RC Fan Chris

I have a LiPo balancer and it gets warm pretty quickly. It almost gets too hot to touch when its been on the battery for a couple minutes, so I rigged up a computer fan to cool it a little. So is it normal for the balancer to run hot?

tobydogs

might help to say the make of the charger and balancer. someone may have had similar issues or heard of it being red flagged.

any time something is to hot to handle is a warning sign in my book.

i had a lipo get a very small puncture this weekend and it kept getting hotter with that sweet smell ....to say the least it was trashed before leaving the field. to hot to handle is a dangerous thing with chargers and lipos.

slipstick

It really does help to be specific about exactly what equipment you're talking about. If it's a separate balancer (not built in to a charger) then it's normal for them to generate some heat....they operate by taking charge from the out-of-balance cells and turning it into heat.

But if it gets very hot that suggests your battery is very badly out of balance. It might be worth disconnecting it after a few minutes then giving both battery and balancer a chance to cool down then restarting it. Ideally, if you have the capability, you should check to see what each individual cell voltage is reading.

Steve

RC Fan Chris

It's a separate balancer made by Common Sense RC. The LiPo itself doesn't get warm, though.

JetPlaneFlyer

As stated above.. If it's getting really hot then that can only mean that the battery is way out of balance. If it only happened once then probably not an issue but if it happens every time you use the balancer then it sounds like the battery has a bad cell.

TheWoodCrafter

Throw that thing away and buy a modern LiPO charger that balances.

RC Fan Chris

The charger I have is a duratrax ice charger that has settings for charging anything from nicads to LiPo's. It was around $130. I just needed a balancer.

TheWoodCrafter

What you have is not a modern LiPO charger.
And you are sure it will charge LiPO's?

RC Fan Chris

Well, the charger's only a few years old, and it has an LCD screen showing what the charge/discharge rate, voltages, batt type, etc. are. I googled the charger, and a bunch of people who bought it wondered about the lack of balancer. The replies were either LiPo's don't need to be balanced much if at all, or just get an external balancer.
The balancer: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Common-Sense...-/280672303756

A guy on a mirror thread on another forum said that the reason it gets hot is because the balancer discharge is converted to heat. I guess that makes sense.

TheWoodCrafter

Now they are some real dummy's to say LiPo don't need balancing.
And a really dangerous thing to say.
LiPo's are notorious for some bad fires and by far a majority of them are from charging without balancing.
A sure way to start a fire, never balance charge your LiPo's.
That is why balance charger were invented.


Oh and your charger being only 2 year old doesn't mean it is a modern charger.
That thing could have been designed 10 years ago and they are still selling them and now at a much higher profit because they now have recouped all the development costs.

Heat is generated from balancing, that is correct.

But the best way to balance is to use a balance charger that controls to whole process.

The reason to balance while charging is to prevent a cell from being charged over 4.20V. That is it.
Now charging then balancing separately will either give you a pack that is not fully charged or one that was over charged and then brought back down to 4.20V.

The link you have is to a POS that will cost you $31.
You can actually buy a balance charger for less than that!

RC Fan Chris

What would you recommend I do: return the separate balancer and buy a dedicated LiPo charger/balancer, or keep using the set up I have?

TheWoodCrafter

I would highly recommend returning what you can and buying a charger with internal balancing.

I just looked up your charger and read the specs and manufacturers information.
What you have is primarily a NCAD/NiMH charger that they scabbed on a LiPO 2s - 4S capability without balancing. Very easy to add this limited capability and advertise it as LiPo capable.

Look at these.
http://epbuddy.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=17

Sir Crash-A-Lot

No need to buy a new charger. Just use your balancer and it will balance while you charge. That is essentially what most chargers with a built in balancer do anyway unless they are able to charge just through the balance taps.

Mike.

slipstick

A guy in this forum said that too, in post #3. I sometimes wonder if it's worth bothering to answer questions here .

Steve

RC Fan Chris

Update. I use the balancer every time I charge, and it hasn't gotten hot anymore. My guess is that the packs were just out of balance.