Hi,

Thank guys for helping out with tuning the heli yesterday esp. Tom and Rod. So, I had a look at some battery chargers and NiMh online and bought these:

http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/imax_cell_lipo_charger_balancer_with_mains_power_supply-p-9649.html

and

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370432297829&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Are these suitable? Also, Do you know if I need to get anything extra to get the imax charger to be able to connect to the car battery?

Cheers,
T

If the battery connectors don't come in the box you will get what you need at Maplins, two clips and same sized power plug is all you need.

The battery is perfect, you will fly all week on it. Just remember it will take a while to charge up, 5 hours at 1amp so do that before you go to the field.

i'm just doing a charge and discharge on the battery on my eco 8 but i think it might be a goner... The battery specs is 3000MAH x 10 cells... I'm assuming that is 12 volts. I have the charger charging it @1A and discharge @ 1A/ 0.5v.... is that safe? It doesn't seem to charge beyond 59 or something on that bottom right figure... Is there any way I can 'recondition' the battery?

I am assuming this is a different battery, not the one you bought above which was a Nimh 4cell 5000 Mah. Also, not clear whether  you're  talking about the charger above either.

I presume Eco 8 is the blender (sorry, helicopter!)

Is this battery a Lipo or a NimH? (very, very important)

If its definitely a NimH, you should be using the NimH programme on the charger which will automatically set the current and peak detect the voltage to close off the charge once the battery is fully charged. If it's a LIpo and you use the NimH setting you will burn your house down!!!!!!    Be careful!

A 10 cell NimH pack is pretty robust and should recover from most abuses you can give it. It will peak out about 1.5v per cell or 15v total.

The biggest killer of these batteries is usually lack of use for a couple of years. If it's ok after storage, it should be showing around 10 volts minimum. Any less and you may have to charge it gently to see if it will recover. If not, it's probably one or more of the ten cells that's gone. We used to strip and rebuild into a smaller pack but my experience is that usually the rest of the pack is on the verge and I toss them in the bin now.

If this was for a heli and it flew on 10 cell Nimh (about 10v under heavy load), it will fly better and longer with a suitable 3 cell Lipo at about 11v under load and half the weight. Make sure you get one that will deliver the required current and watch out for a changing balance point if it's a lot lighter. Also you may want to change the low voltage detection of the ESC to 3 cell Lipo to protect the cells in use. (I don't know anything about heli's so it may be that low voltage cutoff is irrelevant in that the thing runs out of enough power to fly before the battery reaches the low voltage cutoff point - ask a heli man).

Hope this helps.

Cheers Dougie,  for the advice... the house is OK atm! And I did make sure it is at the NiMH settings before use lol... it is DEFINATELY charging this massive 10 celler.... NiMH battery! How can I find out about the  voltage? It seems to be able to charge and maintain a charging voltage of 14,67v.... what type of voltage discharge voltage should I be using? The manual for my charger is at

http://www.minicars.se/service/manualer/ovrigt/imax/IMAX-B6.pdf

I seem to be OK so far... I guess if I fully discharge the battery, I should be looking the full charge capacity to 3000 on the lower right side?

oh, also, if it charges and becomes full @ 130, and I recharge it and it starts from 0 and moves up to 140, does that mean the total i've charged is 270 is or  is it 140 ??

It's quite hard to do this remotely but I think I see where you are being misled.

Firstly, I think your battery is probably now fully charged. This is easy to test with a standard voltmeter. If you haven't got one, go out and buy one tomorrow. You'll get one for a fiver or so at Maplins Cumbernauld or elsewhere. Take a voltage reading of the (disconnected) battery. If it's over about 12 volts, it's probably fully charged.

The number that you're referring to is the measure of how many MaH the charger has put into your battery before the peak detect has cut in. If your battery started from a deep discharge, this number would be about 2500 or so and the charge would probably take more than half an hour, peaking at 3 or 4 ampsor more  input.

These small numbers (130, etc) would indicate that the battery is almost fully charged and each time you try to charge it, it can only get a little in before it peaks again. I'd expect this to only take 5 minutes or less. You can always squeeze a little in. Another test is that the battery will probably be slightly warm at the end of the charge if it is full.

I wouldn't bother cycling the battery unless you have a specific problem. The discharge rates are too low to show up any issues with the battery.