Regarding the lithium poly batteries, anybody have first hand experience with how many cycles they will take. Am curious as to the respective cycles the various battery chemistries will take before they're trashed. Pat
This is much harder to pin down for Lithium systems as they are more sensitive to depth of discharge and discharge rate than are either Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh. Also unlike Ni systems they don't normally just die after long service. Their capacity seems to be somewhat of a linear decay while their ability to deliver higher currents fades away. I have 2s 1100 pack that I have been running in a Lite Stick for over two years and it has about 1/3 or the run time it had originally. Discharge capacity when measured at 500 mA discharge to 2.7 volts/cell is down to about half of original.
-- Red S. Red's R/C Battery Clinic
It totally depends on how hard you run them.
Running at continuous 8C+ levels and running them down to the cut off seems to result in < 50 cycles.
On the other hand, I ruined a year old pack after > 100 cycles by leaving it up a tree switched on for three weeks. :-)
Run gently, never more than 5C, never to more than 1/3rd full, it was as good as the day I bought it. Up till then.
Never ran out of balance, never had ANY problems at all.
Downrate from claimed performance by 50%, and they last forever. Well 2-3 years of reasonable flying anyay.
Worst lifetimes seem to be from choppers, where they run em more or less full power for extended periods.
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