Tech (Winner’s Circle). An inside view
shows what appears to be four independent
chargers for each cell.
From those tested here at the Battery
Clinic, there has been no commonality
between connectors (sockets). When there
were physically identical sockets, they
turned out to be wired in reverse of each
other. So if you are using a charger/
balancer from one manufacturer with Li-
Poly packs from another, make sure the
connections are compatible.
At least one Li-Poly vendor is good
enough to put the wiring diagram directly
on the pack. If the connectors are
physically the same, all you have to do is
back out the pins on the battery balancing
connector and reinstall them in the right
sequence.
With few exceptions the plugs are
wired with the battery nodes in sequence,
so if the far left wire is black, the next one
to it will be the positive for that cell, and
so on until the far right red wire. With
connectors having .010 inch pin spacing,
you can use a male JST connector to check
individual cells to see if you have it right.
Backing out the pins on the battery
balancing connector is relatively easy. Just
press down with a #11 blade on the
exposed pin at the side of the connector
and back it out.
Enhance Contact Life and Performance:
The following is from Dick Allen: retired
IBM components engineer and the man
who originated the redundant, parallel
battery-pack
system so many are
using.).
“The Deans
Ultra is a great
connector but
usually hard to pull
A reader asks how to convert his Sullivan starter to a cordless unit
July 2006 97
Also included in this column:
• A contact life tip from Dick
Allen
• An interesting charging
power source
• 20C continuous: What does
it mean?
The Battery Clinic Red Scholefield | [email protected]
Removing pins with the tip of an X-Acto
blade from balancing plug to make
compatible with balancing charger pin
out.
Winner’s Circle (L) and Common Sense RC balancing chargers
Wiring diagram to connect two six-cell packs for starter. with nearly identical layout and function.
↑
↓
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
connector
solder together here
connect directly
to starter leads
I CAN’T BELIEVE this is the start of my
second year writing this column, but
thanks to you readers I’m still here. I
figured by now every modeler in the free
world would have had his or her fill of
battery lore.
Although our AMA membership has
not reflected it yet, there seems to be many
new modelers on the block who are
anxious to learn how to care for their
batteries. I hope my contribution here and
those of other MA writers will be the
motivation necessary to bring these new
modelers into the fold.
A reader wrote:
“I want to convert my Sullivan electric
starter into a cordless. Seems like the best
way to go is to use two 7.2V flat Cs Ni-Cd
packs wired in series. Not sure which
wires connect to what.
“Also, what kind of connectors do I
need to do all of this? Sermos, Deans? I
have an Accu-Cycle Elite charger. Would
I have to get some kind of adaptor wire to
use this charger to charge the packs?”
Using a couple Ni-Cd packs makes a
great cordless starter battery, with much
snappier starts than the 7 Ah lead acid
battery many use. You can hard-wire the
packs wired in series, as shown.
But depending on what you want to use
for a charger, you will have to bring out
charge connections or use the existing
connectors and unplug to charge with your
Accu-Cycle Elite, which will only handle
10 cells. If you have something such as the
Triton or Multiplex LN5014, you can use
only one connection for charging and
leave the packs connected in series.
New balancing chargers are released
every week or so. There is one from
Common Sense RC and one from Amondo
charging source.
apart. This can be cured by putting a small amount of petrolatum
(‘Vaseline’—petroleum jelly) on the male contacts, then wiping it
off with a clean, lint-free cloth. The amount left will be just right.
“This will not affect the contact resistance at all but will
greatly reduce the insertion/retraction force. It will also
substantially reduce gold plating wear.
“Incidentally, I ran tests at IBM years ago in which petrolatum
performed much better than other more expensive contact
lubricants and was subsequently used on millions (probably
billions) of critical IBM connector contacts.”
Automotive jump-starter units make a good charging source.
Some modelers have been using the automotive jump starters
from auto-supply stores (that cost roughly $35) to power their Li-
Poly chargers. They weigh approximately 12 pounds and have a
built-in self charger, handle, and a 12-volt outlet.
