Proper care of Li Po batteries? (nuttcaze)

Hello all,

I ordered 4 extra batteries for my honey bee fp v2 so I have a total of 5 batteries. While doing Radd's school of flight I had no way of telling when the batteries where dieng. Now that I am in the air however I can tell that they are going dead, which usually I notice right before it won't lift off anymore. I remember seeing someone (nuttcaze?) saying that you should NOT run the batteries down until your helicopter won't lift off. So what device do I need to get to check the batteries, and when I do get the device what kind of readouts should I be looking for? Alternatively is there any other way of preventing battery damage? Is it possible to damage the batteries by re charging them before they are anywhere near empty? Say run them to 50% of power and then charge?

Thanks!
Tri

def don't fly till the heli won't lift. I usually tell people to use a timer (most cell phones have a countdown timer), set it for 6-7 mins, constant take-off's and hovering takes more power then FF so flight times will be shorter

HA, I can get between 20 and 40 minutes of flight time per battery depending on how much wind we are having. It takes time to walk over, pick it up and check for damage, pop the head back on, adjust the paddles, and check all linkages.

The good news is my flight times are starting to get a lot shorter though, may have to start timing them.

Now I just need some good weather to fly in when I'm not working

Maybe buy beeper. It will start beeping and flashing when it is time to land

Hrmm okay. So I guess I can set a timer for 6 minutes. I have 5 batteries and they charge quicker if they aren't really low so I will just start doing that. You can't harm them by not discharging them enough can you? Do you ever have to fully discharge them or anything?

You can't harm them by not discharging them to low voltage. And you do not need to fully charge lipo batteries. It is even best to store them ~3.8V per cell