ELECTRIC FLIGHT U.K. - British Electric Flight Association

After a club works party (mowing and hole filling), I put the pack on a spade blade
and with an extended lead shorted it out to see what would happen - I had fully
charged it first - it was NOT impressive. After several seconds the lowest cell
inflated then gave out a large amount of smoke but no visible flame. All went
quiet for a bit then cell no 2 did the same - again smoke only. The 3rd cell seemed
to take even longer to change and repeated the blowing up and smoking. It is
possible that the reduced energy content contributed to the low key event but it
gave me a lot more confidence in the safety of these packs.
My rules now about use of LiPo are-
As only one or two speed of my controllers have LiPo set cut-offs, I always fly
with a timer set on the conservative side. I usually set a new aircraft up with
a low time setting and see what recharge is necessary and up my timer with
experience.
Always charge up all LiPo packs as soon after flying as possible and thus avoid
going to the field with an empty or partially charged pack and maybe overusing
it in the air.
I standardised all my connecters to Astro-zero loss-type. This followed from a
couple of years ago having "Senior Moments" and connected two expensive NiCd
packs to each other when I used the usual Gold connectors.
I have tried using the Deans type connecters as these also cannot be wrongly
connected. However I have found that soldering tidily is difficult without softening
the plastic mounts and also shrink wrapping the terminal ends is necessary. The
result is untidy and heavier. I also found that the connection was so tight as to be
difficult to plug and unplug easily especially in a confined battery box space. I
ended up stripping them all out of my models and giving them away.
I have recently given away 16 packs of NiCds and NiMH batteries and sold 3 of my
chargers. I have even re-geared the Eco 8 and fly that on the 3S2P packs. Flight
time is up, performance better and best there is no fade of performance as the
battery discharges most of its energy content.
One other thing - having seen a little Petrol generator driving a mains conversion
power unit to drive chargers in the field I thought it a good idea, I bought one.
Wrong move!! LiPo packs take so long to charge it is better to do it at home. Get
another pack or two to increase number of packs available and on the field use lead
acid as your fuel reserve.
The lower charging rates of LiPo seems to punish the main battery less and I find
that I do not run out of "Fuel" until I've had more than enough flying time and
want an excuse to go home anyway!!
Another charging innovation is to "Gang" up to 5 of my 1600mAh 3S packs even if
they have been discharged to a different level. My Astro charger can give up to 8
amps (I find 7.4amps on 3 cells seems the top). As the 1600 mAh packs will only
42 E.F.-U.K.