Parallel Charging Lipos

Chris001 wrote: John, I charge mine in an ammo can on its side, with the lid off on the concrete floor of the garage. If the worst happens I'll loose all batteries and the balance board, but the ammo can should direct the flames outside as I leave the garage door slightly open.

Having had the unfortunate experience of a lipo fire when charging, I will never charge inside again, it's not just the fire you need to worry about, the smoke damage in my shed was horrendous. Also after the initial jet of flame from the pressure build up, the volume of flame which develops as the fire takes hold really surprised me. When I had my fire which was only from a 3s 2200mah pack, by the time I put the garden hose to it in desperation, the flames were a foot across and at least 2 feet high and the heat did lots of damage even to stuff at the other end of the shed 10ft away.

Chris001 wrote: With a balance board you can balance charge a number of batteries like Mike says. I only use the ones with fuses on both the main power lines and with polyfuses on the balance lines. Like Mike,I individually check each battery before I connect them.

Unless using XT60 or Deans your probably going to need adaptor leads and It's helpful to have balance extension wires too, depending on how generous they are on the batteries.

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Which board is this Chris? does it have the replaceable car type fuses for the main connectors as well as poly fuses? Would you recommend it?

Hi Jon,

I guess It's one of those things that unless you've personally seen a lipo go up in flames you don't really know the potential damage that can be done. I did start charging outside after your experience, but I guess I got complacent and compromised to the garage.

Time to build a charging station with an element of weather protection and that is easily portable so that it doesn't become an onerous task to set it up.

Hi Alan,

I got one from America, RC Buddy (I think) and the one in the pic from HK, I can't see any quality difference. My batteries originally had Deans so that's what I went for, but would now choose XT60s over Deans, even if using adaptors: hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyking-safe-40a-p...packs-2-6s-xt60.html

I can only recommend it in so far as I've not tried anything else, and I've not had any issues with it. The main power line has replaceable car fuses on each socket and also a master one where the main wires go in.

It might have been overkill, but I did go over them with a multimeter just to check continuity, they were fine!

Thanks for that Chris. After hearing of Jon's experience I now do all my charging outside especially as my garage and workshop are attached to the house!

I've just spotted that the charger board has a couple of 4mm bannna plugs on the input - what could possibly go wrong there! I'd better stock up on fuses.