TECH-HOWTONeed to Get Rid of a LiPo? Here’s What to Do.
You have a LiPo back that swelled up due to overdischarging or other reasons and you want to dispose of it safely. What are you supposed to do?Once fully discharged, a LiPo can be safely discarded in regular trash, but recycling is the preferred option. Ask your local hobby store if it accepts LiPos for recycling. If it doesn’t, visit the website call2recycle.org to find out where you can drop off your LiPo pack. Many home-improvement stores and electronics stores will take your LiPo and recycle it properly.

Before discarding or recycling your pack, however, you MUST make sure it is fully discharged. Many chargers include a discharge function, but these will not discharge all the way down to zero volts. Instead, a #1157 automotive bulb can be used to discharge the pack. A single bulb will pull about 2 amps to gently drain the battery.
Solder a plug or a pair of alligator clips to the bulb so that it can be connected to the pack. Place the pack in a LiPo-safe bag, a bucket of sand, or another fireproof container and attach the discharge bulb.
After the bulb goes out, leave it connected for 24 hours to be certain the pack is fully discharged. You can then snip off the pack’s connector if you want to reuse it. Leave enough wire on the pack to twist the leads together, creating a short circuit. This will prevent the battery’s voltage from recovering. The battery is now electronically inert, so you can safely recycle or dispose of it.

What About Saltwater?

Ask about discharging and discarding LiPos and you’ll still get the suggestion that LiPos should be submerged in saltwater (specifically, water mixed with the maximum amount of salt it can absorb) to discharge the battery. There are two problems with the saltwater method, other than the obvious inconvenience of dealing with a big bucket of saltwater: One, the pack will discharge very slowly—so slowly that the battery tabs are likely to corrode away before the cells fully discharge; two, the original instruction for the saltwater method was to cut open the cells to expose the chemicals inside to the saltwater. Needless to say, cutting open LiPo cells is NOT a thing you should do. Discharging a LiPo in a fire-safe container with a low-amperage load, such as the light bulb described above, is the safest, easiest way to render a LiPo inert for safe disposal.

Article Credit: Radio Control CarAction www.rccaraction.com/

Here's a simple tip to keep you from frying your ESC when you are using Lipo batteries with inboard plugs.  Take it from me, I have burned out 2 ESCs when not paying attention to the polarity Positive and Negative images when using inboard plugs.  

Burning up my ESC always happened to me when I have been wrenching on my RC between races and all of the sudden I'm up for racing and I rush to plug in my battery without paying attention to inboard plug polarity.

This can happen very easily because different manufactures have the polarities on different sides as you can see below. Venom and SMC are opposite so if you use both batteries it is easy to make the mistake.

Once I started adding the Mattox Design Polarity Indicators to my batteries, I have never reversed the polarity and fried another ESC... The stickers make it easy to see and make it "almost idiot proof"!!! 

Hope this tip helps you!!!!

​WHAT DOES MY CHARGER WATT RATING REALLY MEAN? 

One of the most common calls we get at Venom goes something like this: “I’m trying to charge my six cell 5000mAh battery at 5.0A but it will only charge at 2A.” In other words, the charger allows you to set the 6S 5000mAh pack to charge at 5.0A, but it never actually gets to 5A. This is a direct correlation to the maximum wattage available in the charger.
What is wattage? Wattage is a measurement of how much work the electricity is doing. It’s used to identify how much power a device or system needs to function.

So how do you calculate wattage?

WATTS = VOLTS * AMPS
So how do you use this equation with LiPo batteries? Lets say you want to charge a 3S 5000mAh battery at a 1C charge rate. We know that the 1C charge rate is 5.0A (See our article on determining charge rating if you’re unsure how we got this number.) So how many watts will we need?

Using the equation above, we take the maximum voltage that pack will need (Take 4.2v and multiply it by the amount of cells in your battery.) and multiply it by the 1C charge rate.

(12.6V) * (5A) = 63W
As you can see, in our example battery, if you were charging with a 50 Watt charger it would not be able to handle a 6S 5000mAh pack at 1C.

So now that we’ve figured out Wattage, lets take a look at calculating the max charge rate based on the wattage information. For that we need a new equation:

AMPS = WATTS ÷ VOLTS
So using our same example battery and keeping our charger at 50W we get: 50W ÷ 12.6V = 4A

Now, using the same 50W charger, lets see what happens when we make the battery a 6S pack: 50W ÷ 25.2V = 2A
As you can see, wattage plays a large factor in your chargers ability to charge higher voltage, higher capacity packs. Use this information to determine what charger will meet your individual charging needs.

Another common question about wattage goes something like this:
“If my wall outlet is only rated for 15A, how can my charger work at 20A?”

The answer to this question is that you cannot compare AMPS if you are not factoring in the WATTAGE as well.
For your home:
WATTS = (120V) * (15A) = 1800W
Compare that to your charger charging a 6S LiPo at 20A:
WATTS = (25.2V * (20A) = 504W
This puts the power your wall outlet can produce into a little better perspective.

We hope this article takes some of the mystery out of those numbers and letters printed on your charger! Stay safe and have fun!

Special thanks goes out to Jeff Simon of Venom for the article above!

​Most quality chargers today (like our Pro Duo Charger) have storage modes built into their programming. This is an excellent way to store your batteries for extended periods of time. 

When using a storage charge, the charger will determine if the battery needs charged or discharged and will enter the appropriate program to safely bring your battery to a safe storage voltage (Approximately 60%-70% of mAh capacity). If you have any questions about storage charging, contact our customer support team as we’re always happy to help!

Thank you goes out to Jeff Simon at the Venom Group for this tip.....

​If you’re new to LiPo batteries, or have just purchased a quality hobby charger like our new ProDuo charger, you may be unfamiliar with how to safely set the charge rate for your battery. The battery manufacturer will tell you what the maximum “Charge Rate” of the battery is. This information is different than the “C-Rating” which is usually expressed as a number on the front of the pack (20C, 50C, etc).

If you are unsure of your batteries charge rate, it is safe to charge the pack at a 1C rate. To determine this number, take the mAh rating of your pack and divide it by 1000.

Example 1: If your battery is a 5000mAh pack, your 1C charge rate is 5A. (5000÷1000=5)
Example 2: If your battery is 2200mAh your 1C charge rate is 2.2A. (2200÷1000=2.2)
Example 3: If your battery is a 250mAh pack, your 1C rate would be .3. (250÷1000=.25 it’s okay to round up)

If your batteries allow for a higher charge rate (1C-5C is the general range) simply take the numbers you came to calculating your 1C rate and multiply it by that factor. So let’s use the above 3 examples.

Example 1: Our first example was a 5000mAh pack, which gives us a 5A charge rate at 1C. A 2C charge rate would be 10A, a 3C charge rate would be 15A and a 5C charge rate would be 25A.

Example 2: 2200mAh 1C charge rate = 2.2A
2C charge rate= 4.4A
3C charge rate= 6.6A
5C charge rate= 11A

Example 2: 250mAh 1C charge rate = .3A
2C charge rate = .5A
3C charge rate = .8A
5C charge rate = 1.3A


You should now be confident when it comes to setting the “AMP” rate when charging LiPo batteries. Always double check that your voltage is set to the same one listed on your battery label and you’ll be out at the track or up in the air in no time!

Thank you goes out to Jeff Simon at the Venom Group for this tip.....