How to fix : Low Voltage Lipo battery

Arno1978

Member
Hi guys,

I discovered something interesting yesterday. I purchased a turnigy 3 cell 25C 1300mah battery over the weekend from our local HK vendors. I had two flights with this battery and when I wanted to charge it, the charger gave me an error "low voltage" which according to what i have seen means that the cells are below a certain voltage and the charger refuses to charge the battery.

I then remembered what a good friend of mine told me. Being a 3 cell battery , i switched the charger to 2 cell and restarted the charging process. It started the charge and finished about 30 seconds later. During this time i ketp my eye on the voltage per cell and lo and behold the voltage came back to above 3.7 volts.

I then put the charger back onto 3 cell, and the battery charged without any problems. The battery is now back to normal and i did not loose another battery, i just had to share this with you as it saved me a buck or two.
 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
You can also charge it as a NiMh until the voltage is over 3.2/cell approx. then charge the rest of the way as a lipo.
 

pgerts

Old age member
Mentor
The original problem is supposedly when you start to fly with a battery that is not charged.
The speed controller/BEC recognizes a 3 cell battery to be only 2 cell and setts the cut off to 6 (6,2) volts instead of normally 9 (9,3) volts that it should be for a 3 cell LiPo.
A trained pilot (trained with that plane and setup) will directly feel that the model is slow with a battery that is not fully charged but if this is the first time you might not feel that.

You can force the ESC/BEC to 3 cells and not the default auto setting that senses the cell count based on a fully charged battery when connected.
 
Last edited:

fred0000

Senior Member
Anyone posting these tips and how tos should also post a disclaimer sayin that this is a "do at your own risk" operation.
It is about as dangerous as lipo charging and handling can get. I have done it before but it is HIGHLY unrecomended.
 
Last edited:

fred0000

Senior Member
For example. Joe blow reads this thread and attempts to save his lipo. SHTF and he burns his garage down.
IMO the OP would be held responsible for saying its perfectly ok (post number 2 also backs up the fact that its perfeclty OK)
.
Just a thought. I've done write ups on saving lipos in other forums. And ALWAYS post a disclaimer. In every post I make in that thread. Lipos are not to fark around with. Things can get very serious. Very fast.

I even go as far as saying "don't do this at all, just sharing my experiance" anything to cover your ass if someone burns their garage down trying to save a lipo using the advice you've given.
 
Last edited:

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
Using lipos in general is a do at your own risk activity. Every time you crash you are subjecting your battery to shock that could cause it to burn down. I finally bought a charging bag for my batteries because I have a few that have taken some nasty crashes. I found them pretty reasonably priced, especially compared to my house burning down.
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Lest anyone think that any comment/advice on this or any forum is in anyway infallible or believes that those posting comments are in any way legally or financially responsible for failures upon attempting to follow such comment/advice, this is very much a "Use at Your Own Risk" deal.
 

fred0000

Senior Member
I am well aware that in a legal matter they wont be held responsible for anything going wrong, but it's still a very good idea to post a disclaimer, these types of threads are very frowned upon on many sites, its best to cover our asses if we want to share this kind of advice.
 

Arno1978

Member
Well here is the C.M.A clause....

"Please note that the advise given in this post is purely for information purposes, and if you choose to follow any of the advise given in this post you will do it at your own risk - LiPo batteries are very dangerous so please be very very careful."

:black_eyed:
 

fred0000

Senior Member
Well here is the C.M.A clause....

"Please note that the advise given in this post is purely for information purposes, and if you choose to follow any of the advise given in this post you will do it at your own risk - LiPo batteries are very dangerous so please be very very careful."

:black_eyed:

hey, that was very well said, i've never seen it said so well haha.
 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
Well here is the C.M.A clause....

"Please note that the advise given in this post is purely for information purposes, and if you choose to follow any of the advise given in this post you will do it at your own risk - LiPo batteries are very dangerous so please be very very careful."

:black_eyed:
This whole forum/website needs that clause lol.
 

PaulT

New member
Mentor
Does C.M.A. mean Cover My A.. ?
I tried bringing back a 3 cell once but it started to emit funny smells and got really hot very quickly...
Just my experience on the one and only time I tried.
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
The whole WORLD needs that clause :mad: cause certain people will NOT accept responsibility for their own actions or the actions of those spawned by them that are underage.

Thurmond

Makes me think of something that happened a few days ago. There was this girl who had head lice. (It's true, I know her) She was over at a friends house and "someone" told her that she could kill the lice by using (insert strong pesticide name here) and putting it on her hair - so guess what, she's in the hospital now, she's better, but she was pretty much intoxicated and hallucinating at first.

Inevitable question: "How can one be so stupid?"

Back To Topic

When you buy the battery from HobbyKing, they make you check that they accept no liability caused by their batteries.