I have a bunch of 3S and 4S nano's and I will never but another one. As mentioned flight time drops dramatically, they puff up and even on a full charge my voltage alarm goes of right after takeoff, stops after a minute or so and only get a few minutes of flight. Also the cells have a large difference in voltage.

I do take care of my batts and balance charge almost all of the time, for me it's zippy's and regular tunigy's. I have 3S 2200's from when I first started fly almost 2 years ago that are in great shape and still get good flight time out of them.

-Don

We are a bit off topic here so I'll try and steer those who are interested in the Nano vs. World (ford vs. chevy/mac vs. pc, etc.) wars. Go check out MCSGUY's thread on batt testing which he is doing this month. He's a good friend of mine and a quality engineer (the MCS stands for Motion Control Systems, his business). I won't go into details here, the thread should cover that but I do provide a copy of one his test runs (below).

Enjoy!

Well, the NANOS dont look bad acording to that chart. Looks like the Zippys puffed!

I still maintain that how you treat lipos determines their performance and life.
I have 3 3300mAh 4S 25-50C NanoTechs that I've flown all year, and they are not puffed.
One was in a severe crash.
All batteries are also not manufactured consistently.
And the HK batteries are good, but not best (if you believe the other manufacturer's hype.)
I have a Turnigy 5000mAh 4S that had a weak cell (only will reach 3.8v fully charged) right out of the box.
I still can't justify paying the LHS $100+ for a lipo that I can get from HK for $50-...

Nano are commonly refer to as Nano Puffs and that is exactly what the do regardess of how you take care of them. I have thrown out over a dozen of Nanos that didn't make it 20 cycles (charging at 1C, discharging to max 70%). If you fly a lot 100 cycles a year + Thunder Power packs are the best, and the only packs that offer a 100% replacement during the first year and 50% failure or crash replacement for 2 Years. Yep their expensive but if you do the math they are cheaper than HK lipos if your looking for a warranted battery for 100+ cycles in 12 months.

Originally Posted by 02deuce

Nano are commonly refer to as Nano Puffs and that is exactly what the do regardless of how you take care of them. I have thrown out over a dozen of Nanos that didn't make it 20 cycles (charging at 1C, discharging to max 70%). If you fly a lot 100 cycles a year + Thunder Power packs are the best, and the only packs that offer a 100% replacement during the first year and 50% failure or crash replacement for 2 Years. Yep their expensive but if you do the math they are cheaper than HK lipos if your looking for a warranted battery for 100+ cycles in 12 months.

I guess time will tell if my new NANO puff or not. I only own 1 of them at this time. T J says the NANOs are the cats meow!. I personally cant believe there is that much of a difference in lipo quality. lipos are all made from the same stuff. I could be wrong but brand loyalty could have something to do with peoples thoughts on these batteries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=jJ4J-c1We-s

Originally Posted by jetstuff

As we seem to drift in and out of strict topics here..... has anyone else experienced GoPro Hero 2 'lock-up'? only 'remedy' is to remove the battery.

Yep, I've had all kinds of problems since the last "upgrade."

The lockup problem seem to happen for me more often with the fastest SD cards. I have a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s card that always seems to lock up, even after reformatting by the camera.

I've also found that my battery life seems to have been drastically cut. I used to get about 45 minutes video time, now it's down to 25 or so.

Anybody know how to downgrade?

Originally Posted by xtrmtrk

Yep, I've had all kinds of problems since the last "upgrade."

The lockup problem seem to happen for me more often with the fastest SD cards. I have a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s card that always seems to lock up, even after reformatting by the camera.

I've also found that my battery life seems to have been drastically cut. I used to get about 45 minutes video time, now it's down to 25 or so.

Anybody know how to downgrade?

Buy a old scratched up used one here in the Classifieds

Originally Posted by 02deuce

Nano are commonly refer to as Nano Puffs and that is exactly what the do regardess of how you take care of them. I have thrown out over a dozen of Nanos that didn't make it 20 cycles (charging at 1C, discharging to max 70%). If you fly a lot 100 cycles a year + Thunder Power packs are the best, and the only packs that offer a 100% replacement during the first year and 50% failure or crash replacement for 2 Years. Yep their expensive but if you do the math they are cheaper than HK lipos if your looking for a warranted battery for 100+ cycles in 12 months.

I have had a few Nano's puff but for the most part they have been decent packs. I have two 2200/3S nanos with well over 150 cycles and no problems. These were bought right after they came out. I have puffed GensAce, Zippy's, Turnigy, Rhino and Thunderpower and I know exactly why. It has to do with heat. Not the heat you feel when you land so much but the internal heat generated inside the pack, very hi for a very short time (ms). The most telling data on the test chart is the final temp, pay attention to that. I will say the only packs I've owned and not yet puffed are SkyLipo's (weird, I know). There's still time though.

TP packs are better quality but they are not worth the money in the casual flyer world. In the world of competition 3D, yes because these cheaper lipos wouldn't survive more than just a few competition flights. I've seen it. It is interesting to note that in MCSGUY's test the TP packs failed a factory solder joint so he had to fix them to get them to complete the same test the cheap ones finished.

MCSGUY says he will get to a 50 cycle test eventually and he is getting more of the Revolectrix packs to test as well as some high C Haiyin's. I've got a couple of the revolectrix packs coming as well for one of my more abusive 3D ships.

TJ hits the nail on the head, take care of them and they will last. If you don't really know how much you are stressing them, get a data acquisition ESC and test. If you are puffing cells, you will see why.

Batteries don't seem to be worked that hard in our multicopters. I think the last time I tried to calculate it I got about 25 amps for my Hex, coming out of 2 2200 mAh batteries so I think that is only about 6C discharge rate. The batteries are barely even "warm".

If you are running something like 40C batteries these machines should not be taxing them much at all.

Boy, that's not the case with mine.

Running 6 avrotos, I puffed 3 45C Hyperions.

Then I tried a 65 - 130C 5000 mah nano-tech. That got a little warm.

So I re-thought it, and now I run

2 in parallel (65-130C 2700 mah nano-tech), and I get longer flight times, with

LiPo's that are barely warm when I land.


I have been following the nano-tech issues, and one thing that is a constant,

is that they are all under the 65-130C rated LiPo's.

So far I have been satisfied with the Higher rated nano-tech's, but if I have issues with them, I'll surely post it.

Originally Posted by u2builder

Batteries don't seem to be worked that hard in our multicopters. I think the last time I tried to calculate it I got about 25 amps for my Hex, coming out of 2 2200 mAh batteries so I think that is only about 6C discharge rate. The batteries are barely even "warm".

If you are running something like 40C batteries these machines should not be taxing them much at all.

If you all want more info on the "why" part of our packs and you are a little technically inclined here is some good info.

http://www.mpoweruk.com/lithium_failures.htm

I get 15 mins out of my batteries, so by my calcs, that means I'm discharging 4C...
zippy compact 5000, 3S, and dont even get warm....

Originally Posted by rcroadtrain

I get 15 mins out of my batteries, so by my calcs, that means I'm discharging 4C...
zippy compact 5000, 3S, and dont even get warm....

Yes, but that's the average not the max or min. This is why I suggest, if you really want to know, get an ESC that will chart the power then you can see what is really happening. Here is a sample from a castle ice 100 on one of my "other" ships, you can see the average is 12.7A, but the max is 94.2A: