User Guide

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2
Guide to Lithium Polymer Battery’s
battery, in the sometimes extreme ways that we do in the R/C world, causes
there to be excess atoms of Oxygen and excess atoms of Lithium on either end
(be it the cathode or anode) of the battery. This can and does cause Lithium
Oxide (Li2O) to build up on the anode or cathode. Lithium Oxide is basically
corrosion, albeit of the lithium kind; not iron oxide, which is otherwise known as
"rust". The Li2O causes the internal resistance of the battery to increase.
Internal resistance is best described as the measure of opposition that a circuit
presents to the passage of current. The practical result of higher internal
resistance is that the battery will heat up more during use.
How to best maintain your battery in order to have maximum performance and
life span. Some of you might know this already, but it is never bad to review
your knowledge, yet some will regard it as new, and will learn something
useful, which could potentially save them money and frustration in the long run.
First of all please understand that, the life and performance of a Lipo battery is
critically affected by the way the battery is broken in, and the way it is
maintained. The sooner you realize that and start treating your batteries
properly, the sooner you will notice the benefits of this little effort.
Voltage / Cell Count
A LiPo cell has a nominal voltage of 3.7V. For the 7.4V battery above, that
means that there are two cells in series (which means the voltage gets added
together). This is sometimes why you will hear people talk about a "2S" battery
pack - it means that there are 2 cells in Series. So a two-cell (2S) pack is 7.4V,
a three-cell (3S) pack is 11.1V, and so on.
What is Nominal Voltage?
Nominal voltage is the default, resting voltage of a battery pack. This is how the
battery industry has decided to discuss and compare batteries. It is not,
however, the full charge voltage of the cell. LiPo batteries are fully charged
when they reach 4.2v/cell, and their minimum safe charge, as we will discuss in
detail later, is 3.0v/cell. 3.7v is pretty much in the middle, and that is the
nominal charge of the cell.
In the early days of LiPo batteries, you might have seen a battery pack
described as "2S2P". This meant that there were actually four cells in the
battery; two cells wired in series, and two more wired into the first two
batteries in parallel (parallel meaning the capacities get added together). This
terminology is not used much nowadays; modern technology allows us to have
the individual cells hold much more energy than they could only a few years
ago. Even so, it can be handy to know the older terms, just in case you run into
something with a few years on it.
The voltage of a battery pack is essentially going to determine how fast your
vehicle is going to go. Voltage directly influences the RPM of the electric motor