RichJ53
 First Officer
Flight distance : 1837356 ft
United States
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This is not a conventional charger, it is a power supply. The charging circuit is built into the battery and the power supply provides the necessary wattage / current. The protection circuit will not allow the power supply to damage the battery. In addition, the battery has a built in thermistor that will not allow you to begin the charge if the battery pack is to Hot. All pretty nice stuff for novice users and many of us more advanced users have been looking into other means to charge the batteries. If you have the money and you would like a well designed solution, look into the Smart Power charging system. I believe this is one of the best pre-made solutions on the market that will not allow you to damage your stuff.
http://www.smartpowercharge.com/proddetail.php?prod=SPC4500
The new 180 watt power supply provides the rated wattage the battery requires and in my opinion is not really not going to impact the life of the pack. Time will tell the rest of the story, but this should not significantly change how long the Inspire 1 battery lasts.
1> The real story is are the cells used in this battery of higher quality?
2> Can they handle the discharge rates that the Inspire 1 can dish out?
3> All of the user variables such as storing at full charge, dropping the battery below the recommended discharge cycle, temperatures the battery is being charged, temperatures the battery is being discharged....
many things can kill the life span of the Lipo battery. At these charging rates I would doubt you can impact the total life.
Here is some Lipo battery basic information from the latest AMA magazine by Greg Gimlick. Again I know that this is not exactly the Inspire battery voltage and type but it is good info.
Common Electric Terms.
When discussing electricity, two terms often come up: voltage and amperage (or volts and amps). You don’t have to be a scientist to understand what these terms mean. If you’ve ever used a water hose, you already know all you need to make informed decisions about batteries. Think of the hose as an electrical wire, and the water as electricity.
Voltage.
Voltage is the force or pressure of the electricity. With a garden hose, voltage is like the water pressure. For this article, think of a battery as a water pump providing pressure for the water.
Amperage.
Amperage is the unit of measurement of the amount of electrical flow or current. With a garden hose, this is the amount of water that can flow through the hose in a period of time.
Amperage is similar to the electrical equivalent of “gallons per minute.” Most of our equipment is measured in milliamps, which is 1/1,000th of an ampere. So a 3,300 mAh battery pack is 3.3 amperes.
Ohms.
Ohms is a measurement of resistance to the flow of electricity. With a garden hose, consider the flow of water through a large-diameter hose compared to that of a small-diameter hose. Water flows more freely through a larger hose than a smaller one. Electrical resistance is measured in ohms and is related to the ability of electrical components to let electricity travel through them. As do water hoses, electrical wire comes in different sizes. Larger-diameter wire lets electricity flow more freely than does smaller-diameter wire.
With electricity, the by-product of resistance is heat. The more power that is pushed through a wire, the hotter that wire will become. Heat in a wire indicates that you don’t have a large enough wire size for the amount of current that you are pushing through it. Too much heat can start a fire.
AWG.
AWG stands for American Wire Gauge, sometimes referred to as simply “gauge.” It is nothing more than a long term to describe the diameter of a wire. As you learned from electrical resistance, the more electricity you want to move through a wire, the bigger the wire must be to minimize resistance and control heat. AWG measurements are whole numbers—for example, 8 AWG or 12 AWG. A smaller number means a bigger wire. In the same way a larger hose allows more water to pass through it, each gauge of wire is rated for a specific maximum electrical throughput measured in amperes.
Many times, our batteries’ capacities are listed in milliampere hours (mAh) instead of ampere-hours (Ah). This is merely a metric conversion to a smaller unit—1 ampere hour = 1,000 milliampere hours, so 2.2 Ah is 2,200 mAh.
• Discharge rating: “C” represents a measure of the rate at which a battery can be discharged relative to its maximum capacity. If the battery is discharged at a rate higher than the discharge rating, the battery may be damaged, or worse, could pose a safety hazard, like a fire. If a battery’s discharge rating is 15C, it means that the most power that can be drawn from it at one time is equal to 15 times its capacity. Using the example of a battery which has a capacity of 2,200 mAh, this means that greatest flow of electricity you can safely get from the battery is 15 x 2,200 = 33,000 milliamperes (or 33 amperes). The discharge rating listed on the battery’s label is based on what the manufacturer believes the pack will handle during discharge without degrading the pack. These discharge ratings, sometimes mistakenly referred to as C ratings, can be optimistic and are best used as a guideline. Packs with higher discharge rates have lower internal resistance (IR), which is a good thing. Many batteries provide two discharge ratings such as 30C/60C. These represent the continuous and burst ratings. The first number means that it will continuously support a 30C discharge, and for short bursts (typically less than 15 seconds) it should support 60C. This allows for spikes during rapid throttle changes, but shouldn’t be something you use regularly. If you need higher current levels, buy a higher capacity/rated pack.
• Internal Resistance: This represents the internal resistance of a cell or pack. Some chargers will test the IR for each cell within a pack during the charge cycle. As internal esistance increases, the battery efficiency decreases. So as a general rule, the lower the resistance, the more punch a battery will provide. It’s nice to know, but not something to get hung up over as a beginner. As a rule, packs advertising a high discharge capacity will have a lower IR. Battery pack labels are often the manufacturer’s attempt to put its product in the best light. A pack rated as a 65C pack and sporting small-gauge wires to the connectors won’t really handle that amount of current. Sometimes packs come with large-gauge wires, but they’re soldered to tiny tabs inside the pack, which negate the benefit of those monster wires. Shop carefully and use the best battery you can afford.
The Secret to Long Life.
The secret, at least for your batteries, is to charge to 4.1 volts per cell as opposed to the full 4.2 volts per cell, and never discharge them to full discharge level. Working your packs in between the two ends of the charge/discharge levels will greatly increase their lifespan. Engineer/charger/ESC designer Doug Ingraham described it this way: “There are several things that cause degradation of lithium batteries. One is heat and for the purposes of RC modeling, this is most likely the one that causes the greatest degradation. The others have to do with the effects on the materials at both ends of the state of charge. “The lithium ions are forced into the carbon material on the plates at both ends of the state of charge. This causes a breakdown in the material, and in future charge cycles less ions can be held, causing degradation in capacity. It is mostly at the ends (full and empty) that this damage occurs, so staying away from the ends even a little can help extend the life of the cells.” Several chargers offer a charge cutoff labeled “Long Life” or something similar, and they stop the charge at 4.1 volts per cell. From Doug’s explanation, you can see that using the 4.1 volts keeps you off the top end and setting an ESC low-voltage cutoff above the traditional 3 volts per cell will keep you off the bottom end. Unless you’re a competitor trying to squeeze every last bit out of your flight, this will serve you well and save you money.
Rich |
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