Posted by T.D. Gonzales on February 5, 2011 at 7:30pm
Well I bought what is going to be my first UAV a SkyFun and a battery for it. On the first charge it swelled up like the Michelin man. It is a Turnigy nano-tech 3.0 3000mAh 25-50C charged by a dynamite charger at 1A.
I Have some important soldering safety tips for any noobs or any one else. Lipo's come precharged like car batteries at about 70 % capacity. If you shorted it during soldering you would know it real quick. Only remove the heat shrink from one wire and solder and heat shrink it AND ONLY THEN remove the second wire's heat shrink.
I have left lipos on all night powering Ardupilot boards after late nights of testing, D'oh!! They inflated and didn't work any more. You can get them to charge if you cheat the Lipo charger, but don't. They will only work a few more times and have only a fraction of their capacity left. They must be properly disposed of (controlled discharge).
On a related note, my battery inflated somewhat after I soldered on a Dean's connector. I'm not sure if it's safe to charge now or not. Attached is a photo. What do you guys think?
Well at first it seemed like there would be a problem but he gave me in store credit. They don't have any lipo batteries for sale even for their RC planes so they don't have any real experience with them.
I have this one Hobby king charger and it compares well with my expensive Hyperion charger, Always look for the watts on a charger higher the better. You never know what batteries are in your future and 50w will just not cut it with higher voltage/amps.
You are very lucky my friend. This was not a lipo disaster. You narrowly avoided that. nicd charchers look for a peak in voltage and then quit. lipo's never peak they just go to too high a voltage and turn into blow torches or bombs.
As for your choice of a Skyfun for your first plane, not good. I have one and imho it is definitely not for beginners. Save the Skyfun until you have mastered a trainer type aircraft. Something slow and no ailerons. The Skyfun is pretty fast and not very big. It will get very small in a hurry and its harder to orient visually. It is also very responsive to roll input.
Comments
I Have some important soldering safety tips for any noobs or any one else. Lipo's come precharged like car batteries at about 70 % capacity. If you shorted it during soldering you would know it real quick. Only remove the heat shrink from one wire and solder and heat shrink it AND ONLY THEN remove the second wire's heat shrink.
If it was the solder I have found that checking the resistance is a good way to see if you solder is shorting.
Sorry to see another balloon.
Here's a neat idea for a lipo charger.
http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/2011/02/idea-for-safe-lipo-charger.html
The ammo box is a great idea. Well I think I'm going to look up a manual for lipos since that didn't come with one.
Okay so the most dangerous part of this whole project is probably the Lipos and not ramming a styrofoam plane into my head... Awesome.
You are very lucky my friend. This was not a lipo disaster. You narrowly avoided that. nicd charchers look for a peak in voltage and then quit. lipo's never peak they just go to too high a voltage and turn into blow torches or bombs.
As for your choice of a Skyfun for your first plane, not good. I have one and imho it is definitely not for beginners. Save the Skyfun until you have mastered a trainer type aircraft. Something slow and no ailerons. The Skyfun is pretty fast and not very big. It will get very small in a hurry and its harder to orient visually. It is also very responsive to roll input.
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