Did I mess up my battery???

[B3Master]

Howdy All,

I have a knock off little quadcopter with a 600mah 3.7V battery. At first using its usb plug charger it used to give me about 7-8mins flight time (hovering) after a 1hr20min - 1hr30min charge. I tried to charge it using my 80watt multicharger at 2C. And thats when i think things went bad. The flight time droped to 4-5mins, not sure if it was right away I had no intention of timming since I had no reason to think it was bad for the battery. I kept trying to charge at 1C after that but the flight time continued to drop, 4mins, 3 mins then 2 mins. I even tried to charge at 0.5C
One test thing I noticed is after my multi balance charger fully charged it to 4.2V if I put it on its own usb charger it still took a good 25-30 mins charge time after that. Originally it used to take a good hour and 20 mins to full charge from the quads auto LVC. So that means it took a 30% charge after it was fully charged on the balance multi charger. I have the thunder AC680 using it on many car lipos with much success.

Could its original usb charger be the culprit for regularly over charging? or that one time I charged it at 2C had a continuous ill effect on it? Even though i continued to monitor it and it never got warm nothing, just room temperature. once the runtimes dropped to 3 mins I tried 3C 2C 1C test flight and it stayed consistent runtime of 2.5-3 mins

Now it will take almost the normal charging time as before but just wont fly... weird... How could it take the same amount of charge time and yet NOT fly.

Is there a way to reverse the effect? right now Im trying to discharge it using the quad and charging with it own charger with no hope.

I did a test discharge till about 3.30 volts or so and charged it on the multicharger and it took a good 520mAh.

How sensitive are these little lipos? with no warning and no heating? Could the Quad LVC be becoming too sensitive and cutting me off early?

 

[holtneil]

Hi mate you should never charge at 2c unless the battery is made to take this rate, a 600mah max charge rate is 0.6 amps , you may have damaged the lipo, I hope George will jump in on this as this is more up his street

 

[B3Master]

Thanks, noted, but i thought it would at least warn me by getting warm or hot.... it took it like a champ... or maybe not...

One thing i found out is the plug has been getting hot i took the pins out and rebent the tabs, obviously its been arcing and not having good contact which is the reason it was hardly able to fly 20secs. Now its back to 3mins, half the original flight time.

I was using aligator clips with paper clips in them and shoving them in the plug when using my multicharger. obviously i messed up the contact tabs in the plug. Ill either cut the usb plug to use my charger or just leave it stock for now and see if using its own usb charger will bring back some flight time. Its got the same batt plug as the x5c...

 

[GJH105775]

Howdy All,

I have a knock off little quadcopter with a 600mah 3.7V battery. At first using its usb plug charger it used to give me about 7-8mins flight time (hovering) after a 1hr20min - 1hr30min charge. I tried to charge it using my 80watt multicharger at 2C. And thats when i think things went bad. The flight time droped to 4-5mins, not sure if it was right away I had no intention of timming since I had no reason to think it was bad for the battery. I kept trying to charge at 1C after that but the flight time continued to drop, 4mins, 3 mins then 2 mins. I even tried to charge at 0.5C
One test thing I noticed is after my multi balance charger fully charged it to 4.2V if I put it on its own usb charger it still took a good 25-30 mins charge time after that. Originally it used to take a good hour and 20 mins to full charge from the quads auto LVC. So that means it took a 30% charge after it was fully charged on the balance multi charger. I have the thunder AC680 using it on many car lipos with much success.

Could its original usb charger be the culprit for regularly over charging? or that one time I charged it at 2C had a continuous ill effect on it? Even though i continued to monitor it and it never got warm nothing, just room temperature. once the runtimes dropped to 3 mins I tried 3C 2C 1C test flight and it stayed consistent runtime of 2.5-3 mins

Now it will take almost the normal charging time as before but just wont fly... weird... How could it take the same amount of charge time and yet NOT fly.

Is there a way to reverse the effect? right now Im trying to discharge it using the quad and charging with it own charger with no hope.

I did a test discharge till about 3.30 volts or so and charged it on the multicharger and it took a good 520mAh.

How sensitive are these little lipos? with no warning and no heating? Could the Quad LVC be becoming too sensitive and cutting me off early?

Shorting and charging it too fast are both good ways to kill a LiPo.

 

[B3Master]

Agreed, but 2C isnt "too fast"... 5C is too fast, most recent lipos should accept 2C safely maybe since this is a clone its got worse quality cells.

Shorting a lipo wont just kill the lipo, id expect that to take half the work bench with it in flames... havent tried it and I dont intend to..

The reason i even thought its safe to charge this battery faster, is because you can get the X6a charger combo which is a 6 pack of 750mah batteries and a 6 battery charger that charges them all in 55mins, Im curious to know what would happen if somone plugged just one battery to it, would it chargit in 9 mins?

 

[GJH105775]

Agreed, but 2C isnt "too fast"... 5C is too fast, most recent lipos should accept 2C safely maybe since this is a clone its got worse quality cells.

Shorting a lipo wont just kill the lipo, id expect that to take half the work bench with it in flames... havent tried it and I dont intend to..

The reason i even thought its safe to charge this battery faster, is because you can get the X6a charger combo which is a 6 pack of 750mah batteries and a 6 battery charger that charges them all in 55mins, Im curious to know what would happen if somone plugged just one battery to it, would it chargit in 9 mins?

Battery is too small, not enough amperage so a short won't damage anything but the lipo.

BTW 2C on a 600mAh is 1.2 amps

 

[GJH105775]

Agreed, but 2C isnt "too fast"... 5C is too fast, most recent lipos should accept 2C safely maybe since this is a clone its got worse quality cells.

Shorting a lipo wont just kill the lipo, id expect that to take half the work bench with it in flames... havent tried it and I dont intend to..

The reason i even thought its safe to charge this battery faster, is because you can get the X6a charger combo which is a 6 pack of 750mah batteries and a 6 battery charger that charges them all in 55mins, Im curious to know what would happen if somone plugged just one battery to it, would it chargit in 9 mins?

Same speed as you are limited to how much power you can push into the cell without damaging it.