The one I looked at (and bought at The Home Depot) had a 17
Ah lead-acid gel cell in it. The price of one of these is nearly as
much as the whole jump-starter unit.
When using these at home in the workshop as a power supply,
is it okay to charge it while using it to power a charger such as
the Triton? Yes; the battery smoothes out all the pulses from the
charger.
20C Continuous: What does it mean? And now to open
Pandora’s Box; in this case Pandora is the way Li-Poly vendors
are rating their packs. It seems that nearly all are specifying some
continuous discharge rate along with a burst rate.
I suspected these a little, particularly when they state 20C
continuous. So far I have not found a single one (of the halfdozen
different vendors) that can give 20C continuous without
seriously compromising performance and cycle life.
If the pack temperature goes much above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit, salting starts internal to the pack and capacity on
subsequent discharges is significantly compromised. If the pack
exceeds 160 degrees Fahrenheit, you are in a danger zone.
Coincident with these high temperatures, we see a dip in the
discharge curve as the pack heats up. This dip is also coincident
with deterioration of the pack, so you know from the discharge
curve when you are approaching the danger zone.
After discussing this with several vendors, it became clear that
they had no idea what 20C continuous would do to the pack—
only that their supplier had shown them a curve at 20C. This was
for one cycle—nothing about subsequent cycles at that rate. Few
had actually tested them in this range, much less run any cycle
life testing.
When questioned about what exactly defined the burst rate—
how long a duration—again, the deer-in-the-headlights look. Isn’t it
strange that the 20C continuous and 30C burst happens to be on
nearly all the packs offered when they come from a variety of cell
manufacturers, mostly in China?
While working in that part of the world I discovered that when I
asked a technical question I would usually get a “yes” in response.
What you soon discover is that “yes” means they heard the question.
It does not mean they agree with you. So if you like soft-shoe
routines, your Li-Poly supplier will give you one that will rival the
best vaudeville act ever when you start probing its Li-Poly claims.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel; at least one Li-Poly
vendor is trying to make sense of this wild rating system. That will
have some meaning and give us an indication of what we can expect
in the way of cycle life from the product.
When you consider that we have been rating (and derating)
rechargeable batteries for a half century, you have to wonder whythe Li-Poly gang has taken such an off-thewall
approach when simply stating the
internal resistance and cycle life as a
function of discharge rate would make
things easier for all.
If running your packs at 8-10C and
balancing them occasionally meets your
needs, you should enjoy a fairly good cycle
life. If, on the other hand, you are into F5B
“rocketry” with a 45-second run time for a
complete capacity dump and you can live
with four or five cycles of life, so be it. But
you should know going in what the
consequences are.
So how do you determine a pack’s
internal resistance? The same way it has
been done for years in the battery industry.
You measure current and voltage at two
different levels, and the change in voltage
divided by the corresponding change in
current gives you the internal resistance.
From this you will have a good idea of
how your performance suffers as you push
the packs at higher rates. And the current
multiplied by the internal resistance gives
you the watts the pack will have to
dissipate in heat.
Once I get the new 500-watt discharge
unit promised by West Mountain Radio, I
should be able to run high-rate discharge
cycles and provide some meaningful data
on Lithium packs.
Vintage Radio Control Society (VR/CS):
To give more weight to Dave Brown’s
statement (in the April 2006 MA) regarding
the growth of Electrics, the VR/CS meet I
attended in Spring Hill, Florida, in March
had a record number of vintage models
flying with electric power. I would guess
that at least half of the entries were electric
powered. Old dogs do learn new tricks.
I’ve got some battery testing to do at the
field. Fly safe. I’ll be back to you in the
September issue, hopefully with some
hands-on information about the FMA
Direct Cellpro Lithium charge/balancing
system that is replacing the BalancePro.
You can send mail to me at 12219 NW 9th
Ln., Newberry FL 32669. Please include an
SASE if you want a reply.
