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I was thinking of upgrading to lipo batteries and have a charger capable of charging them( duratrax onyx 230). It does not ballance them. Do lipos have to be ballanced or can you run them without doing so? What are the advantages to ballancing? What can I do to ballance them without buying a new charger? Sorry for all the questions but when I used to race my rc10 before, all we han were 1200 mAh packs

just buy a lipo balancer to use in conjuction with your charger.

Regardless of what you might have heard LiPo's need to be balanced at least every other charge. Get a balancer like this one LBA10 balancer and you'll be set. That balancer will allow you to balance while charging or balance as a stand alone unit.

Daddeo wrote:Regardless of what you might have heard LiPo's need to be balanced at least every other charge.

That's a new one...

Based on information from whom?

Eau Rouge wrote:

Daddeo wrote:Regardless of what you might have heard LiPo's need to be balanced at least every other charge.

That's a new one...

Based on information from whom?

Lipo care is getting to be almost as religous a topic as nicd used to be.

I ran a lipo pack many times in a non-lipo cutoff basher, stopping only when the truck slowed. and never balance charged. I charge at about 1.5C and the pack still works great. When I checked the cells with a dvm while charging they were very close to each other. I have since gotten a balancer that I occasionally use(mostly out of fear from so many people claiming you "have to"), but most often charge without it.

aconsola wrote:Lipo care is getting to be almost as religous a topic as nicd used to be.

That was bound to happen sooner or later. Plenty of people that need to spend money on stuff they don't need.

Eau Rouge wrote:
That's a new one...

Based on information from whom?

Not a new one at all. The cells in a pack can become unbalanced over time thus creating a potential situation for one of the cells to go below the safe voltage limit. By keeping a semi scheduled routine of balancing them prevents this from happening (assuming all other precautions are being taken) and you not having to trash expensive batteries. When I first started using LiPo's I agreed with the notion of not having to balance them. A few months after purchasing a expensive LiPo I started to notice a drop in performance. Of course these were the days when I did not believe in balancing LiPo cells on a regular basis and checked each cells voltage. I found that one of the cells had in fact gone bad due to not being balanced. $150+ down the drain but I did salvage the remaining good cells, although that's not what I paid for in the first place .

Just trying to help a fellow hobbyist out and possibly keep them from having the same aggravation.

Get a hyperion charger, mine can do nicd, NiMH and Lipo's, I do you an external common sense charger. I balance mine everytime, I must be an idiot but my packs have never "poofed" like a couple others I know. Ironically they were the ones that told me I didn't need to balance everytime

That little Trakpower charger and balancer I have is pretty nice and I dn't think they're that expensive either... and their GOLD!