charger question

[Mr.lst]

I have a common sense rc charger/balancer and I see that it can only charge up to 4 cell li-po batteries. (I know you think it was a bad deal right?) My question is if a battery has 2s3p is this considered 5 cells or will the charger see it as 2 cells? I am looking into flight power batteries and none of them with a decent mAh rating are at or under 4 cells! Thanks for the help in advance. Mr.Lst

[Serum]

it's considered a 2S pack, but since it triples the capacity, it might need quite some juice to charge it at 1C.

Mr.lst,

Your 2S3P pack will be "seen" by the charger as a 2S (2 cell) pack, so you're good to go in that issue.

As for the flightpower packs, you really need to watch it when going for capacity over 4900mAh. Even the 5000mAh packs (IIRC) are too big/long for the run of the mill car/truck applications. That's why the 4900mAh packs are so popular. If you NEED the capacity, you may be able to run either two of the 4900s or smaller packs in parallel to get the capacity you want. If you are lucky, you'll have the room for the larger packs.

I believe that PolyRC, Hyperion, and Polyquest have packs up to 5000mAh and they are supposed to be made of the same cells used in flightpower packs. I believe that they are Enerland cells.

Serum be me to it, and he does have a point, I didn't even consider that. What is the maximum current flow that you charger can provide at 4S? Whatever that is, the charger should be able to do twice that at 2S, provided that it allows you too.

[Serum]

The only problem at not charging at 1C is that it takes a while before the batteries are full..