The second lead is the charging lead or
balance lead, which is used to charge the
battery.
There is also writing on the battery
which is usually the brand, voltage, mAh
(milli-amp hours) and ‘C’ rating which is
normally a number followed by the letter C.
This indicates the discharge volume of the
battery: the higher the number the more
power the battery can dump into the motor,
resulting in a higher rate of fire or snappier
trigger response.
Safety first!
Charging must be done correctly or can
result in a world of hurt. As stated earlier
there are two leads on the battery, the
standard connector and the balance lead.
The balance lead is used to charge all of the
time. With some of the cheaper chargers
it is exclusively used to charge, while the
more expensive multi-function chargers
require both to be connected.
The big, and I cannot stress this enough,
huge and most important
point is you cannot – must
not – attempt to charge
via the standard power
078
January 2012
“The most important point is
you cannot – must not – attempt
to charge via the standard
power connector (Tamiya/
Deans) by itself, or all those
fire/explosion stories you heard
will come horribly true”
connector (Tamiya/Deans) by itself, or all
those fire/explosion stories you heard will
come horribly true. A LiPo battery must be
charged with a balance charger specifically
designed to charge those batteries. This
means your NiMH/NiCD charger will not
work on LiPos – they will cause them to
catch fire or explode. This is why you must
use the balance lead and it must always be
connected to the charger when charging a
LiPo.
Another safety factor which should be
considered is wetness. If these batteries
get wet, and I mean more than a couple of
drops of liquid, they can swell up
and catch fire. Again I have only
witnessed this once, when the
chap using it fell into a river!
When using LiPos you have to
make sure you don’t drop below
a certain voltage on each cell or
you can irreparably damage the
battery (worst case scenario,
surprise surprise, it catches fire).
This is usually easy to determine
with either a LiPo meter (a small