LiPo Charging

[Muon]

How are you guys charging your batteries? What are your usual routines? I'm asking because recently I got into RC quadcopters, and this was the first time i'd even heard of LiPos. With those, for charging LiPos it is generally recommended that you use a good balance charger, is this the same case with the LiPo for the GBZ?

Also, how difficult would it be to adapt the GBZ to be able to also use an external power source if need be? Either a mains adapter or a powerbank?

Thanks

[Chedda]

I use my adafruit powerboost for lipo/li-ion. NIMH are the ones you can't charge with it.

[Muon]

I see, thanks for the patience with a newbie. Does it just charge the LiPo via either the small or large usb port? If so, does it have overcharging protection? As I know that it's important not to overcharge LiPos, or to let them drain completely.



On that note is there also a way to have the GBZ shut down on low voltage so that it doesn't drain the LiPo completely?

[iSP]

I see, thanks for the patience with a newbie. Does it just charge the LiPo via either the small or large usb port? If so, does it have overcharging protection? As I know that it's important not to overcharge LiPos, or to let them drain completely.



On that note is there also a way to have the GBZ shut down on low voltage so that it doesn't drain the LiPo completely?

Wrote some piece here as there's a lot of questions about it; http://www.sudomod.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 846#p17846
It's really pretty simple.

comes down to this;

Series;


vs

Parallel;

[Riouken]

How are you guys charging your batteries? What are your usual routines? I'm asking because recently I got into RC quadcopters, and this was the first time i'd even heard of LiPos. With those, for charging LiPos it is generally recommended that you use a good balance charger, is this the same case with the LiPo for the GBZ?

Also, how difficult would it be to adapt the GBZ to be able to also use an external power source if need be? Either a mains adapter or a powerbank?

Thanks

You should use a balance charger for multi cell lipo charging. A lot of the batteries that we are using are single cell and balancing is N/A.

The reason you balance them is to ensure all of the cells in the pack are very close to the same voltage.