Cycling li-po's with a icharger 1010B+

[Miracle Boy]

Hey guys,

I wonder if any of you guys can help me please. I have an icharger 1010B+. I have never used the battery cycling feature as I found that it didn't cycle the way I expected, and the section in the manual about cycling is a bit confusing.

Is there a rule for calculating what the max discharge should be that will keep the li-po's in good condition? I understand that the max discharge should be calculated using the capacity and C rating of the pack, but is there a 80% rule or something that should be applied?

I have tried to cycle a few packs with my charger in the past. I think I set it to discharge to 3.80v, but when the charger had stopped discharging I had a look at the monitor, and it showed the pack had stopped at about 3.85v or something like that. Is that because the first figure is calculated under load, the latter is under no load?

I have a few new packs that I'd like to cycle a few times, rather than just breaking them in carefully with gentle flight. I'll forget and start thrashing the hell out of me new packs, not good!!

I've tried searching the web about this, but I'm probably even more confused about the subject that I was before I started looking.

Any advice on links would be most gratefully appreciated!!!

Many thanks in advance!!

Cheers
MB

[RedOctobyr]

I'll try and hit the different questions you asked. Sorry if I miss any.

- I'd discharge to 3.85V, storage voltage. That's about 50% discharged. There is no benefit to deep cycles on a LiPo. This isn't a NiCd or something where you periodically want to discharge them really far. There is no benefit to the pack from running them really low, you only risk damaging them. If you really want to go down far for some reasong, 3.7V would roughly 80% drained (probably a little less). The LiPo guideline is don't run your packs down more than 80% of their capacity.

- For discharge current, use whatever you want. The charger only has 20W of internal discharge, I believe. For 3S, that would be about 1.6A. Set the current as high as you want, it will only go as high as the charger can manage. Do check in Settings, though, and increase the Discharge wattage to 20W, it may have defaulted to 15W. You'll get a little more speed that way.

- If the voltage is bouncing back up afterwards (3.8V -> 3.85V), go into settings, and change Discharge Reduce from the default of 50% to something like 10%. That will let it spend more time tapering the current down, reducing the bounce-back. But yes, the 3.8V to 3.85V difference is because it hits the target under load, then eliminates the load, and the voltage bounces back up.

If you're using the cycling feature (I've always cycled them manually), it will use the Charge and Discharge currents you've set on their respective pages, I believe. So make sure Charge is set to something reasonable (I'd use 1C).

[Miracle Boy]

Originally Posted by RedOctobyr

I'll try and hit the different questions you asked. Sorry if I miss any.

- I'd discharge to 3.85V, storage voltage. That's about 50% discharged. There is no benefit to deep cycles on a LiPo. This isn't a NiCd or something where you periodically want to discharge them really far. There is no benefit to the pack from running them really low, you only risk damaging them. If you really want to go down far for some reasong, 3.7V would roughly 80% drained (probably a little less). The LiPo guideline is don't run your packs down more than 80% of their capacity.

- For discharge current, use whatever you want. The charger only has 20W of internal discharge, I believe. For 3S, that would be about 1.6A. Set the current as high as you want, it will only go as high as the charger can manage. Do check in Settings, though, and increase the Discharge wattage to 20W, it may have defaulted to 15W. You'll get a little more speed that way.

- If the voltage is bouncing back up afterwards (3.8V -> 3.85V), go into settings, and change Discharge Reduce from the default of 50% to something like 10%. That will let it spend more time tapering the current down, reducing the bounce-back. But yes, the 3.8V to 3.85V difference is because it hits the target under load, then eliminates the load, and the voltage bounces back up.

If you're using the cycling feature (I've always cycled them manually), it will use the Charge and Discharge currents you've set on their respective pages, I believe. So make sure Charge is set to something reasonable (I'd use 1C).

Hey Redoctobyr,

Many thanks for your reply!! That's just what I was looking for!!

I have to be honest though, I've never even seen a setting in the menus called discharge reduce. I guess I need to go back through the manual again. LOL!!

The next load of packs I have that I'd like to have a go at cycling are a bunch of 1S 150mAh packs I got for my Blade Nano. I'll hook them up to the charger in either a 3S or 6S configuration using a series wiring harness.

Can you give me an idea of what sort of discharge current (load) I should use with these much smaller capacity packs?

I've read that to break in new li-po's, it's best to go easy on them and not do anything that's more taxing on the battery i.e. flying 3D. My trouble is that I seem to forget half way through the flight and absent mindlessly start chucking the heli around the sky, which defeats the idea of trying to break them in gently. LOL!!

I'd like to try using the cycling method to break them in, as the li-po's shouldn't get too stressed that way, if I get my discharge loading right that is!!

Thanks again!!

Regards
MB

[RedOctobyr]

Discharge Reduce is under Settings. The manual shows where to find it.

A bunch of 1S packs in series for discharging is fine. For cycling, people often suggest doing individual (not parallel) charges during break-in. Doing them in series like this would satisfy that suggestion.

That said, breaking in little 1S packs is likely not hugely required (or at least what's at stake is not as bad as potentially damaging a $200 pack for a 700), but there's certainly no harm in doing it.

To pick an arbitrary but reasonable value, a 5C discharge would seem decent. Not too aggressive, but quicker than just doing 1C or similar.

5C on 150mAh would be 0.75A. You'd be doing them in series, so it would just be 3S 0.8A, or 6S 0.8A, depending on how many your cable requires. Series cables must always be full. If it's a 3-position series cable, you need to have 3 packs connected every time you use that cable. For parallel cables, you can connect just 1 pack, or as many as you want.

[Miracle Boy]

Thanks again!!

I'm fine with the wiring principles. Just wasn't at all sure what sort of discharge load I should put on the for discharge. I have been thinking about maybe 1 amp load, but I'll have a go at 0.8 amps and see how it goes.

I had a nother look through the manual and found the discharge reduce menu. I still didn't quite understand what the manual meant, so I googled it and found a thread on RCG that explained it in way that my simple mind could understand.

I'll se how it goes with a 0.8 A load and see the the difference is between loaded and unloaded voltages and it's it's still a fair ways out, I'll lower the discharge reduce to 10 - 15% and see what it does then.

Thank you very much for your help!!

MB