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/07
Page Numbers: 97,98,100
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/07
Page Numbers: 97,98,100
Tech (Winner’s Circle). An inside view
shows what appears to be four independent
chargers for each cell.
From those tested here at the Battery
Clinic, there has been no commonality
between connectors (sockets). When there
were physically identical sockets, they
turned out to be wired in reverse of each
other. So if you are using a charger/
balancer from one manufacturer with Li-
Poly packs from another, make sure the
connections are compatible.
At least one Li-Poly vendor is good
enough to put the wiring diagram directly
on the pack. If the connectors are
physically the same, all you have to do is
back out the pins on the battery balancing
connector and reinstall them in the right
sequence.
With few exceptions the plugs are
wired with the battery nodes in sequence,
so if the far left wire is black, the next one
to it will be the positive for that cell, and
so on until the far right red wire. With
connectors having .010 inch pin spacing,
you can use a male JST connector to check
individual cells to see if you have it right.
Backing out the pins on the battery
balancing connector is relatively easy. Just
press down with a #11 blade on the
exposed pin at the side of the connector
and back it out.
Enhance Contact Life and Performance:
The following is from Dick Allen: retired
IBM components engineer and the man
who originated the redundant, parallel
battery-pack
system so many are
using.).
“The Deans
Ultra is a great
connector but
usually hard to pull
A reader asks how to convert his Sullivan starter to a cordless unit
July 2006 97
Also included in this column:
• A contact life tip from Dick
Allen
• An interesting charging
power source
• 20C continuous: What does
it mean?
The Battery Clinic Red Scholefield | [email protected]
Removing pins with the tip of an X-Acto
blade from balancing plug to make
compatible with balancing charger pin
out.
Winner’s Circle (L) and Common Sense RC balancing chargers
Wiring diagram to connect two six-cell packs for starter. with nearly identical layout and function.
↑
↓
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
connector
solder together here
connect directly
to starter leads
I CAN’T BELIEVE this is the start of my
second year writing this column, but
thanks to you readers I’m still here. I
figured by now every modeler in the free
world would have had his or her fill of
battery lore.
Although our AMA membership has
not reflected it yet, there seems to be many
new modelers on the block who are
anxious to learn how to care for their
batteries. I hope my contribution here and
those of other MA writers will be the
motivation necessary to bring these new
modelers into the fold.
A reader wrote:
“I want to convert my Sullivan electric
starter into a cordless. Seems like the best
way to go is to use two 7.2V flat Cs Ni-Cd
packs wired in series. Not sure which
wires connect to what.
“Also, what kind of connectors do I
need to do all of this? Sermos, Deans? I
have an Accu-Cycle Elite charger. Would
I have to get some kind of adaptor wire to
use this charger to charge the packs?”
Using a couple Ni-Cd packs makes a
great cordless starter battery, with much
snappier starts than the 7 Ah lead acid
battery many use. You can hard-wire the
packs wired in series, as shown.
But depending on what you want to use
for a charger, you will have to bring out
charge connections or use the existing
connectors and unplug to charge with your
Accu-Cycle Elite, which will only handle
10 cells. If you have something such as the
Triton or Multiplex LN5014, you can use
only one connection for charging and
leave the packs connected in series.
New balancing chargers are released
every week or so. There is one from
Common Sense RC and one from Amondo
charging source.
apart. This can be cured by putting a small amount of petrolatum
(‘Vaseline’—petroleum jelly) on the male contacts, then wiping it
off with a clean, lint-free cloth. The amount left will be just right.
“This will not affect the contact resistance at all but will
greatly reduce the insertion/retraction force. It will also
substantially reduce gold plating wear.
“Incidentally, I ran tests at IBM years ago in which petrolatum
performed much better than other more expensive contact
lubricants and was subsequently used on millions (probably
billions) of critical IBM connector contacts.”
Automotive jump-starter units make a good charging source.
Some modelers have been using the automotive jump starters
from auto-supply stores (that cost roughly $35) to power their Li-
Poly chargers. They weigh approximately 12 pounds and have a
built-in self charger, handle, and a 12-volt outlet.
