Sugna wrote:Hi
I am thinking of doing the $8 battery mod, and I have 2 questions
1. Which battery do you guy recommend? (brand, mAh etc.)
2. Should I put a balance tap on the battery?
Thanks in advance
Hard to recommend any particular brand over the others.. Good quality, name brand 18650 cells (typically Japanese or Korean made) cost around $15 to $20 or so per cell and may need the protection circuit added after the fact. The
Insert name here-fire brands are made in China at varying quality, rarely meet the specs printed on their heat shrink wrapper and so it's often a gamble. However, the black w/red and yellow flames Trustfire cells I've purchased from Deal Extreme over the past two years have been pretty good. SKU 20392 is a pair of them for $9.99 including shipping which is pretty darn cheap.
If you are going to charge them as a pack, add the balance lead... you don't want them getting too far out of balance or one of the cells will eventually fail, or at the very least trip the protection circuit which will most likely not be re-settable, once tripped. You could also charge them individually, but that's a pain.... I just made up a charging harness for one of my hobby chargers and added the balance lead to the battery and charging becomes the same as any other Lipo pack.
And, like any other Lipo pack... if you are not using the radio for a week or more..... it won't hurt to do the storage charge on the pack. All LiIon/Lipo cells age rather quickly compared to other chemistries and conventional wisdom says 2 to 3 years is the typical lifespan, even with the proper use of a storage charge.
And you can use the Lipo setting on the hobby charger (4.2v final), the LiIon setting (4.1v final) was for the older technology LiIon batteries, but you would not hurt anything using the LiIon setting... you would just be a few mAh shy of full charge.
And finally, charge early and often.... lithium cells do not like full charge/discharge cycles.... They will last longer if you charge them before they are fully discharged.
Regards
Christian