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Batteries: how to drain charged lipos?

Trailbrake

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I charged my 3s packs last night planning to fly a few times today, but the wind is too strong and will be over the next few days. I know it's not good to leave them charged. What's the best way to pull them down but not too far? I don't have a charger with those capabilities. Can I wire up something like a smoke preventer to do this?
 
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I charged my 3s packs last night planning to fly a few times today, but the wind is too strong and will be over the next few days. I know it's not good to leave them charged. What's the best way to pull them down but not too far? I don't have a charger with those capabilities. Can I wire up something like a smoke preventer to do this?
if by smoke preventer, you mean a capacitor it will only fill up the capacitor which is a very very small bit and will not discharge your battery. Could you remove your props and just run the quad for 60 seconds or so with each battery.?
 
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Trailbrake is referring to a Smoke Stopper, not a capacitor. A smoke stopper will not do it, you will want to wire up a 12v automotive tail light bulb to a pigtail to discharge the battery a bit, running it without props for quite a while (like 15 minutes since you do NOT want to rev the motors without props because it can damage them) is another way to lower the battery voltage.

What charger do you have? It is very unusual for most chargers to NOT have a storage or discharge function.
 
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It's a simple 2s, 3s plug in the wall and connect balance connector. 2 LEDs on the face: 1 red indicates power, the other red for charging and green for charge. Came with the drone, which is the Rise Indorfin from Horizon. No storage charge option.
 
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Yeah, I have a few of those that came with my Rise Vusion 250, still use them and the FPV monitor all the time for various things. Either a long idle without props to get them down to 3.8 per cell or a 12v automotive bulb are your best bets without spending a bunch of money.
 
Option a in progress. Thanks. I saw a device in a YouTube video that plugs into the balance plug and alarms at a set voltage to wire in with the bulb. I'll have to invest in one of those.
 
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Trailbrake is referring to a Smoke Stopper, not a capacitor.
I looked it up and see what you are talking about now. We used to use an AC light bulb the same way after fixing audio power amps ect. If the light glowed bright, pull the plug. We didn't have a name for it though...
 
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So how close to 3.8 volts should I target? I got them down to about 3.81 - 3.82. Close enough? I'm still very green on all of this. I flew glow powered fixed wing before kids, but back then the new tech was NiMHi. Astro flight cobalt motors were the bees knees. LiPOs weren't even a thing.
 
I'm not sure if this link will work. I have no experience with banggood but when trying to copy a link I can't get anything to show up in the address bar but downloaded an offline copy.


This is seriously cheap and if I do order something from them I'll definitely be adding this on.
 
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I'm not sure if this link will work. I have no experience with banggood but when trying to copy a link I can't get anything to show up in the address bar but downloaded an offline copy.


This is seriously cheap and if I do order something from them I'll definitely be adding this on.

Definitely get one of those, everyone should have one, they are the quick easy way to get and idea since they are rarely super accurate. Pray you get the one where you can silence the beeper because if it doesn't it is a loud beep-beep-beep every time you plug it in to check voltage. They all look the same, you can go in and change the voltage it alarms at, but some of them you can disable the beeper too. When you put LiPo's in storage voltage anything between 3.7 and 3.9 is fine, they don't have to be exact.
 
If its only a few days, leave them charged. If more than a week, you should discharge.
(BTW. Hight winds are just a challenge, not a showstopper ;-)
 
Also, if using the smoke stopper method, set a timer to remind yourself. If you accidentally forget and, like, go to bed or something, it'll drain them down to where they are "all dead" instead of mostly dead. With all dead there is only one thing that you can do. . .go through their pockets and looks for loose change.

Anyone? Anyone?
 

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