The one I looked at (and bought at The Home Depot) had a 17
Ah lead-acid gel cell in it. The price of one of these is nearly as
much as the whole jump-starter unit.
When using these at home in the workshop as a power supply,
is it okay to charge it while using it to power a charger such as
the Triton? Yes; the battery smoothes out all the pulses from the
charger.
20C Continuous: What does it mean? And now to open
Pandora’s Box; in this case Pandora is the way Li-Poly vendors
are rating their packs. It seems that nearly all are specifying some
continuous discharge rate along with a burst rate.
I suspected these a little, particularly when they state 20C
continuous. So far I have not found a single one (of the halfdozen
different vendors) that can give 20C continuous without
seriously compromising performance and cycle life.
If the pack temperature goes much above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit, salting starts internal to the pack and capacity on
subsequent discharges is significantly compromised. If the pack
exceeds 160 degrees Fahrenheit, you are in a danger zone.
Coincident with these high temperatures, we see a dip in the
discharge curve as the pack heats up. This dip is also coincident
with deterioration of the pack, so you know from the discharge
curve when you are approaching the danger zone.
After discussing this with several vendors, it became clear that
they had no idea what 20C continuous would do to the pack—
only that their supplier had shown them a curve at 20C. This was
for one cycle—nothing about subsequent cycles at that rate. Few
had actually tested them in this range, much less run any cycle
life testing.
When questioned about what exactly defined the burst rate—
how long a duration—again, the deer-in-the-headlights look. Isn’t it
strange that the 20C continuous and 30C burst happens to be on
nearly all the packs offered when they come from a variety of cell
manufacturers, mostly in China?
While working in that part of the world I discovered that when I
asked a technical question I would usually get a “yes” in response.
What you soon discover is that “yes” means they heard the question.
It does not mean they agree with you. So if you like soft-shoe
routines, your Li-Poly supplier will give you one that will rival the
best vaudeville act ever when you start probing its Li-Poly claims.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel; at least one Li-Poly
vendor is trying to make sense of this wild rating system. That will
have some meaning and give us an indication of what we can expect
in the way of cycle life from the product.
When you consider that we have been rating (and derating)
rechargeable batteries for a half century, you have to wonder whythe Li-Poly gang has taken such an off-thewall
approach when simply stating the
internal resistance and cycle life as a
function of discharge rate would make
things easier for all.
If running your packs at 8-10C and
balancing them occasionally meets your
needs, you should enjoy a fairly good cycle
life. If, on the other hand, you are into F5B
“rocketry” with a 45-second run time for a
complete capacity dump and you can live
with four or five cycles of life, so be it. But
you should know going in what the
consequences are.
So how do you determine a pack’s
internal resistance? The same way it has
been done for years in the battery industry.
You measure current and voltage at two
different levels, and the change in voltage
divided by the corresponding change in
current gives you the internal resistance.
From this you will have a good idea of
how your performance suffers as you push
the packs at higher rates. And the current
multiplied by the internal resistance gives
you the watts the pack will have to
dissipate in heat.
Once I get the new 500-watt discharge
unit promised by West Mountain Radio, I
should be able to run high-rate discharge
cycles and provide some meaningful data
on Lithium packs.
Vintage Radio Control Society (VR/CS):
To give more weight to Dave Brown’s
statement (in the April 2006 MA) regarding
the growth of Electrics, the VR/CS meet I
attended in Spring Hill, Florida, in March
had a record number of vintage models
flying with electric power. I would guess
that at least half of the entries were electric
powered. Old dogs do learn new tricks.
I’ve got some battery testing to do at the
field. Fly safe. I’ll be back to you in the
September issue, hopefully with some
hands-on information about the FMA
Direct Cellpro Lithium charge/balancing
system that is replacing the BalancePro.
You can send mail to me at 12219 NW 9th
Ln., Newberry FL 32669. Please include an
SASE if you want a reply.
