 or 3 in another, but did state the max with a 20w rating it is limited to 1.8.


What you need is to find someone that has a much better charger that can tell you how each cell looks. At this point, you are just guessing and will not know for sure until that LIPO is plugged in to a better charger. Good Luck!
 
FangsCPO said:
What you need is to find someone that has a much better charger that can tell you how each cell looks. At this point, you are just guessing and will not know for sure until that LIPO is plugged in to a better charger. Good Luck!

Okay, I purchased a slightly better charger. The battery had one undercharged cell. After running the charger for 35 minutes the end charge was 12.46 volts and the cells ended up being 4.10, 4.16, 4.20. Are the cell differences too great?
 
Buk said:
FangsCPO said:
What you need is to find someone that has a much better charger that can tell you how each cell looks. At this point, you are just guessing and will not know for sure until that LIPO is plugged in to a better charger. Good Luck!

Okay, I purchased a slightly better charger. The battery had one undercharged cell. After running the charger for 35 minutes the end charge was 12.46 volts and the cells ended up being 4.10, 4.16, 4.20. Are the cell differences too great?

Nope, actuallly they're low.... those differences are considered "normal", even if you charge and then balance the LiPo.
 
jumanoc said:
Buk said:
FangsCPO said:
What you need is to find someone that has a much better charger that can tell you how each cell looks. At this point, you are just guessing and will not know for sure until that LIPO is plugged in to a better charger. Good Luck!

Okay, I purchased a slightly better charger. The battery had one undercharged cell. After running the charger for 35 minutes the end charge was 12.46 volts and the cells ended up being 4.10, 4.16, 4.20. Are the cell differences too great?

Nope, actuallly they're low.... those differences are considered "normal", even if you charge and then balance the LiPo.

I kinda disagree, I've never seen such a difference between cells.
mine never vary by more than .02. - (after balancing of course)
.. was this battery balance charged, or merely charged?
 
It was balance charged with a four button charger.

I haven't plugged into the Phantom to see if the Phantom likes the battery or not.
 
Buk said:
It was balance charged with a four button charger.

I haven't plugged into the Phantom to see if the Phantom likes the battery or not.

That's baffling, as i thought the role of a balance charger was to fill up each cell to balance them all out! :?:
 
At this point it's safe to say one of your cells is going bad. Nonetheless, you are well above 4.0v on each cell. At this point, you can fly, you'll just have shorter flying time. I've got a LIPO that charges at 4.20, 4.19, 4.12. I still use it and it last about 8 minutes carrying my HERO3. These LIPOs are cheap enough that I don't loose too much sleep over them. Now if these were my RC off-road LIPOs (Thunderpower 2S 65C 5300mAh at $129.00 ea), I'd be a little ticked off but luckily those come with a 2 year warranty. Happy flying!!
 
I think this should end the discussion:
Placed battery in Phantom, which was warmed up from the previous flight with different battery, and it acquired satellites and I took off. One short pass and battery died almost instantly, barely made it back and had minor crash in the grass. Single cell was way low and full battery at less than 9 volts.

Twenty dollar battery toast for unknown reason. Guess I can use it to provide battery power for testing on work bench. (Still ticks me off)

Thanks all for comments and suggestions.
 
That's a bummer. But at least you now know what's going on.
At any point did you fully discharge the battery or mistreat it?
and what brand?

At least you can still use it for other stuff I suppose.
 
Century 2200/20 and no damage or abuse that I know of and none apparent on exterior of battery. They scare me, super careful.
 

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