(Hopefully) quick question with regards to the LiPo Storage Charge mode on the Accucell-6. I understand that in Storage mode, the charger will either charge or discharge based on the current voltage of the battery relative to the final voltage that it should be stored at. That is, if it's less than ~3.8V/cell, it will charge, and if it's more than ~3.8V/cell, it will discharge.

Now, I know that when charging the battery, it's best to charge at a rate of around 1C. But when discharging, the charger is only able to discharge at around 5W. So, with my 3S, 11.1V battery, I can only discharge at 5W, or about .45A. However, the charger, when switching to Storage mode, shows an adjustable rate of .1A.

My question is, if I know that the battery is less than the Storage voltage (~3.8V/cell), can I bump up the charging rate of the Storage mode to the normal 1C rate? And then if I know that the voltage is higher than Storage, I can set the rate to .1A to safely discharge it to Storage mode? Or should I always leave it when in Storage mode at .1A, even though it needs to actually charge to get to the proper storage voltage?

The reason I ask is that yesterday was my first time getting a good workout with my first LiPo battery. It was charged to about 4.2V when I went out, and I came home at around 3.68V. I knew I wasn't flying again for about a week, so I figured I'd put it at Storage voltage, and be done. I threw it on the charger on Storage mode, and left it at its initial .1A charging rate. It took it around 2 hours or so to finally get to Storage voltage! What would have taken probably a half-hour max, ended up taking way longer.

It'd be nice if I didn't have to wait that long for storage charging (especially because I need to be around to monitor the charging, since it's a LiPo, afterall). But I'm not 100% sure on how it should be done, and didn't want to bump up the rate if that would be a problem.

Thanks!

What is the capacity of your 3S lipoly? .1A is very likely significantly less than 1C charge rate for any 3S lipoly so the 2 hours it took to reach storage is entirely reasonable.

Feel free to bump up the storage charge rate up to the maximum permissible charge rate and your time to reach 'storage' voltage will be dramatically reduced.

Mark

Originally Posted by mrforsyth

What is the capacity of your 3S lipoly? .1A is very likely significantly less than 1C charge rate for any 3S lipoly so the 2 hours it took to reach storage is entirely reasonable.

Feel free to bump up the storage charge rate up to the maximum permissible charge rate and your time to reach 'storage' voltage will be dramatically reduced.

Mark

Mine's a Turnigy Nanotech 850mAh. It's a pretty small battery.

Should I bump it up to .8A (1C) when under voltage, and leave it at .1A when over voltage (going to storage voltage)?

Thanks!

Doesn't matter.
For almost all purposes set the DC to max (1A). If the charger can't do it, it throttles down. As it nears the 'goal' it slows down anyway. Remember, in real flight you are DC these batteries WAY more than 1A and most lipos nowadays can be charged at 2-3C without any problems at all.

For that matter EXACTLY 3.85v (50%) is not magic. Anywhere from 40-60% is fine.