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/07
Page Numbers: 97,98,100
Tech (Winner’s Circle). An inside view
shows what appears to be four independent
chargers for each cell.
From those tested here at the Battery
Clinic, there has been no commonality
between connectors (sockets). When there
were physically identical sockets, they
turned out to be wired in reverse of each
other. So if you are using a charger/
balancer from one manufacturer with Li-
Poly packs from another, make sure the
connections are compatible.
At least one Li-Poly vendor is good
enough to put the wiring diagram directly
on the pack. If the connectors are
physically the same, all you have to do is
back out the pins on the battery balancing
connector and reinstall them in the right
sequence.
With few exceptions the plugs are
wired with the battery nodes in sequence,
so if the far left wire is black, the next one
to it will be the positive for that cell, and
so on until the far right red wire. With
connectors having .010 inch pin spacing,
you can use a male JST connector to check
individual cells to see if you have it right.
Backing out the pins on the battery
balancing connector is relatively easy. Just
press down with a #11 blade on the
exposed pin at the side of the connector
and back it out.
Enhance Contact Life and Performance:
The following is from Dick Allen: retired
IBM components engineer and the man
who originated the redundant, parallel
battery-pack
system so many are
using.).
“The Deans
Ultra is a great
connector but
usually hard to pull
A reader asks how to convert his Sullivan starter to a cordless unit
July 2006 97
Also included in this column:
• A contact life tip from Dick
Allen
• An interesting charging
power source
• 20C continuous: What does
it mean?
The Battery Clinic Red Scholefield | [email protected]
Removing pins with the tip of an X-Acto
blade from balancing plug to make
compatible with balancing charger pin
out.
Winner’s Circle (L) and Common Sense RC balancing chargers
Wiring diagram to connect two six-cell packs for starter. with nearly identical layout and function.
↑
↓
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
7.2 V 1800 mAh Ni-Cd Pack
connector
solder together here
connect directly
to starter leads
I CAN’T BELIEVE this is the start of my
second year writing this column, but
thanks to you readers I’m still here. I
figured by now every modeler in the free
world would have had his or her fill of
battery lore.
Although our AMA membership has
not reflected it yet, there seems to be many
new modelers on the block who are
anxious to learn how to care for their
batteries. I hope my contribution here and
those of other MA writers will be the
motivation necessary to bring these new
modelers into the fold.
A reader wrote:
“I want to convert my Sullivan electric
starter into a cordless. Seems like the best
way to go is to use two 7.2V flat Cs Ni-Cd
packs wired in series. Not sure which
wires connect to what.
“Also, what kind of connectors do I
need to do all of this? Sermos, Deans? I
have an Accu-Cycle Elite charger. Would
I have to get some kind of adaptor wire to
use this charger to charge the packs?”
Using a couple Ni-Cd packs makes a
great cordless starter battery, with much
snappier starts than the 7 Ah lead acid
battery many use. You can hard-wire the
packs wired in series, as shown.
But depending on what you want to use
for a charger, you will have to bring out
charge connections or use the existing
connectors and unplug to charge with your
Accu-Cycle Elite, which will only handle
10 cells. If you have something such as the
Triton or Multiplex LN5014, you can use
only one connection for charging and
leave the packs connected in series.
New balancing chargers are released
every week or so. There is one from
Common Sense RC and one from Amondo
charging source.
apart. This can be cured by putting a small amount of petrolatum
(‘Vaseline’—petroleum jelly) on the male contacts, then wiping it
off with a clean, lint-free cloth. The amount left will be just right.
“This will not affect the contact resistance at all but will
greatly reduce the insertion/retraction force. It will also
substantially reduce gold plating wear.
“Incidentally, I ran tests at IBM years ago in which petrolatum
performed much better than other more expensive contact
lubricants and was subsequently used on millions (probably
billions) of critical IBM connector contacts.”
Automotive jump-starter units make a good charging source.
Some modelers have been using the automotive jump starters
from auto-supply stores (that cost roughly $35) to power their Li-
Poly chargers. They weigh approximately 12 pounds and have a
built-in self charger, handle, and a 12-volt outlet.
