User Manual

2
GENERAL
Thank you purchasing your Universal ESR meter. This is the latest
(and probably final) version of the meter which I first produced in
2010 and incorporates all the improvements and extra features
introduced since then, also combining the capabilities of the standard
2S – 6S meter, the 1S – 6S meter and the now discontinued Single
Cell meter.
The Universal meter has been electrically redimensioned to enable it
to measure any lipo cell or pack from 1S up to 6S over the capacity
range from 100mAh up to 10,000mAh.
The original ESR meter was developed to accurately measure the
Internal Resistance of LiPo packs and individual cells so that the
user could both determine the performance potential of their LiPos
and track the decline in performance over the pack lifetime.
The IR (or ESR)* of a cell tells us more about the lipo than any other
single measurement, but it cannot be used as a straight comparison
without understanding that the figure is also dependant on cell
capacity and temperature.
A limitation of the original meter is that many users would look at
the ESR figure but wonder how to translate it into a simple
performance figure with which they could compare different LiPo
packs.
An equation has therefore been developed, based on the initial heat
dissipated within the LiPo, which gives such a figure in the form of a
maximum safe load current which can be drawn continuously from
the LiPo without having a damaging effect on its life in number of
cycles. The calculator, known as the “Lipotool”, has been made
available on line at http://www.jj604.com/LiPoTool/.