YS-8W (supplied LiPo charger)

[Hollywood]

I ordered and received 2 Colco Apache Longbow AH-64 (4 Ch coaxial helis)
each comes with 1 Charger and 1 1000mah LiPo battery (small connectors)
The problem is:
1. I noticed that the label on the charger says Li-Ion Charger.
2. The problem is that if I plug in the LiPo battery direct - I would have to plug it into the output of the battery. (The plug with 2 leads.) Shouldn't the LiPo battery only be charged using the input leads of the LiPo battery? (the plug with 3 wires.) ???

The charger is not such a big deal to me as I have a couple of other LiPo battery balancers that charge in conjunction with a switching adapter.
However, the other one I am sending to my sister as a gift (who has never flown an RC heli - but flies real Apaches as she is a Commander and a Major in rank in the U.S. Army.)

So if she plugs in the 2 wire lead from the charger into the 2 wire lead of the 1000mah LiPo battery that is used normally to plug into the ESC of the RC heli - will it charge? Will it damage the battery? Why would they include a charger like this in this RTF kit/package ??? The Colco manual has NO phone numbers listed to call and ask about this. And - if you try and ask to detailed of questions to the online store that is located in the City of Industry you get really basic unhelpful answers most likely due to the langauge barrier. Can someone please help? Thank you in advance! :)

[swatson144]

The earlier Esky chargers were like that, as are most of the larger chargers. It's no problem. The Esky chargers that use the balancing taps don't balance. My other indoor charger for my Lama is a Celectra (my first lipo charger) and functions in this way. BTW the 2 outside wires on the balancing taps connect to the exact same place as the power wires and in fact are in the same pool of solder, with the center tap going to the junction of one cells + and the others Neg in a 2s.

Li-ion heck my 2 Tritons on the charging station still say Li-ION when I charge LiPos (and charge through the power wires). The earliest li-ions had a lower charged voltage than later and LiPO so worst case is it charges .2v/cell less which would have little effect on flight times, and could make a pack with sporadic use last longer.

If I were doing what you are doing. I'd run mine and use a good charger to determine how long a flight takes out about 60% of the charge (my Lama is 8mins). This will give her some cushion if the blades are out of track and hopefully won't over discharge the LiPo. Toss a cheap timer in the box too. Run it again and charge on the included charger and check the finished voltage 8.0 - 8.4V no higher than 8.4v.

What about balancing? Well we went years with LiPo before they even had balancing taps (a recent development). 2S balancing is much less important than larger packs, as the pack just won't work right with a weak cell. I still have functioning name brand packs with no balancing taps.

Steve

[Hollywood]

Thank you! You saved me hours of more research online!!!
When I Googled that part number from the charger it comes up with all what looks to be Polish writing.

Oh so the leads are the same ? Pheewww why doesn't any of these poorly written English manuals explain any of this? Hee hee.
:razz:

To add... when testing the supplied charger, plugging in the 1000mah LiPo battery automatically makes the light turn green on the charger. (Charger looks like any medium sized wall adapter with a light in the bottom right corner.) >> Then when plugging it in to the wall with LiPo attached the light turns solid red. The manual says nothing about solid red. It says when charging you'll get a flashing red... when finished you'll get solid Green.

Should this be of concern?

Last thing that through me for a curve is: (in the manual) the illustration and text next to it shows hook up the charger to the "battery adopter" (Yes that's right it says "adopter") then it shows the "adopter" connected to the battery. Yet it doesn't come with this stink'in "adopter."

I think you pretty much thoroughly covered my concerns on your first reply. But if you can touch on the above that would be fabulous!!!

Oh and I like your signature tagline about RC helis. ha ha so true. My fiancee thinks I'm crazy!!! I have Mugen Seiki, TMaxx gas RCs that are in storage that I haven't touched for a few years now. Heck - I don't even touch my PS3, XBox 360 or Wii anymore - can't get the Heli controllers out of my hands now. My Venom Night Ranger XL and Raptor G2 SE are addicting as well. I still love coaxial 4 ch too to just sit lazy in the living room and fly. Thanks sooooo much again for your help!

Rod

[eddiemoth]

Hi Rod, welcome to HeliTown. Most of us have a coaxial. It does share on our living room and sometimes even bedroom. :)

[swatson144]

Right now we are in a stage that products are coming out every day. Hopefully functional and economical. Unfortunately a good manual takes as much work as a product design. Sad part is that often the manufacturers of RTFs change supporting products like chargers and don't necessarily change the instructions. I think we are in a flux now but IMO we'll see a getting started sheet and a website to ask questions on. So basically they have a few people who are conversant with the product answer Q's for a few months, author a PDF and there's the MAN. Sorta backwards engineered.

Some of the manuals I have make a feller go Huh? Heck Walkera had one of their helis pictured with the skids on backwards for better than a year. :lol:

You'll probably have the charger sorted out in no time. Just plug a discharged pack into it and see what it does (though I normally power up the charger and then plug the pack in) it should be done inside of 2 hrs (3 on the outside) as the cheap chargers give very little current adjustment and the really cheap come with a fixed current of X so if your supplied charger is .6A it'll take nearly 2 hours to charge. Though the really cheap chargers charge quickly because they don't have a constant voltage (trickle mode) to fully charge the packs but as soon as it hits 8.4V on 2S stop the charge and change the indicator.

The charger was probably intended for a different use initially and they had to supply a JST adapter to work. Eventually they got the chargers with the JST plug attached, which explains the difference in instructions. pretty much that simple.

This is all just conceptual as I have no real experience with that brand. I do have experience with a lot of like components and none seem to be very far apart. My X400 came with a 3S charger like that (wall wart) so they also sent a battery pack with JST. like one could pull 300W (27A on 3s) through a JST.

Steve