The one I looked at (and bought at The Home Depot) had a 17
Ah lead-acid gel cell in it. The price of one of these is nearly as
much as the whole jump-starter unit.
When using these at home in the workshop as a power supply,
is it okay to charge it while using it to power a charger such as
the Triton? Yes; the battery smoothes out all the pulses from the
charger.
20C Continuous: What does it mean? And now to open
Pandora’s Box; in this case Pandora is the way Li-Poly vendors
are rating their packs. It seems that nearly all are specifying some
continuous discharge rate along with a burst rate.
I suspected these a little, particularly when they state 20C
continuous. So far I have not found a single one (of the halfdozen
different vendors) that can give 20C continuous without
seriously compromising performance and cycle life.
If the pack temperature goes much above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit, salting starts internal to the pack and capacity on
subsequent discharges is significantly compromised. If the pack
exceeds 160 degrees Fahrenheit, you are in a danger zone.
Coincident with these high temperatures, we see a dip in the
discharge curve as the pack heats up. This dip is also coincident
with deterioration of the pack, so you know from the discharge
curve when you are approaching the danger zone.
After discussing this with several vendors, it became clear that
they had no idea what 20C continuous would do to the pack—
only that their supplier had shown them a curve at 20C. This was
for one cycle—nothing about subsequent cycles at that rate. Few
had actually tested them in this range, much less run any cycle
life testing.
When questioned about what exactly defined the burst rate—
how long a duration—again, the deer-in-the-headlights look. Isn’t it
strange that the 20C continuous and 30C burst happens to be on
nearly all the packs offered when they come from a variety of cell
manufacturers, mostly in China?
While working in that part of the world I discovered that when I
asked a technical question I would usually get a “yes” in response.
What you soon discover is that “yes” means they heard the question.
It does not mean they agree with you. So if you like soft-shoe
routines, your Li-Poly supplier will give you one that will rival the
best vaudeville act ever when you start probing its Li-Poly claims.
There may be light at the end of the tunnel; at least one Li-Poly
vendor is trying to make sense of this wild rating system. That will
have some meaning and give us an indication of what we can expect
in the way of cycle life from the product.
When you consider that we have been rating (and derating)
rechargeable batteries for a half century, you have to wonder whythe Li-Poly gang has taken such an off-thewall
approach when simply stating the
internal resistance and cycle life as a
function of discharge rate would make
things easier for all.
If running your packs at 8-10C and
balancing them occasionally meets your
needs, you should enjoy a fairly good cycle
life. If, on the other hand, you are into F5B
“rocketry” with a 45-second run time for a
complete capacity dump and you can live
with four or five cycles of life, so be it. But
you should know going in what the
consequences are.
So how do you determine a pack’s
internal resistance? The same way it has
been done for years in the battery industry.
You measure current and voltage at two
different levels, and the change in voltage
divided by the corresponding change in
current gives you the internal resistance.
From this you will have a good idea of
how your performance suffers as you push
the packs at higher rates. And the current
multiplied by the internal resistance gives
you the watts the pack will have to
dissipate in heat.
Once I get the new 500-watt discharge
unit promised by West Mountain Radio, I
should be able to run high-rate discharge
cycles and provide some meaningful data
on Lithium packs.
Vintage Radio Control Society (VR/CS):
To give more weight to Dave Brown’s
statement (in the April 2006 MA) regarding
the growth of Electrics, the VR/CS meet I
attended in Spring Hill, Florida, in March
had a record number of vintage models
flying with electric power. I would guess
that at least half of the entries were electric
powered. Old dogs do learn new tricks.
I’ve got some battery testing to do at the
field. Fly safe. I’ll be back to you in the
September issue, hopefully with some
hands-on information about the FMA
Direct Cellpro Lithium charge/balancing
system that is replacing the BalancePro.
You can send mail to me at 12219 NW 9th
Ln., Newberry FL 32669. Please include an
SASE if you want a reply.